Columbus is a city built on support, and nowhere is that more evident than at the Columbus Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting. This event brought together businesses, entrepreneurs, and community leaders for an electrifying meeting filled with big ideas and even bigger opportunities. As always, we’re incredibly grateful for everything the Chamber does for our team and the local business community.

This year was extra special for us—we got to experience the event from two perspectives: as attendees and as exhibitors. Here’s what stood out!

As an Attendee: An Electrifying Look at Columbus’ Future

The Chamber knocked it out of the park with this event. The speaker lineup was diverse, featuring voices from nonprofits to Fortune 500 companies, all united under the theme: “Ignite US.” The energy in the room was contagious, setting the stage for an exciting future in Columbus.

Some major takeaways:

• Big plans for Columbus 🚆: Talks of new transit systems, 200,000 affordable homes, and rapid population growth all signal strong economic momentum.
• A city on the rise 📈: Columbus is thriving, and businesses are poised to benefit from the city’s expanding opportunities.
• Engaging conversations 🤝: We met the new Chamber board members and heard firsthand about their vision for the future.

We left feeling inspired, energized, and confident that 2025 will be a game-changer for Columbus!

As an Exhibitor: Back in the Game

It’s been a while since we exhibited in person (thanks, COVID), but we were excited to be back connecting face-to-face with other local businesses. Here’s our breakdown of the experience as an exhibitor:

The Good: A Standout Event

• Top-notch setup ✨: The colors, lights, and layout were beautifully executed. Exhibitors were positioned front and center, giving us great visibility as attendees arrived.
• Memorable branding 🎨: Our bubble gum theme was a hit! Our marketing materials stood out, and our “common sense digital marketing” concept really stuck with people and gave them something to chew on—literally (the gum giveaway tied it all together)!
• Engaged attendees 🗣️: People were eager to talk, mixing business with personal stories. Columbus’ signature Midwest hospitality was in full effect!
• A caring chamber team 👥: Huge shoutout to Nick Tafoya and the Chamber staff for making the event seamless, informative, and an absolute success.
• A digital marketing reality check 💡: Many attendees shared their struggles with ineffective digital marketing—posting just to post, blogging without strategy, and creating content that doesn’t convert. The good news? They’re ready for change, and we’re ready to help!

The Bad: Lessons for Next Time

• Hesitation at our table  🤔: While people instantly understood our theme, they didn’t realize we were handing out gum. Some even thought our display was Post-it notes! Once we said, “Want something to chew on,” it clicked.
  
• For next time 💡: A big, bold sign that says “FREE GUM” should do the trick! 😆
• Networking flew by ⏳: With over 1,000 attendees, it was impossible to meet everyone. The networking session moved fast, and before we knew it, we had spoken to 20+ people at our table.
  
• Next time 💡: We’ll keep conversations short and impactful to maximize our reach.

The Ugly: An Overstocked Supply!

• Gum Galore 🍬: We may have slightly overestimated how many people would grab a pack of gum. Let’s just say we’re well-stocked for the foreseeable future. 😅
  
• Next time 💡: No worries! We’ll hand them out the remaining gum at future events and meetings throughout the year.

See You at the Columbus Chamber!

If you’re on the fence about joining the Columbus Chamber, we highly recommend it! The opportunities for networking, learning, and growing your business are unmatched.

Have questions? Reach out to the Chamber—or ask us about our experience! Stay tuned for more insights from our local Chamber events. See you at the next one! 🚀

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve officially joined the Westerville Chamber of Commerce! As a new member, we’re excited about the networking, marketing opportunities, and business growth happening in Westerville.

Why Joining Was Common Sense

It’s quite simple. We’ve been focused on everything but local and now want to be more connected with Columbus and the greater parts of it like Westerville.

