Need some solid critiquing! Why are people leaving our website?

Peace out...

I checked out your website. I had to stop after the first page. You should know, Never overwhelm your potential customer on your first page. Always start with a "Lead Capture Page" (squeeze page). I was very overwhelmed. I got confused about what you were talking about. Were you trying to sell me a service, based on your track record or offer me a solution? Too much information and lack of focus.
1. Home Page (Landing Page, Lead capture page). Draw the customers attention
2. You're about us page should be broken down into 2 parts.
-This is who we are
-This is what we can do for you
Next, the colors almost put me to sleep. They were not vibrant and the pictures looked like they were stock photos. Put some real pictures, maybe having your employees wave at the camera while you are taking a picture. Always put a short quote from the person in the picture. Make it personal. As for the colors, try adding each section with a slightly different shade of your color. But first, if you're going to use blue, as in your store background try using a different shade.

Look at your conversions from the perspective of user intent.

What keywords are you ranking for that bring a lot of that traffic that leaves shortly after?

Analyze those keywords a little closer than just how many times they are being searched for every month. What kind of people is usually behind those searches. What kind of a mindset they usually have.

Usually the more general the keyword, the harder it is to pinpoint user intent because there is really no information behind a keyword like "responsive web design". You simply do not know whether that person is looking for services or just DIY tips.

That is why being a service offering agency, action intent keywords are the ones you guys should optimize for because you will be able to have a better understanding of the intent of your traffic.

I would not focus on changing the layout until you make sure that the traffic you are getting is the right kind of traffic, the one with the intention to hire a web-design company.

If you decide to change the layout now, you may be optimizing for a crowd that would not hire you no matter how many times you change it. Spare yourself the unnecessary frustration/disappointment and optimize your audience before optimizing your message. I hope this helps.

Good luck and enjoy the process.

OK David, I'm going to take this from a sales copy point of view...

Now keep in mind, this is just generic advice. Because I have no idea of who your target audience is.

As tomopalinski mentioned, your target audience is a key factor. And without knowing who your primary market is, it's tough to create a compelling message, or give solid advice.

That said, there are a couple basic things I see, that could be holding you back from getting any response to your message...


Right now, your slider on your home page has pictures of young (professionals?) in a casual office setting. I'm guessing you're trying to relate to your target audience? Again, I don't know who your target audience is for sure... so I'm going to leave that part alone, for now.


But, the copy itself is something that can't be overlooked. Currently, the headlines on the 3 slider images say this...

"Create your dream website"
"Find new clients with SEO services"
"Keep your website safe and secure"

From a client centric point of view, here's my question(s) for you...

Are you giving me permission to do all these things? Or, are you just letting me know that I should do these things?

The point I'm getting at is this... Nothing in these statements directly lets me know what you're going to do for me.

Basically, you're subtly making me guess, and speculate what your offer is (and as your website visitor, it's not my job to do your selling job for you)


At the very least, start with making a couple changes to your message. You can even start with small changes, like...

"We will create your dream website for you"
"We'll help new clients find you with our professional SEO services"
"Our cyber security professionals will keep your website safe and secure"

None of these headlines are great, (and depending on your target market, we could certainly make them even more compelling) but with just a few word changes, at least they now let me know you're actually offering to do these things for me.

I might not believe you, yet. But at least I don't need to exert any energy trying to figure out what your offer is.

Do you see the difference a couple words can make?


Then we start to scroll down the page, and I'm immediately hit with this next message...





This copy may be SEO friendly for the key-phrase - "web design agency in New Jersey" (and as you already stated... you've been making SEO a primary focus)

But unfortunately, search engines are probably not going to buy anything from you. So we also need to turn some of these things that you're so proud of, into tangible benefits for your human visitors.


So start by taking your paragraph above, and tell me what you're going to do to make my business (or your target markets business) better, as a result of using your service.


What's the end result that I get from you "taking the time to understand my needs, and make my vision a reality? "

And when you say that you'll "generate creative solutions for all my web-based projects that is aesthetically pleasing and responsive across all devices."

What exactly is that going to do for me? And why should that matter to me?


I didn't read your entire page, but as I scrolled down, most of the copy I did see would be more compelling, if it was a bit less about what you do, and a bit more about the benefits to your audience.


Here's a simple exercise you can use to help you create (somewhat) more benefit driven copy...


After each sentence you write, think... "which means _________ for you" ( fill in the blank with the actual benefit to your target audience)


If you use this simple exercise, it'll help you write your copy in a more client centric, and benefit driven manner. Which means you'll be able to connect better, with the buying criteria of your audience... Which means more people will trust that you can help them solve their website creation needs, and they'll be more likely to do business with you... Which means a lot more clients, and more revenue for you and your business.

