Back in 2003, Customwave originally started as a web design company where small businesses wanted us to design the nicest looking, fanciest websites. Why? Because the theory was back then that the nicer the website looks, the more likely the potential customer turns into a customer.
But in 2014, things have changed.
What makes a website “good”, depends on the goal of the website. What you want the website to do. Let’s first look at the website where small business owners want to get more phone calls from potential customers.
The goal of the website would then be to get the highest conversion rate between website visitors to phone calls. So whatever changes and tweaks done on the website to increase that conversion rate from 10%-20% is what makes the website “good” in this case.
And a lot of times, the design and fanciness of the website have nothing to do with the conversion rate. I repeat, a nice looking website doesn’t necessarily mean the website converts well.
In my experience, 2 of the biggest factors in high conversion rates is that the website is super simple. Where the navigation is easy. Why is that so important? Because lots of older people, or people not computer savvy might know how to turn the computer on, they might know how to get to Google, but once people get to the website, they still have a hard time finding what they’re looking for. Thus, the more simple the site, the easier it is for everybody to find what they’re looking for. Especially the phone number!
The other most important aspect in 2014 is that the website is mobile friendly, meaning the website operates well on cell phones and tablets like the ipad. A lot of people aren’t aware that if the website isn’t mobile friendly, Google won’t even show it on it’s search engine.
A lot of the older websites, and when I say older I mean like 2008, 2012 that have flash elements, slider graphics, a lot of those don’t show up well on mobile devices. And that could make your conversion rate from mobile website visitors to phone calls really small. Which would make your website “not so good.”
With other websites like shopping carts, it’s all about the conversion rate between website visitors to actual sales. With other websites that just want you to fill out a form, it’s about the conversion rate between website visitors to form fill outs. Get the picture?
A website is only successful when it does what you want it to do. Not because it looks the way you want it to look.