Hello and welcome to the Working Image Podcast. I'm your host, Jared Michael Gordon. This is episode 13. Is your website Hurting Your business? Let's get started. Let's get straight to the point. If your website isn't designed correctly, it'll hurt your business and only can you potentially lose customers. You can also be sued or fined for not following the law. 25 years ago, a website was simple and it was more like the Wild west. Everything was allowed. There weren't any rules to lay out or usability. If it looked good, then companies went with it. That was simply because the internet was still very new. Some people would argue that the internet is still very new, and they're probably right, but we know better now. But at the same time, designers knew all about the layout for print design and eventually applied those rules to website design. For example, leading the viewer through the layout so they can look at the most important parts using color and visual hierarchy to organize the information in a cohesive, understandable manner. Businesses learn that their website is a 24 7 resource for their customers and potential customers to learn about their service and or products. Your website needs to represent your company without you being present. If not done correctly, you are at the very least alienating potential customers and therefore hurting your business. Let's talk about some problems in the web industry that affects your business. Many businesses today know they need a website. It's a must. Every type of company needs a website. No matter how big or small a company may be. Some companies only exist through their social media pages. Now, this is you. Stop what you're doing right now and hire a web designer as soon as possible. You should never rely on other platforms for your business because they can change, they can close, and they can even shut down your accounts, and you have no say in the matter. When you own your website, you are in control. You say what happens to it, and you don't have to worry about being shut down. This doesn't mean giving up on social media. This means your website should be used as a digital headquarters for your business. All your social media accounts are just a part of your marketing plan. I just mentioned owning your website. This is a big issue within the industry. Ask yourself, if you own your website now, ask yourself if you own the copyright to your website, do you know you need to know. I hate to break this to you, but if you use any of the templated companies such as Wix or Squarespace, et cetera, you don't own your website. You're only renting it. In addition, there are many companies that ask you for a monthly fee and they give you a templated website that they also give to your competitors. You are also renting your website from them. So what does that mean? Well, you already know what that means. It means that if you choose not to work with them or they choose not to work with you, your website is gone. They will send you your photos and your body copy, but the actual website is gone. You can't move it to another hosting service. You have to start all over again. Think about that for a second. You spend years building your site and your site's Google rankings for it all to be gone in a moment. That's right. When your website disappears, your Google rankings go down with them unless you use a professional to avoid that from happening, but it's not just gonna happen automatically. It's true that those services cost less than hiring a website professional, but that professional should have a contract that states the copyright is owned by you when the project is completed. You should also be given copies of your website and backend admin access so you can see that this is a huge problem that companies run into because they just don't know better. It's not their fault, but it's one of those reasons why I'm trying to educate business owners with this podcast. Another big problem in this industry is when a website professional holds your website hostage, you did everything right. You interviewed various design companies. You found one you wanna work with. A project went great and a website launched and something doesn't seem right. The so-called website professionals didn't state in their contract that you get the copyright, and furthermore, they didn't give you access to the back end of the site. Now you have paid this company good money and they are holding you and your website hostage. The only thing you can do from here is start over. Not owning your website outright will hurt your business at some point, so be sure to have a contract incorporating a copyright transfer and full ownership of the site. Now, let's talk about problems with the layout of the site. That'll cost you business. When users can't intuitively understand how to use your website, they leave and you have lost business. I won't be able to go through all the examples of what design problems can hurt your website. That would be like listening every little thing that can go wrong with your car. So I will talk about the most common issues business owners have with their website. Number one, a cluttered layout. This one is easy. You have heard me talk about this before, but in order for someone to understand what they are looking at, you can't have everything in front of them at once. I use the example of print ads. Business owners always wanna put as much as possible in an ad, but they shouldn't because the ad doesn't make sense and then it fails. The same is true for a website. You need breathing room in your layout so your eyes can rest and your mind can absorb what it's seeing. We achieve this by using negative space throughout the design. When you have a cluttered layout, the mind gets tired and confused, and this makes someone leave your website and you lose business. Number two, a slow website. Now, to be fair, how fascia website loads does depend a bit on the user's internet connection, but with that said, there are plenty of steps that should be taken to improve your website's loading time. This is an ongoing effort. You should have your designer looking at your site every month working towards improving the low time of your website. When the site is slow, people leave and go to your competitor and then you lose business. Number three, complex navigation. The navigation to your website should always be at the top of the page because that is how we are all used to working with websites. I know of some designers who wanna break from the tradition and put the navigation on the side of the website or perhaps below the hero section, but as a whole, people aren't used to it, and that makes your website hard to navigate. What if all of a sudden there was a car with a steering wheel positioned somewhere other than right in front of you? It'd be pretty hard to drive, right? When you just can't navigate your website easily, they leave and you lose business. Number four, inconsistent branding. This has everything to do with positioning your brand to the user. When designing a website, you have to always take into account in your company's brand, the user needs to experience the same brand you have displayed in the real world. When you just don't feel a brand cohesion, they leave and you lose business. Number five, accessibility issues. Episode one of the podcasts is all about accessibility, so I'm not gonna go really in depth in that, but simply put, when a group of people can't use your website because it's not set up to work with their abilities, they leave and you lose business, and you could also be sued. Listen to episode one of this podcast to learn all about accessibility. It's extremely important for your website. Number six, not enough responsive design. Your website needs to be seen clearly on every mobile and tablet screen in the world today, not just a popular ones. Every one of those screens, that's a lot of screens to take into account. For too many times, I've seen a website that isn't set up for all of them, but only some of them. This is unacceptable. Your designer should be updating your site on a monthly basis to ensure that it'll be seen properly on all mobile and tablet screens. Not everyone has the latest iPhone or iPad. Some people keep their phones for five years or more. Your site must be visible on all these screens because if users can't view it properly, they leave and you lose business. I can go on and on about what must be done to prevent your website from hurting your business, but what you need to know is that your website isn't a templated. Set it and forget it. Digital brochure. Your site needs to be built correctly from the start by a website professional. It needs to be curated every month for content security, privacy issues, speed, et cetera. When you do all these tasks, you can breathe easy knowing that you are doing everything you can do to keep and obtain customers and clients, and that your website isn't hurting your business well. That's it for episode 13 of The Working Image Podcast. Is your website hurting your business? All the necessary links and information are in the show notes. If you have any questions, email theworkingimage@gmail.com. We know your time is valuable. Thank you for using some of that time to listen. Take care.