4 minute read
Why your website loses customers in the first five seconds
Most Kenyan business websites fail for the same three reasons, and none of them is how the site looks.
Somebody hears about your business, looks you up on their phone, and decides in a few seconds whether to call you. Most sites lose that decision, and almost never because of the design.
## It takes too long to load
The visitor is on a mid-range Android phone on mobile data, possibly with one bar of signal. If your home page carries a five-megabyte background photograph and four fonts, they are looking at a white screen while it arrives, and they are not looking at it for long.
Test your own site on your own phone, on mobile data, with WiFi turned off. Not on the office connection. If it takes more than three seconds to show something useful, that is the problem, and it is a bigger problem than anything else on this page.
## It does not say what you do
A startling number of business sites open with a slogan. "Empowering excellence through innovation" tells a visitor nothing, and the visitor does not stay to find out.
Say what you sell, who you sell it to and where you are, in the first sentence, in ordinary words. Somebody who has just heard your name should know within five seconds whether you are the right people to call.
## Calling you is hard work
The visitor has decided to get in touch. Now they have to find out how.
If the phone number is in an image, they cannot tap it. If the only route is a contact form, many will not bother. In Kenya, the natural next action is WhatsApp or a call, not an email into a void.
Put a tappable phone number and a WhatsApp button where they are visible without scrolling, on every page. That one change converts more visitors than a redesign.
## It does not work on a phone
Most people in Kenya who find your business online find it on a phone, often on a slow connection and with a small screen. Open your own site on a mid-range phone, not on the office computer. Can you read the text without zooming? Can you press the buttons with a thumb? Does the menu open? Does a form let you type your number without the keyboard covering the box?
A site that looks good on a laptop and awkward on a phone is, for most visitors, a site that looks awkward.
## Nobody answers the enquiry
The fastest site in the country is wasted if the enquiry it produces sits unread. Send yourself a message through your own contact form and time how long it takes to reach you, and who it reaches. Then ask the harder question: when that message arrives on a busy afternoon, whose job is it to reply, and by when?
People who enquire usually ask more than one business at the same time. The first sensible reply tends to win the work, whatever the websites looked like.
If replying quickly is hard, say so honestly on the form: tell people when they can expect an answer, and then keep to it. A clear promise kept is worth more than a vague one broken.
## The things that matter less than people think
The logo. Animations. Whether the site is on the first page of Google for your own company name. People who already know your name will find you.
## A test that takes ten minutes
Hand your phone to somebody who does not know your business, with your site open, and ask them three questions: what does this company do, where are they, and how would you contact them. Do not help.
If they cannot answer all three in under a minute, you have your list.