What We’re Excited About

• Networking – Westerville is growing fast, and being part of the chamber helps us stay connected. For our digital marketing team, networking isn’t just about business—it’s about building relationships. We love meeting fellow entrepreneurs and local businesses, learning about their challenges, and making meaningful connections.
• Community Engagement – Giving back is important to us, and the chamber provides great volunteer opportunities. We’re also eager to support fellow members by sharing insights and guidance whenever we can.
• Exciting Events – From after-hours networking to luncheons and workshops, the chamber offers many ways to meet new people and learn about their industries. We’ll be attending as many of them as possible!
• Exclusive Savings – Membership comes with cost-saving benefits like discounts on insurance, office supplies, and member-to-member services. Learn more about the Westerville Chamber of Commerce’s perks here.
• Marketing Opportunities – The chamber offers exposure through newsletters, social media, a dedicated profile page, and sponsorships. We’ve already submitted our feature for the monthly newsletter and can’t wait to see it published in one of the upcoming editions!
• Advocacy for Local Businesses – Starting and running a business is challenging, and having an organization that supports local entrepreneurs is invaluable. From navigating regulations and making introductions to finding funding, the chamber is there to help!

Our Goal: Active Involvement

We’re not just joining—we’re committed to actively engaging with the Westerville business community. Whether through networking, events, or volunteering, we want to make a meaningful impact. Building relationships is our priority, so anything else is a bonus!

See You at the Chamber!

We’re looking forward to our membership orientation on March 6, 2025. If you’re also joining or thinking about it, reach out to the Westerville Chamber to get started. If you’re interested in another chamber from the Columbus area, consider the Columbus Chamber of Commerce for Columbus and the Tri-Village Chamber Partnership for Upper Arlington, Marble Cliff, and Grandview. We’re happy to share our experiences with all three – connect with us below with any questions that you might have!

If you know about our history, you know it’s rich in building apps and supporting them with sound marketing strategies. As app developers and digital marketers, our team has raised a tech startup from the ground up, connecting university students with local businesses across the globe. We’ve also built financial, medical testing, and tech enablement apps for small and enterprise clients.

We’ve got a lot of technical chops around software and have translated the most critical growth and success factor from app development to web design: stickiness. Stickiness is traditionally applied in app development through features and enhancements that drive customers to return to your app. Generally, the longer someone engages with your business, the more likely they will convert. That includes website, app, or any parts of your business.

Below are five web design techniques derived from app development that can build stickiness for your website and brand:

1. Web Design That’s Personalized for Customers

Oftentimes, we believe that we know what customers want from a website. If you get this wrong, you’re asking for rework on your website. So, before you do anything else on your website, understand your customers and their pain points. This knowledge is extremely important for both app development and web design, and comes from a bunch of sales conversations with customers and asking them why. Your goal is to identify your customers’ root problems and interest points to unlock the general direction of your website. Once you’ve got the direction down, the next question is, how do you know whether you’re getting it right with customers?

Qualitatively, you can ask customers what they think. Quantitatively, you need analytics. With any website design and development, integrating analytics is always a must and can uncover the following:

• Visibility into what customers are doing on your site.
• Which pages are popular, and which are not?
• Are your headlines, imagery, and/or overall content doing well?

With this information, you can determine the weaker content areas of your website that need to be fortified. Additionally, you can identify content buckets that can be elaborated through new articles, videos, and web pages to build a stickier website.

2. When it Comes to Web Design, Stick to Simple

Have you ever heard of paralysis analysis? It’s when you’re presented with too much information, which prevents you from taking action. With apps, you avoid paralysis by reducing clutter and showcasing their core functionality. Similarly, web design should do the same with content and the associated call to actions.

As such, we suggest the Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) methodology for web design. KISS dumbs down web design complexity and simplifies concepts. There are a few ways to achieve KISS web design:

• Make your headlines succinct – confirm that people can get the gist of your article from just the headlines alone. If you don’t have many headlines, add them!
• Trim the fat around your content without sacrificing SEO – get to the point fast and use tools to improve and grade your writing.
• Use bullets and sections when possible – your goal is to organize your content. Customers and search engine crawlers love organized content, which speeds up interpretation and decision-making.
• Use images that support your story – it’s easy for web designers to pick avant-garde images for web placement to make your website pop. The challenge is making sure those images support your story without being too distracting.

These four points are a great starting point for simplifying and creating sticky designs. For help with KISS web design and a stickier site, contact the Uplancer team for a free consultation!

