A number of our clients had great products and services but still did not manage to get great viewership or traction in the digital market space. This is not their fault. It is just that there are a lot of myths that are taken as gospel truth regarding digital marketing, particularly for web design and digital marketing.
We have helped numerous clients around the world on how to turn the digital snowball into an avalanche of leads and clients. For some, we optimize their websites to have the same content but with faster loading times. For others, we have a top to bottom reconstruction, which is necessary due to having a lot of outdated code and programming on their site.
Most of those myths that are preached as gospel truth are centered on location, design and placement, functionality, and inefficient execution are costing a lot of businesses web traffic, high-quality leads and paying clients.
With all these in mind, finding an experienced firm that deals with the digital space is necessary. Getting a top provider of website design is a lot easier with SMILE media. Here are a few of the myths that we busted that helped our clients get a lot more traction and revenue per client:
Myths
Myth #1: Your Offer Should Be the Very Last Part of Your Website
Truth: Make your offer more effective by leveraging your first impression.
80.3% of online readers will stay in the area above the fold while the remaining 19.7% will take the time to read the content below the fold, according to a Nielsen Media report. The area above the fold is the part of the website where the visitors and readers will not need to scroll down. It got the term above the cut from the newspaper industry, where newspapers are folded and the headlines of the front page are above the cut, making them more prominent.
It also only takes your online readers less than half a second to have an opinion about your website. If they are not convinced to continue to stay on your website in less than 5 seconds, there is a high probability that around 30% of your readers will abandon the site and move on to a competitor or go back to the search engine.
Those two are the main reasons why your offer and slogan should be very prominent on your page. Make a big first impression by laying out your offer in big fonts and have your business slogan displayed prominently either on the topmost part of your page or in the middle together with the offer.
Of course, you can aim for mystery and suspense, but that is the exception rather than the rule.
Myth #2: Place Important Content on the Right Side of the Home Page
Truth: This doesn’t really work with adult and older readers; rather, most ignore the right side because most websites place their ads there.
When banner ads were the marketing and advertising rage a few decades ago, Facebook and other sites place their advertisements on the right part of the page. This has led to an almost evolutionary defense mechanism for online readers to just ignore the right side of a webpage.
Even today, most web pages would place their news, updates and other important information on the right corner. In fact, the registration for the email subscriber list is usually found on the right side. Unconsciously, your readers will ignore this part unless it is very visually striking. You are wasting very good content by placing it in the subpar digital real estate.
You will notice on our website itself that we made the whole interface into one scrolling experience, rather than clutter the left and right sides. This has made the online reader journey much more streamlined.
Myth #3: Have a Lot of Colors and Themes for Maximum Exposure! Make Your Website as Colorful and Striking as Much as Possible.
Truth: Simpler is better, and there is not much point with having too much color if it distracts from your good quality content.
Consistency is what you should be aiming for as a good first impression. The best way to go get that impression of stability and reliability is to have a harmonious color scheme. And the scariest part of the color chaos found in most websites is that the color imbalance is actually very prominent.
The color wheel was made for a reason. This is one of the big reasons why you should consult with a web designer; each color gives its own specific ambiance and can literally boost your sales. In fact, an Emerald Insight marketing study aptly named as Impact of Color in Marketing has shown that 90% of all snap purchases are based on the color alone.
With the average decision time getting shorter and shorter year after year between awareness of product or service and purchase of said item, having a great psychological anchor can definitely drive sales.
For instance, do you know that 57% of men and 35% of women will pick the color blue as their favorite color? And that 27% of men and 20% of women will say that the color brown is their least favorite? The Study by Color Expert Joe Hallock named Color Assignments is just one of the many studies on how important color is.
But picking a color is not the be all and end all for color design; there are hues, color harmony, and other design techniques that we have applied to make blogs and e-commerce stores more profitable. We also have to take into consideration text font, size, and spacing to make a good holistic digital makeover. It has led to a much more pleasing visual experience for customers and readers, and if the online visitors are in a good mood, sales and revenue rise significantly.
Myth #4: The More SEO Tools and User Interface Apps and Plugins are Present, the Better the Website Would Be
Truth: Take a look at technical reports and blogs for more information, a few plugins are enough.
There are a lot of plugins and software that you may be tempted to use, which is a great thing. The digital world is always changing, and constant updates and creative solutions make the internet a place where initiative and innovation are rewarded. However, out of the large amounts of available programming options comes the understandable need to have as much optimizing programs as possible.
The digital space is in an arms race with itself.
The deciding factor is one who has speed and efficiency. Plugins boost efficiency, but at what cost?
40% of online readers will leave a website if it does not load in 3 seconds. But even if you loaded relatively fast, fast may not be fast enough; 47% of online visitors expect a website to load within 2 seconds. These two are the main reasons why it is important to have better plugins in lesser numbers; quality will always trump quantity.
Myth #5: Find the Most Expensive and Highly-Rated Marketing Plans and Systems and then Apply It
Truth: Starting well is great, but building momentum is the real game changer.
This is perhaps the most dangerous, simply because if you are looking at the perspective of ROI, continuing marketing campaigns brings home the bacon. For every $1 invested in email marketing, return on ROI is expected to be at $44. For every $1 invested in SEM or PPC, $3 is the expected return. Email marketing and PPC (pay per click advertisements) are continuing marketing strategies, but as you can see the return on investment is considerably large.
Getting a premium plugin or having your own program or software written for you is an investment for the long run, but by themselves do not contribute much to the revenue of your website. Having a good foundation is great, but it will not be the main driver of your revenue or web traffic.
Due to the busy nature of entrepreneurs and website owners, they do not have the time nor the energy to spare on researching on what marketing program or strategy will be cost effective for their businesses. For some industries, a specific marketing strategy, like freebies, will dilute their value but will be very effective in others. There may also be some other marketing campaigns that they are not familiar with or if there were some steps that were not properly executed in their current marketing plan.
That is why getting one of the of the top digital companies that offer web design in Boston, MA, can definitely help business owners get more value. With an experienced perspective and subject matter expertise for anything related to digital marketing, SMILE media has helped a lot of its clients gain more viewership and clients while optimizing their content and website. For more information, contact us and let us help you gain better marketing results.
