You might expect that landscapers would have only tasks relating to planning, designing, and constructing landscaped gardens to think about. Whilst those tasks will certainly account for the vast majority of their efforts, other matters within their business do require some of their time.
If you are a landscaper and wondering what we are referring to, the title of this post should alert you to the fact that if you want your website to be an asset that helps your business flourish, then it needs to have been designed correctly. Unfortunately, too many landscapers are unaware of not only how important their website’s design is to their business but worse, that there can be serious design flaws that can make their website barely fit for purpose.
We do not plan to make this post a website design tuitional but instead, we will highlight the most common website design errors which landscapers should be aware of, and if they discover their website has any of them, they should take steps to correct them.
Poor, Boring Content
Every website needs content, but more importantly, that content must be useful, interesting, entertaining, unique, captivating, and if possible, all five of these. Content has three hugely important roles which it will fail to do if it is poor or boring. First, it helps keeps visitors on your website, whilst at the same time helping them to know, like, and trust your business. The other role content has is helping rankings on Google which will only happen if it is quality content.
Navigation Is Complex/Non-Existent
The visitor experience is all-important on websites, and if the navigation you have on yours is either unnecessarily complex or completely non-existent, that experience will be a poor one, meaning that visitors quickly leave with a poor impression of your website and your business. All it takes to rectify this is some simple planning to then create a basic menu system that allows visitors to easily navigate from one part of your website to another.
Errors And Bugs
We are not expecting landscapers to also be website designers and coders, so do not panic. The problem with bugs, faults, and errors in a website harks back to the visitor experience and them all creating a negative one. If your website does have lots of errors it might be time for a redesign, or at the very least, a coding upgrade. This can be done without a huge investment, especially if you contact a local web design agency.
Lack Of Branding
Branding can be as important to the success of a local landscaping business as it can the largest corporations in the world, so do not think it is not needed. Proper branding gives you a huge edge over your local competition, and your website is one of the prime places where branding can be used effectively…but only if it is there. If your website does not carry your branding you need to take steps to make sure it does.
Zero Calls To Action
A mistake many business owners make is they regard their website as nothing more than an online billboard, and as such it sits passively, doing nothing to contribute to that business. The key is to see your website as part of your marketing and sales process. In doing so, it should mean that in strategic places throughout your website there should be clear calls to action, such as ‘Call us for a free quote’.