3. Reason to Return with Web Design

Related to any digital experience, users will return if they have a reason to return (RTR). An RTR is entirely true for applications and websites. You want people to spend as much time as possible with your brand because again, more time corresponds to a higher likelihood of purchasing. For apps, users are encouraged to return through the following:

• Gaming apps offer free rewards and scoreboards for returning users.
• Social media apps display new user-generated content and trending topics.
• Banks and productivity apps send notifications and reminders to their clients.

For websites, the RTR is slightly nuanced. There are a few ways that RTR can be achieved for website visitors:

• Newsletters keep customers in the loop with your latest industry information.
• Irresistible promotions and discounts keep users on the lookout for your next email/message.
• A dynamic website with new content will engage customers better. Recall the times you’ve visited a website with a copyright date from years ago or a very dated web design experience! We certainly do and are less likely to return to those stale websites.

Although the above RTR examples can work, they won’t work if your marketing team isn’t built to support them. RTR requires a ton of strategy, planning, and use of technologies like CRM and other MarTech platforms. Therefore, there is a good chunk of work to set up an RTR and requires heavy automation to maximize the stickiness of your website.

4. Track Your Website Visitors and Don’t Let Them Forget About You

Depending on your lead generation methods, your web designer and developer can help you uncover insights through analytics tracking. With it, you’ll distinguish customers who’ve visited your website and who are ideal to pursue. After you’ve identified these details, it’s a matter of keeping your brand and website at the top of mind for your customers.

This concept opens the door for retargeting or remarketing. Traditionally, customers must interact with your brand at least seven times before they remember you, whether through ads, commercials, marketing collateral, or other mediums. Digitally, you have more options:

• Search Engine Retargeting – how this works is search engine advertisers, like Google Ads, discreetly serve your ads to your recent website visitors. The retargeting occurs within their own search engine results pages and partnership websites. As a result, you increase the number of times your brand interacts with customers, increasing the likelihood for them to buy your product/service.
• Social Media Retargeting – this leverages the same principle as search engine retargeting but for popular social media networks, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Once a customer has visited your website through one of your social media ads, they will be served your retargeting ads. The retargeting occurs on the social media platform and through their partnership network sites to increase your brand’s visibility.
• Email Retargeting – believe it or not, email can retarget website visitors too! You can build a profile for customers you want to retarget based on their interaction with your email and website. Email retargeting is incredibly powerful since you gain insights into the company that shows interest in your products or services, allowing you to build out two things: 1) look-alike companies and 2) an updated target list with similar roles from your prospect company as new targets. Apollo and Bant are great options for email retargeting.

The above are a few examples of digital marketing retargeting. As stated, retargeting requires tracking integration from your web design team. It’s a great way to enhance your stickiness for your brand and website. Have your web design team confirm that your website is integrated and set up correctly with your retargeting campaign.

5. Invoke Thought Leadership

Thought leadership is an overused term, but it does work for web design. Like apps, websites can leverage thought leadership within your industry to build stickiness among your customers. There are many ways to do this, one of which could be through short videos.

Related to short videos, when we first heard about TikTok in 2017, we thought it couldn’t compete because of how Vine unfolded. So, how could TikTok compete? Fast-forward to today, and TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms with 1 billion+ users. YouTube, Facebook, and even LinkedIn simulate the same experience through their own versions and reels.

Video content is consumed quickly on the internet and is one way to establish thought leadership as a business. With the right strategy, planning, and execution, you can carve out thought leadership as a lead generation tool. Like any social media strategy, you can’t stop once you start. You must be consistent with your efforts to drive the results your company needs.

The Bottom Line / TLDR

For apps and websites, stickiness is the key to sustained success, fostering repeat engagement, and increasing conversion rates. Achieving stickiness involves curated websites tailored to customer needs, KISS web design, and providing compelling reasons for users to return. Tracking visitor behavior and implementing retargeting strategies can amplify engagement and brand recall. Additionally, through consistent, high-value content, such as videos, thought leadership can establish authority and expand reach for lead generation. By combining these strategies, your website and digital brand can be the cornerstone for growth and customer retention.

Connect with Uplancer today for help making your website even stickier website!

