NBT #7: Top 7 Website Mistakes

Plus, my favorite websites lately.

Aug 02, 2024

Are you considering launching a new website or refreshing your current website? I've worked on 4 website refreshes in the last 12 months, and here are the most common mistakes I have encountered.

Mistake #1: Not defining what your website is meant to do

"We need a website."

"To do what?"

It's important to identify the main purpose of your website from the outset:

My website is primarily meant to serve as an online extension of my brand (e.g. Zero Bond, Van Cleef)
My website is primarily meant to drive customers to my BD team (e.g. Hubspot, Compound Planning, Addition Wealth)
My website is primarily meant to drive online sales (e.g. Sephora, most retailers)
My website is primarily meant to establish my brand as a thought leader in the space (e.g. Bridgwater, McKinsey)
My website is primarily meant to provide information (e.g. Wikipedia, of course.)
My website is primarily meant to share stories (e.g. Cereal, )
etc.

DO: Identify your website's primary purpose before you hire a designer and marketer to redo the entire site.

Mistake #2: Not understanding when users are likely to visit your site (i.e. where in the user journey does the website appear?)

Consider this. By the time you go to jetblue.com, you already know:

What Jetblue is
What you're trying to do on their website

Going to Jetblue.com is probably the last step you take before you ultimately make a purchase from them.

Now, consider a new CPG brand from whom you made an online purchase in the last 3 months. When did you first visit their website? Was it after you saw an ad on Instagram? Was it after a friend recommended the brand to you? How many times did you visit the website before you ultimately made a purchase from them?

I'm a recent fan of the skincare brand Le Mieux, but it took me several visits to their website before I finally pulled the trigger and purchased a variety of products. i.e. I visited their website earlier in the user journey than I would have visited a site like Jetblue.com.

Now, consider the last time you hired a service provider – perhaps a lawyer to establish an LLC, or a home contractor to renovate your kitchen. Did you go to their website? If so, what were you looking for on their website? Were you looking to hire them at the click of a button? Probably not. You were probably looking for testimonials, qualifications, social proof, a sense of pricing, and contact information so that you could connect with the service provider and have a conversation.

You're likely viewing service provider websites in the earlier stage of the customer journey to help decide who's worth even reaching out to.

Understanding when in the user journey a person is likely to visit your website will help you determine what information and what amount of information is necessary on your site. If it's earlier in the user journey, you may need to do a bit more heavy lifting and educating about your product or services on your site. If it's later in the user journey, you may need less educational content and more focus on a seamless way for users to take action.

DO: Conduct some analysis on when users are likely to visit your website during the customer journey.

Mistake #3: Terrible information hierarchy

One of the first things I do with website clients is review their top navigation menu. The top navigation menu will dictate how information is organized throughout the entire website, so it's worth spending as much time as you need to get this exactly right.

Rule #1: Make sure information is MECE – mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive

Rule #2: A maximum of four top nav menu items, plus one call-to-action button is best

Rule #3: Consider how your top nav menu will display and function in mobile view

DO: Spend time organizing all necessary website content into a clean and clear top nav menu.

Mistake #4: Information overload / Too much copy

People will most likely spend less than 1 minute on your website. It is not a good use of time or energy to pour your entire company's life story onto your website. Your website is meant to lead the user to the next step of the marketing journey.

According to MetricHQ, "A good benchmark for Average Time on Page is 52 seconds, across multiple industries. Based on data from 20 billion user sessions, B2B websites have the highest Average Time On Page of around 82 seconds."

Companies who dump too much information on their websites are not thinking about marketing as a series of touchpoints with the user. The website is just one touchpoint with the user; it's not the whole enchilada.

DO: Consider leveraging the minimum amount of information necessary on your website in order to lead a user to the next marketing touchpoint.

Mistake #5: Trying to cater to everyone

Pick your most compelling target audience and design your website for that persona. Stop trying to cater to everyone. You'll just end up with vague, generic copy that ultimately stands out to nobody.

Go all-in on your main audience. Succeed with them first and branch out after securing a foothold in your industry. You can't be inclusive as a business if you're broke and no longer exist.

DO: Recognize that being inclusive is great, but only helpful if you're still in business and can cater to everybody instead of nobody.

Mistake #6: Prioritizing aesthetics over functionality

I get it. Fancy animations and graphics can be cool, but don't implement cool design-y things on your site just because they look cool. Make sure your cool, fancy animations serve an actual purpose – whether it's furthering your brand's narrative, clarifying information, or assisting the user in taking a desired action.

Here's a fantastic example of a company that leverages cool design to emphasize its brand narrative and value prop.

If you go to the Compound website, you'll see a section where you can hover your mouse over two sentences.

When you hover over the first sentence, it comes into focus.

When you move your mouse to the second sentence, it comes into focus as the first sentence becomes blurred.

This is such a great example of design supporting functionality and messaging!

DO: Ensure that your design and animations enhance functionality and communication.

Mistake #7: Not leaving room for growth

Give your website a structure or architecture that can growth with your business. For example, maybe you only offer one product today, but if you plan on offering a suite of products in 6-12 months, you may want to ensure that you can easily add more products to your Product page. Or perhaps you plan on hiring a content marketer in 6 months and leaning into original content creation; make sure it's easy to add a blog or news section to your website.

DO: Think about what your business will most likely look like in 6-12 months and create an architecture that can easily accommodate growth.

My favorite websites lately

Cereal Magazine : I love the simplicity and dummy-proof filtering.
Bathhouse : An example of a business that knows why people are coming to their website - to book.
Brimstone : Taking a giant rock of a problem and making it super digestible. An exercise in stripping down messaging to the most critical points only. Less is more.
Anywhere We Roam : Excellent job of presenting tons of information in a beautiful, well-organized manner. Places and Cities could have been more MECE though.
Drybar : They handle the complexity of their business model really well. Drybar needs to present users with the ability to book in-salon appointments, information about how to become a franchise owner, and sell products from their CPG brand. They handle all three pretty seamlessly on their website. Their website shows clear acknowledgment that the money-maker (and most effective way to leverage a website) is selling their CPG products.
Cocoon Weaver : Great example of a website that's designed to simply drive traffic to app downloads.
Aesop : Aesop does a wonderful job of presenting the brand in a consistent manner across all mediums - whether it's the interior design of their stores, their packaging, or their website.
Compound : Demonstrates a strong understanding of how to balance animations and copy. Their design elements amplify rather than distract from messaging.
Bending Spoons : Powerful storytelling.
Pebble : Simple copy. Great use of videos to amplify value props.