5 Ways To Lose Money With Your Website
No one starts a business to lose money. My past teenage self working as a lifeguard would be shocked to know I'm starting and growing a business.
My aspirations as a lifeguard were a little vague beyond go to college, get good grades and then find a job or career.
More than a decade later, I'm happy to say starting a business isn't much harder than one of my lifeguard tests like treading water with a 10 pound brick.
Here are five ways to lose money with your website.
No Strategy
If you are trying web design for the first time it can be overwhelming.
All the things to learn, remember and to set your website up for success?
There are tons of free resources out there but no definitive plan or guide to take you through the journey. So you have to cobble this together and waste even more time.
I really enjoy and thrive learning on the fly with no help or resources until I get stuck. This is not the vibe for everyone and every learning style out there.
Invest in a Strategy
Invest in a strategy or roadmap from someone whose done it before and can tell you all the details you might miss the first time around.
No CTA
What do you want your ideal client or audience to do when they finally follow your link? If you don't tell them what to do they might scroll your website for a few seconds (attention span stat) and then move on.
Create a CTA
What you choose to have as a CTA or Call to Action can be any of your offers. On your home page or if you have a one page website, landing page, I recommend a free or low priced offer. This can be a lead magnet, blog post, video, email list sign up or quiz!
Too Many Words
I'm a reader. All day every day I'm ready to read. Most people aren't this excited about reading. If you have giant blocks of text they might zone out or skip over them. And if you make the text too small they will just leave!
Break Up Text Blocks
Try to break up huge chunks of text to make it easier to read. Usually any lines longer than 2 or 3 need to be broken up. Also play with the sizes of text. Divide up your content with headlines and titles for people who like to skim. This will tell them what you’re about without reading every word.
Not Enough Space
Have you tried reading a note where someone's handwriting is so squished together you have no idea what it says? This same problem happens in websites with too much content crammed together.
You have so much amazing content, stories and pictures you put them up everywhere covering every page of your website.
When your website looks too chaotic and messy then people will leave.
Use Spacers
If you are using Squarespace the spacer block is your friend!
Use it to create space between different elements of your website and to make pictures or chunks of text smaller.
Update from 2023 Kristen!
If you’re on a Squarespace 7.0 site you can still use spacers. If you’re on a Squarespace 7.1 site you can easily move text, images and shapes around so we don’t need spacers anymore!
Trying to DIY Without Help
I know the thrill of the DIY. I love doing things myself. I uninstalled a ceiling fan in my kitchen by myself- not as hard as I thought it would be!
But when I get stuck I can always rely on a friendly internet stranger to help me if no one I know has any experience with what I'm doing.
Invest in a Roadmap
That's why I created Square Dare. This is my roadmap to create a simple, landing page for your website in just 2 days. When I first started creating websites over 5 years ago this was a resource I wish I had!
Now that you know five things that are stopping you from making money on your website I'd love to hear from you. Tell me in the comments if you've tried to DIY your website and how it worked out.