If you’re thinking about or are already using email marketing, this article is for you! With any email marketing, there is a lot going on behind the scenes: this includes finalizing the copy, MarTech software, email cadence, sequences, target list, and other configurations before a single email can be sent. In parallel, your website must be designed and integrated accordingly to get the most out of your email marketing. To get your website primed for email marketing, we’ve identified six areas your web design team must address before launching your email marketing.

1. Implement Email Marketing Tracking on Your Website

Email marketing isn’t just about blasting emails; you need a way to gauge its effectiveness. There are two camps related to email marketing strategies:

• You only give people one option, and that’s to reply to your email
• You let them browse your landing page before they buy

Depending on the customer, we’ve found that either can demonstrate results. In fact, the latter can satisfy both—an email with embedded links can offer browsing and replying opportunities.

When giving customers options to explore your website, you must ensure your website correctly tracks them. Many email marketing platforms provide tracking codes to understand what your targets are doing after they click on your link. Are they only staying on that landing page, or are they browsing other pages? Additionally, how many are clicking your links?

Tracking can also identify which target companies have visited your website. As a result, you can use this information to target more individuals with the same roles from that same company. This can push your sales efforts across the finish line. Similarly, you could target the same roles in lookalike organizations with the same company size, industry, and headcount. This advanced tracking is incredibly powerful for multiplying your lead generation.

However, all of this tracking data comes with one caveat: Data privacy is a huge issue that must be complied with at the local level. Therefore, contact a web design team like Uplancer to help implement your email tracking.

2. Pick Mirror Domains When Sending Emails

You should do everything to protect your email domain. Email service providers like Microsoft and Google are weary of email abuse and will penalize and even block your email domain when they recognize it. That means if you’re running email campaigns, you should not put your business email at risk of rejection.

There are techniques that your web design and hosting team can use, but we find the best route is to pick mirror domains. These domains are slight variations of your primary business domain name. For example, our business domain, uplancer.agency, has the following mirror domains: uplancercompany.com, uplancerllc.co, and uplanceragency.com. Notice how these mirror domains resemble our business domain.

Once you’ve picked out mirror domains, have your web design team set up a redirect from those mirror domains to your primary business domain. We recommend this as a precaution for digital buyers who quickly look up your mirror domain. To illustrate this, we’d set up a redirect from uplancerllc.co to uplancer.agency. By doing this, your email marketing traffic is contained within your own business website.

3. Dedicate a Landing Page for Email Marketing Traffic

In organic search, your customers will stumble across your website, and your homepage will likely do all the convincing. With email marketing, your email replaces your homepage. As such, we recommend treating each email campaign like a paid search experience – build a landing page for each email campaign and link to it in the body of your emails.

To get the most out of your email marketing landing pages, follow these best practices:

• Landing pages should include relevant email content for your end users. For example, an email campaign for tire repair should discuss tire repairs and avoid content related to auto body repair.
• Landing pages should place conversion actions, such as a contact form, download, or lead magnet, at the top of the page. These conversion actions should be front and center and easy to take.
• Less is more for landing pages! Only include the minimum content customers need to convert on the page.

4. Append UTM Parameters to Your Embedded Email Links

From a decision-making perspective, you must know whether your email campaign works. You can uncover this information by leveraging an analytics tool like Google Analytics on your website and appending UTM parameters to your embedded email marketing URLs. With appended URL parameters, you can identify the email campaign traffice source in your analytics reports. Using a tool like Google Link Builder, you can tag your email campaign with the applicable parameters for utm_source, utm_medium, utm_id, utm_campaign, utm_term, and utm_content. You don’t need to use all these parameters, so assign enough information to identify one email campaign from another.

5. Cookie Usage and Storage

What happens if your embedded email marketing link contains UTM parameters and your customer navigates away from that page? Without custom scripts on your website, those valuable parameters are lost! The good news is there’s a workaround where you can store the UTM parameters as a browser cookie. This cookie information is stored temporarily and, based on a specific action, is shared with your analytics tool. A web design team like Uplancer to help implement this custom script.

