The biggest problem with your website is probably not the design

When a website is not bringing work, the first instinct is always the same. It looks old, let us redesign it.

Sometimes that is right. More often the site is losing people for reasons that have nothing to do with how it looks.

Four things that cost more than design

It is slow on a phone. Not on your office wifi, on normal mobile data in a market. If it takes six seconds, half the people have already gone, and they did not see the design either way.

It does not say what you do in five seconds. Many business sites open with a line about excellence and commitment and partnership. A stranger reads it and still does not know whether you make something, sell something or install something.

There is nothing to trust. No real photographs, no names, no customers, no address. Everything looks like it could belong to anybody, so it belongs to nobody.

There is nothing obvious to do next. The contact option is a small link in a corner, or a form with nine fields asking for a company name and a designation before anybody has decided anything.

How to find your own version

Do not ask a designer first. Ask three people who have never seen your site. Give them your phone and ask them to tell you, out loud, what this company does and what they would do if they wanted a quotation.

Watch where they pause. Watch what they scroll past. Twenty minutes of that is worth more than any opinion, including yours, because you cannot unsee your own website.

Half the time the fix is a day of work on words and buttons, not a new site.

Hand your phone to somebody who has never seen your website. Ask them what your company does. How long do they take?

We run this test on business websites all the time. Send us yours and we will come back with the three things costing you enquiries.