10 Warning Signs That Your Website Isn’t Pulling Its Weight

A website that isn’t pulling its weight can be a major drain on your business. Here are 10 warning signs that your website isn’t doing its job.

Your Website Is Slow

If your website is slow, visitors may abandon it in droves. Slow websites can be frustrating and time-consuming to use, and can leave users feeling angry or frustrated. Here are some signs that you have a slow website. 

1. Your pages take a long time to load.
2. Pages take forever to scroll down or navigate through.
3. Your site feels sluggish and unresponsive even when you’re not actively using it.
4. There are frequent errors or crashes on your site.
5. Pages take a long time to load even when they’re just small pieces of content (like images).
6. You experience high levels of traffic but the site feels slow or lags.
7. Your site’s design is outdated or poorly executed.
8. There’s a lack of information on your site about what it does or how to use it.
9. You don’t have any content that’s been updated in a while (or at all).
10. Your site looks like it’s been hacked or is missing important files

Visitors Are Leaving Your Website Quickly

A website’s visitor count is one of the most important metrics for any business. A website with a high visitor count indicates that people are finding and using it, which can lead to more customers and more sales. However, a website’s visitor count can also be deceiving. If visitors are leaving your website quickly, it may be a sign that your website isn’t pulling its weight. 

If visitors are abandoning your site in droves, it may be because the information or the experience they’re getting isn’t meeting their needs or expectations. Make sure you’re providing clear and concise information, as well as creating an engaging experience that meets your visitors’ needs.

If your website’s design looks dated or poorly executed, it may be a turn off for potential visitors. Make sure you’re using modern design principles and standards, as well as high-quality images and fonts to create an appealing and user-friendly experience.

It’s also entirely possible that your visitors obtained the information they needed from the page that they landed on.  Google is getting better at understanding User Intent, which also means it is getting better at providing searchers the information they are looking for in the moment. This is why bounce rate is a metric that even Google is paying less attention to. 

Clickmaps or heatmaps are a good way to understand what your visitors are doing when they land on any page on your website.

You’re Not Making Enough Money From Your Website

There are a few warning signs that your website isn’t pulling its weight to make money. If you’re not seeing any traffic coming in, or if your revenue is falling short of what you’d expect, it may be time to take a look at your website and see what needs to be done to improve it. Here are some common signs that your website isn’t making money:

-Low traffic: A website with low traffic is usually an indication that there’s something wrong with the design or content. Make sure that your site is easy to find and navigate, and focus on providing high-quality information so that people will want to visit.

-No sign-ups or sales: If people aren’t signing up for your email list or buying your products, it’s likely that your website isn’t doing its job. Make sure that you’re providing clear information about what your products or services are, and make it easy for people to take the next step.

-Low conversion rates: If people aren’t converting from visiting your website to buying something or signing up for your email list, there may be a problem with your content or marketing strategy. Make sure that you’re targeting the right audience with the right content, and that you’re providing clear instructions on how people can take advantage of what you have to offer.

-Low engagement: Low engagement means that people are spending less time on your website than they should be. This could mean that you need to make your website more user-friendly, or that you need to focus on providing valuable content that people will want to read.

-Low SEO: A low SEO score means that your website isn’t ranking well in search engine results pages (SERPs). This can be a sign that you’re not providing high-quality content, or that you’re not using keywords correctly.

-No social media presence: If your website doesn’t have a social media presence, it’s likely that no one is talking about it. Make sure that you’re using the right hashtags and posting interesting and relevant content on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

If you are driving good traffic to your website, but that traffic isn’t converting, you alway swant to look at the landing page. Something is missing, or your visitors aren’t getting the information they expect, that is causing them not to convent into customers.

You’re Spending Too Much Money On Your Website

Your website is one of your most important marketing tools. It’s an opportunity to show your customers what you’re all about, and it can help you connect with potential customers. But if your website isn’t pulling its weight, it could be costing you money. You could also be spending money on updating your website without getting the expected ROI from those activities.

Professionaly built websites will cost you money – which is a very good place to invest some of your marketing dollars. Professional SEO will also cost you money – again a good place to invest marketing dollars.  Ongoing website maintenance and updates can also cost you money.

(I never recommend that you pay your website pro directly for your hosting and domain names … so if you are stuck in this type of situation you may need to reconsider your options).

What you don’t want to happen is for you to continuously be paying money – such as being locked into a long-term contract – without it generating results.

Those results may be as simple as saving you a lot of time, which can be the case when you outsource some of your ongoing website maintenance. This type of assistance can prevent larger and more costly problems further down the road.

Or the results could be something more tangible, like seeing an actual increase in traffic for the SEO services that you are paying for.

If you aren’t saving time, or achieving some of your goals, then the money you’re paying for your website may need to be re-evaluated.

You Don’t Have Enough Traffic Going To Your Website

If you’re not seeing the results you expected from your website, there may be some underlying issues. Here are 10 warning signs that your website isn’t pulling its weight and needs improvement:

Lack of traffic can be caused by bad SEO and SEO mistakes.  Here are some bad SEO examples:

1. Low organic traffic: A website that isn’t getting a lot of traffic from search engines is likely not ranking well. This could mean that your site’s content isn’t good enough, or that you’re not using SEO techniques to help it rank higher.

2. Poor backlink profile: A strong backlink profile is one of the best indicators of a successful website. Sites with lots of links from high-quality websites are more likely to rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs). However, if your site doesn’t have any links at all, it’s likely not pulling its weight.

3. Low click-through rates: One of the most important indicators of a website’s success is its click-through rate (CTR). This tells you how many people are clicking on your links from search engine results pages (SERPs). A low CTR could be a sign that your site isn’t interesting or engaging enough, or that you’re not using effective marketing techniques to draw in visitors.

4. Lack of social media shares: Shares are one of the most important ways to get word out about your website. If people aren’t sharing your content on social media, it’s likely not getting the attention it deserves.

5. Low search engine rank: If you can’t rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs), you’re not going to be able to generate a lot of traffic from potential customers. This is especially important if you’re selling products or services online.

It’s also not uncommon for older websites to have some SEO strategies in place that at one time were a bit more common but now actually hurt results. 

Some of these are now considered grey-hat SEO strategies, which include things like:

• low-quality content
• not having any visible links to your page’s primary keywords
• not using title tags or meta descriptions that accurately reflect your content.

Other previously used SEO strategies are now considered black-hat SEO strategies that should be avoided at all costs

1. Link building through link farms, link trades, or incorrect article marketing
2. Manipulating the search engine results page (SERP)
3. Using deceptive or spammy techniques to get clicks on your website
4. Focusing on low-quality backlinks
5. sing deceptive or spammy domain names
6. Placing links in unsavory places
7. Violating website content guidelines
8. Spamming or flooding the web with irrelevant content
9. Having a low quality website overall

Some bad SEO examples include:

1: A website that is poorly optimized will not rank well in search engines.

2: A website that is full of spam or advertising will not rank well.

3: A website that is outdated or has errors will not rank well.

Some signs that your website isn’t pulling its weight include low traffic, low conversion rates, and a lack of engagement. If you are experiencing any of these issues, it’s time for a website audit. Request one now, and we will provide some recommendations such as if you would benefit from a redesign or from additional solid SEO strategies.