6. Get Your Contact Forms in Order

Whether using your own or a third-party form, you must confirm that your contact forms work across your website. If you’re using a CRM, sync the metadata so your sales team can quickly engage. For example, if your sales team knows which web page a form was submitted, they can shape the sales meeting accordingly. You can pass other information to your CRM, such as UTM parameters and the referral page, to improve your chances of converting a prospect. Ultimately, a well-thought-out contact form workflow can optimize sales from email marketing traffic.

The Bottom Line / TLDR

To maximize the impact of email marketing, you must align your web design direction with your email campaigns. Implement email tracking on your website for insights into visitor behavior, secure your domain to avoid spam flags, and use dedicated landing pages for targeted traffic. Also, add UTM parameters to track campaign performance, store cookie data to preserve source details, and ensure contact forms work seamlessly with your CRM. These steps are critical for driving conversions, streamlining your sales process, and making email marketing efforts more effective.

Is your web design team doing email marketing the common sense way? Contact us today for a free consultation about your email marketing or website needs!

You know you’re on the right track when your digital marketing just makes sense. It doesn’t feel overcomplicated, overly trendy, or like you’re throwing darts at a board in the dark. When you’re dialed in, you’ll notice these three signs that your approach is grounded in common sense solutions.

1. The Data Tells the Story

Marketing that works starts with facts, not guesswork. When operating with common sense, you lean on data to show what’s working and what’s not. Numbers don’t lie—they help you make smarter decisions.

Example: Instead of dumping money into every ad platform, you focus on the one where your audience actually spends time.

Pro Tip: If you don’t have the right data (or it feels like a mess), Uplancer can help you set up reporting systems in Google Analytics or another platform that give you clarity and confidence.

2. Digital Marketing is Simple, Yet Elegant

Here’s the thing: simple is hard. Anyone can make something more complicated, but it takes skill to strip it down to what really matters. When you simplify, your marketing doesn’t feel basic or boring—it becomes intuitive, efficient, and impactful.

Example: A clean, straightforward email with one clear call-to-action will almost always outperform one that’s cluttered and trying to do too much.

Pro Tip: Simplicity doesn’t mean doing less; it means focusing on what actually drives results.

3. Digital Marketing is Built for Adaptability

The best marketing strategies are flexible. When things change—and they always do—you need solutions that can evolve with you. Common sense marketing doesn’t box you in; it sets you up to pivot when needed.

Example: Starting small with a few digital channels and scaling up as you see success, instead of overcommitting to a one-size-fits-all strategy.

Pro Tip: At Uplancer, we help you create systems that grow and adapt as your business and audience needs change.

The Bottom Line / TLDR

When your digital marketing is guided by common sense, you’ll feel it—and so will your results. By focusing on data, simplicity, and adaptability, you’ll make smarter choices without the stress.

At Uplancer, we believe in making marketing clear, effective, and—dare we say it—enjoyable. Ready to bring some common sense to your digital strategies? Let’s talk!

From my startup experience building a student freelancing platform, web design certainly took a backseat. The platform itself was the star of the show, connecting college students with local businesses. In our initial pilot, we connected students from The Ohio State University with local businesses throughout Columbus and Ohio. This localized approach was replicated in other cities and states throughout the Midwest.

As a growing and nimble startup, we soon realized we had to dress the part. A professional business should look polished, and if we engage with investors, our website is the first place they’ll check. As such, we needed to satisfy the basics for our potential customers and investors. I’ve translated my startup learnings below to explain why startups must prioritize their web design to improve their chances of success.

A Great and Lasting Impression from Good Web Design Results in Better Conversion

Every person who interacts with your brand will explore your website. You only have one shot with them, so don’t waste it, and always lead with your best foot. Wow them in every way possible, from design and content to layout:

