9 Common Website Mistakes Founders Make and How to Fix Them

9 Common Mistakes Founders Make with Their Websites and How to Fix Them

When building out a site, so often founders focus too much on product or service, leaving aside the critical items that will help them improve conversion rates and user experience. From reviews using tools like Roast My Website, Roast My Web, and Roast My Landing Page, here are nine common mistakes with actionable steps to enhance any site.

1. No Clear Objective

50% of founders do not have a single, clear objective on the landing page. Multiple calls-to-actions, all equally important, can confuse visitors into analysis paralysis.

Solution: Define your conversion goal: whether to sign up, download a lead magnet, or book a demo. It's always easier for visitors to take action once there's a singular ask.

2. Lack of UVPs

Although many founders can describe what's unique about their business, if asked, too many of them fail to convey that on the landing page. UVPs are a way to differentiate yourself, especially against consideration sets.

Solution: Your landing page should demonstrate your uniqueness upfront. Frame your product or service as different from the competitors, or focus on its ability to solve pain points better than options currently on the market do.

3. Poor Social Proof

Only 40% of landing pages place social proof such as customer testimonials or awards above-the-fold, and of those, only half match the proof to the visitor's pain points.

Solution: Move social proof higher up on the page, and make sure it relates to the visitor. Testimonials are supposed to resonate with visitor pain points and benefits as described elsewhere on the site.

4. Overly Complex Terminology

1 in 8 landing pages feature jargon/technical terms that are not readily understandable. This alienates those users who either don't have or can't be bothered to make an effort to work out complicated content.

Solution: Employ use of simple, lucid language. A good litmus test is to make sure a 12-year-old can understand your landing page. Try to avoid acronyms and technical terms unless absolutely necessary.

5. Not Addressing Pain Amplification

Though most landing pages have a mention of the pain they're trying to solve, only a small fraction-1 in 15-effectively amplifies it via emotive language and dramatic visualization.

Solution: Create a story around how the pain point your product or service will address. Dramatic visuals combined with emotional copy taps into the user's emotions, nudging them towards a solution.

6. Avoiding Benefits and Use Cases

Many landing pages emphasize much about product features without mentioning the benefits that are to be gained from such features, which include real life or specific use cases- things visitors themselves must calculate how it will benefit them.

Solution: Spell out the benefits of your product. Use cases help visitors to visualize how it solves their problems and, therefore, connect with your solution.

7. Unclear CTAs

Most founders will just put up CTAs with no context whatsoever. One can only imagine what they are committing to, how much time it'll take, or the cost involved.

Solution: Frame the CTA. Describe what happens next. Describe how long this will take and how much it costs, if anything. Transparency reduces friction. Results: more conversions.

8. Failing to Ask Visitors for Feedback

3 out of 5 founders get frustrated by low conversion rates and never ask their visitors directly why they don't convert.

Solution: Use exit-intent surveys or simple feedback forms. GetSiteControl is one of those tools that allow you to easily ask why people leave your site and what would make them stay.

9. Not Knowing Your Stats

Many founders haven't checked their Google Analytics in months and also aren't tracking conversions properly. Without this, it is impossible to know what is working.

Solution: Set up Google Analytics with event tracking specific to the goals. Review this regularly to find out where the bottlenecks in conversion lie.

Advanced Tips to Grow Startups

Even the more experienced startups struggle with their landing pages. The following are seven even more advanced strategies to supercharge your conversions:

• Focus Your Ask: It's better not to appeal to all people. First, take a very specific audience and scale later.
• Time Your Ask: Never ask the visitors for commitment at the time they may not know whether they have a problem or you have the solution.
• Show, Not Tell: Replace text-heavy feature explanations with action shots, like screenshots or demos.
• Address Objections: Discover and address key objections via FAQs or copy.
• Use better visuals: Avoid using generic stock photos. Ensure images resonate with your brand and story.
• Track your funnel: Make sure tracking is set up from ad click to sign-up.
• Test regularly: Set up a regular testing cadence to iterate on and improve your landing page over time.

Conclusion

By following these insights and with the aid of resources like Roast My Website and Roast My Landing Page, the founders will take underperforming sites and optimize them for conversions. Finding and fixing certain common issues, such as unclear goals or a missing UVP, greatly improves performance in terms of both the site and user satisfaction.