(do you see what I did there, in that last paragraph? I used "which means _______" and took it 3 levels deep until I started turning it into a solid benefit... for you)


This exercise won't give you polished sales copy, and I'm not recommending just repeating "which means" after every sentence. But thinking this way, will help get you moving in the right direction (a client benefit oriented direction).

Which means ________ for you and your business.


Anyway, something for you to think about. (After you figure out who your primary audience is)

All the best,
SAR

Thank you all for your in depth advice. I'm hoping that more people join in on the conversation! The more advice, the better. I've read through all of your posts and find all this advice invaluable. Thank you for all taking the time to critique. I'll be doing my best to adjust the site over time.

Hello dear

I can give you some tips that I use on my website and it is good to rank my website and my visitors remain permanent.

My Tips for You

1. Upload good content.
2. Search for current trending keywords through Google Trends.
3. Keep yourself in different social media.
4. Submit your website to various web directories.
5. The most important job is to bring traffic to the website of your website and to maintain that traffic, your website needs High Quality Backlinks. I purchased backlinks from a website hapytimes.wixsite.com now my website does not have to worry about traffic.

SEO wise, your website is great! But it is overwhelming. If I was someone who is looking for the services that you can offer, I am not sure if I would leave the website right away though (I didn't bother checking other pages cause I was overwhelmed). Once of the best ways to fix this is to have only short subheaders and place CTAs in multiple panels per page so that the user can browse easily and just click on CTA if the user wants to see more.

I also noticed that you don't have any tracking pixels in your website. I suggest you add google analytics so you can analyze the data of your traffic (i.e. at what page do they leave?)

I would give it a thumbs up, overall, but like others l wanted to lose my lunch when the whole screen started to move from right to left.

I also got worried that l had to click on the video, or the pause button to start something.

So yeah, l would be reluctant to use your services, (and l have spent years doing graphics for customers and sites) since you are using grabbing the customer by the throat and chocking them almost to death to make a buck.

If you want a video to automatically play then put up a Please Wait image/text, etc, and get rid of the pause icon. And if you want scrolling then reduce horizontal margins, and put in some indication of how many, so the customer has some control over what they want to take a closer look at.

Since at the moment it looks like brute force.

You said you're doing SEO, do you mean writing articles for the site?

I checked your article "Optimizing Your Website For The Modern User", it was pretty bland. It was probably about 500 words and wasn't very informative.

If you know your target audience, write to them and make it interesting (with whatever they want to read). Have whoever your writer is, have them do their research on the top blogs/articles in your niche.

Use Buzz Sumo to find the top articles and figure out what makes them great. Do they include case studies? Do they go in depth on the topic? Do they include tutorials? If they're talking to your target audience, use the strategy they use - but make it your own.

Your website is ridiculously generic. The layout, the copy, the photos-- EVERYTHING. It almost looks like you bought a WordPress theme and didn't even bother changing anything. Don't get me wrong, it's not exactly an eyesore, it's visually attractive, but it offers no benefits to the potential customer.

"We take the time to understand your needs and make your vision a reality". ... Really, dude? I feel like I've heard that one-too-many times already. And newsflash, most of your potential customers have no darn clue of what they want. You're the "expert", you need to guide them and make recommendations.

Also, please design with CRO as a priority. The world is full of designers who make "WOW!" Websites that don't convert leads/sales.

Keep your website attractive and drawing attention from visitors. For that you need quality content and headlines that can stay a visitor on the website. For that, you can refer your competitor website and get ideas. Page loading speed and navigation speed are another factors.

The first things that strike me are the fonts, the logo & the vital info that takes a lot of scrolling to get through.
Try to get a more stylish and less chunky top of page font.
Put something behind the logo to bring it out more or lock it into the header on the top left.
Give us a reason to scroll, maybe move some info to the "about us" page? Too busy and overwhelming.
That is my opinion. Hope it is useful.

You might even got sued by someone who has seizures, with the whole screen moving like that?

At least put up a warning.

Text over the middle of images looks bad IMO. It should be at the top or bottom, so the images can be seen.

The site's logo and menu are too low as well, obscuring the image.

The logo doesn't stand out. Maybe have a white background just for the logo.

The first pic has a busy background on the left with text on top. So the text doesn't stand out from the background.

The one thing I noticed, that was already mentioned, was that the photos look stock. It would be great to see who you are - especially on the "about" page.