• Design – strive for uniqueness and stay true to your brand. Remember, branding isn’t a short race but rather a journey. Big-name brands like Nike took decades to build up their brand, so be patient and persistent. In addition, there’s a reason why McDonald’s chose red and yellow to invoke appetite as well as instill excitement around their brand. Trust me, McDonald’s triggers this in our kids every time we drive past one. Therefore, your logo, color palettes, and typography should be thoughtfully chosen and consistently used across all media. As an added bonus, avoid using branded footers from content management systems like GoDaddy or Wix. The last thing you should portray is that your startup is a pet project hosted on one of these services!
• Content – having a unique web design is good, but great content is better for a startup. SEO is essential to what you’re doing and will be doing for the long haul of your business. You’ve got several stakeholders to consider, so ensure that you have enough content on your site to satisfy their needs: investors look for a solid product-market model fit, while customers look for how you’ll solve their pain points. Additionally, there’s always an urge to design something eye-popping, but that usually leaves your company lacking in helpful content for your customers. Ultimately, given the option to invest more in avant-garde web designs or content, pick content.
• Layout – how you display your website content makes a difference in how people engage with it. As English speakers, we read in an F-pattern, so prioritizing the most critical content from the top left to the right and then from the top to the bottom is key. In doing so, you’ll feed your customers and stakeholders the core content they seek in a limited amount of time. Think about it, why would you bury the most important content at the bottom of the page? We’re oversimplifying the layout, but this is one of many design elements that must be considered when showcasing your startup.

An excellent first impression will greatly improve your chances of those early conversions and sales with customers. As a result, you gain the momentum needed to ignite those initial conversations with investors. Investors who find you will be more inclined to engage with a more polished business site than your next competitor. Work with an expert web design team, like Uplancer, to take your startup website to the next level.

Keep Your Visitors Engaged and Avoid Stale Web Design

The purpose of your website has to have a commercial purpose as well as an informational purpose. Commercially, you want to sell your product or service by leading with it first. Communicate your customers’ pain points and why your solution is their only solution. This is the hook to engage your customers. You must get this right to have a chance at succeeding as a startup.

From an informational perspective, you’ll have two user types: customers and investors. Customers want to understand more about you and your brand. They want to confirm that you’re an active company in your industry. Information can be shared through testimonials, case studies, blogs, news and events, and information about your team and company.

On the other hand, investors want to know two things: 1) You’re progressing with your startup, and 2) you’re going above and beyond your competition. As such, they’ll benchmark and monitor your progress through events, partnerships, and other newsworthy activities you share publicly. Keep investors interested in your startup by sharing your progress.

For customers and investors, a stale website (one that hasn’t changed in months or years) equates to a stale business. If you’re not making updates, you’ll start giving customers away to competitors. Maintaining an active commercial and informational presence has a side effect: improved SEO! Your site will climb the ranks and get noticed sooner, increasing your monthly website traffic.

A Startup Must Provide Convenient Mediums for Communication

It’s a strange experience landing on a startup website to see only an email as the contact method. Implement contact forms, social media channels, email, phone, and any method to make it easier for your customers and investors to contact and hear from you. A diverse communication channel will invite conversations that may not have existed through phone or email only. The other thing you want to think about is that you want your digital marketing efforts to go the distance. You’ll have the opportunity to have multiple touchpoints to increase the likelihood of a sale. Setting these communication channels up is crucial and can be done by a dedicated web design team, like Uplancer.

The Bottom Line / TLDR

Building a startup website isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about making a lasting impression, sharing your story, and driving engagement. Prioritize unique, consistent designs, compelling content, and an intuitive layout to captivate both customers and investors. Keep your site active with fresh updates, testimonials, and news to showcase growth and credibility. Finally, offer diverse communication channels to connect easily with your audience and enhance your marketing efforts. A polished, strategic website can be the key to your startup’s early success and long-term growth.

Connect with Uplancer today for a free consultation on building or enhancing your startup website.

If you or your marketing team are unsure whether your web design and development is working, this article is for you! After being called numerous times to fix our client’s website problems, we noticed common trends among dysfunctional sites. Look for these six signs that indicate your business website isn’t working and it’s time for an update.

1. Your Website Doesn’t Show up on Search Results

Not ranking on SERPs is a prominent issue that requires all hands on deck and must be addressed immediately. Your website’s purpose is to communicate your brand to customers, and it must be searchable on the web. If customers can’t find you online, all the time and resources you’ve spent on your website are wasted!

While this is a major problem, you may find that you did nothing wrong. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a significant component that affects your position in search results. For instance:

• Being listed on the 100th page might be acceptable if your site was just launched.
• However, if your website has been around for decades and is still on the 100th search page, you’re probably not getting the most out of it.

Remember that your SEO efforts take roughly three to six months to propagate on search engines. So, it could very well be a timing issue.

Beyond timing, you can control other components, such as no indexing, website configurations, and compliance with search engine requirements. Get these right because one wrong setting can penalize or even remove your website from SERPs! If you’re unsure what the problem could be, we can help! Schedule a free consultation to discover the root cause of your website listing.

2. Your Bounce Rate is High

Google defines bounce rate as the number of visitors who leave your website within the first 5 seconds. A high bounce rate indicates your website isn’t hitting the mark with customers. In other words, customers are unimpressed or feel misled after clicking on your website on the SERPs because what’s advertised on the SERPs doesn’t match what’s on your page. Guess what a high bounce rate does to your search ranking? It drops! Search engines assume your website performs worse than others with a lower bounce rate for the same search terms.

To combat high bounce rates, you must create a compelling headline that customers see first. You may also need to rework your web design to better support the story your website tells. Finally, don’t forget about marketing to the next generation of decision-makers, the young digital buyers. Their digital expectations are different from those of previous generations.

3. Your Traffic is Healthy, but You Face Conversion Issues

If you have decent web traffic, the next problematic area may be website conversions. As your digital front, your website must align on all pistons to communicate how you can solve your customers’ pain points. That means you must get the web design, copywriting, and overall customer journey right. Additionally, CTAs are important and impact your buyer’s final decision, so be thoughtful in your word selections.

You may also need to rework your product offerings, pricing, and other workflows to optimize website conversions. Conversions encompass everything from when your customer first interacts with your brand to when your sales team closes the deal. Therefore, low conversion events, such as form submissions or meeting bookings, may indicate poor web design. Check with your web development team for issues around conversions.

4. Your Website is Underwhelming

We use “underwhelming” because customers will have different digital expectations. Some may want x, while others demand y. You can’t satisfy everyone, but you should do your best to satisfy the bare minimum for web design. Below are a few underwhelming issues that can turn off customers:

• A website that doesn’t solve their problem.
• A website that feels gimmicky.
• A website that offers something too good to be true.
• A website that requires a heavy commitment before anything else is done.
• A website design that feels dated for the generation buying from it.

To understand whether your website is underwhelming, ask your existing customers what they think about your website. Better yet, catch the customers who tell you no and ask why they went with a competitor! This insight will uncover why you fell short for your customers and to your competitors, and what you can do to address your web design shortcomings.

5. You Aren’t Capturing Website Data

In today’s age, every website has considered or already uses website analytics. Analytics help you uncover insights to make data-informed decisions about your business. Outside of asking your customers for their opinions, analytics will tell you what’s working and what’s not on your website. Now, if you’re using analytics, like Google Analytics, and notice that data isn’t being collected, it’s time to involve your web design team. Who knows how long analytics has been down? Have your web design team get it back up as soon as possible.

There are several reasons why your data collection fails. It could be a conflict with your website CMS or a plugin that you’re using, or it could be that your website setup and configurations are wrong. Whatever the reason, you’ll need to know the root cause, which a web design team can help you isolate and fix. If you find yourself doing this often, it’s time to consider web design changes.

6. Your Website is Unstable

An unstable website can sneak up on you because you may not even know these issues exist! Customers interacting with your website may have already left after a bad experience. Their digital expectations weren’t met, causing them to waste time on an unstable website.

You may also encounter a situation where an update or action on a CMS causes the web server to crash. A down website is a terrible sign for customers and significantly impacts your customer journey. The only way to prevent unstable websites is to monitor them and fix issues ASAP. So, ensure your web design team is doing so to allow your website to work.

The Bottom Line / TLDR

Look for signs to see whether your web designs are working. Check your search ranks, bounce rate, conversions, customers’ expectations, analytics, and website stability. If you’re falling short on any of these, it’s time to revisit your web designs with your web design team!

Need help confirming the effectiveness of your web design? Contact Uplancer today! We can guide you through your existing website and identify areas for improvement.