You offer the best pest control services in the city, so why aren’t customers beating down your doors? Bad web design may be to blame.
Site visitors won’t hang around for long if your website isn’t up to snuff. Below, we offer an in-depth look into how bad website design can harm your company. You’ll also discover a few optimization techniques that will help your site attract organic traffic.
Want premier SEO for pest control companies? Contact Relentless Digital now.
How Bad Website Design Can Hurt Your Pest Control Company
Poor website design can cost you customers, tank your credibility, and so much more. If your site’s design isn’t up to par, you could suffer consequences like these.
You Could Lose Potential Customers
If your website is ugly or unusable, you’ll turn off potential customers from the very beginning. Think about it: Would you stick around on a website that looks like it hasn’t been updated in years? Probably not.
Paying customers are internet-savvy, and they expect modern website design. If your page layout is unhelpful and your site doesn’t have all the elements they want, they’ll look for other pest control businesses instead.
Your Google Rating Could Take a Hit
If too many users flee your website, search engines (namely Google) will respond accordingly. Google says, “This pest control company’s website isn’t giving users what they’re looking for. Let’s drop it down a few pegs in the search engine rankings.”
Suddenly, your website isn’t showing up in the search engines anymore, or if it is, it’s buried somewhere on page two or three. Most users won’t even bother scrolling past the top few search engine results, so that means your organic website traffic is going to plummet.
Your Credibility Will Suffer
Pest control companies have to work hard to gain customer trust. Offering great pest control services is a must, of course. If your SEO web design is bad, though, those site visitors won’t even give you a chance.
Let’s say you have a web page about flea treatments, but it’s riddled with spelling errors and doesn’t include much helpful pest control information. Users will have a hard time figuring out what your company does to treat fleas.
They will think, “Whoever runs this pest control company is an amateur. I’ve got a serious flea problem, and I need someone who knows what they’re doing.” And off they go to look for other pest control companies.
You’ll Lose Money
You paid website designers to build you a site, and it cost you a pretty penny. On top of that, you’re paying for hosting and maintenance. But if your website isn’t bringing in organic traffic and your conversion rates are terrible, it’s a waste of money.
What Makes Web Design Bad?
Now that you know what happens when you have bad web design, what exactly is it? Let’s go over a few problems so you know what to look for.
Unappealing Visual Design Elements
Back in the Wild West days of the internet, web designers let their creativity flow with flashing background images, blindingly bright colors, animated icons, and whimsical fonts. If your website has any of these design elements today, users will shun your pest control company, and rightly so.
Flashy, garish website design elements aren’t just unattractive; they’re also a pain for people with hidden disabilities and learning difficulties. To attract more leads, your business site must be intuitive to use and easy on the eyes.
A Poor User Experience
This is one of the top reasons why users flee your website for other sites. Most websites that provide a poor user experience have:
- Bad navigation structure: If your ultimate goal is to have users book your pest control services or call you for a free quote, you must make it as simple for them as possible. Poor navigation structure flies in the face of that. If users can’t figure out what to do next, they’ll look for a website that’s easier to navigate.
- Too much clutter: You may think more is better, but that’s not the case when it comes to your website. If you jam everything onto one page, users get confused because they can’t find what they’re looking for.
- Slow load times: Most website visitors won’t wait for more than a few seconds for a page to load. If your business site crawls like a turtle, expect a high bounce rate.
A Lack of Credible Content
Even if you use all the right keywords and focus keyphrases, it won’t matter much if your content is subpar. Google rewards websites with helpful, authoritative content. If your content is confusing or written poorly, expect that page to sink in the search results.
Not Considering Mobile Usability
Did you know that over half of all web searches come from mobile devices? If your site doesn’t incorporate responsive design principles, it may not load properly on mobile phones and tablets. Should that happen, users will almost certainly tap the “Back” button at the top of the page and look for another pest control company.
No Unique Selling Propositions
What makes your business different from all the others offering pest control services in your city? In short, why should website guests choose you?
If you can’t give users a good reason to hire you over the competition, they’re not likely to stick around for very long.
Limited or No Social Proof
Not having social proof on a website can be a death knell for pest control businesses. Just like users look at reviews for doctors and lawyers, so too do they seek social proof when hiring someone for pest control.
Don’t have any testimonials on your website? Visitors are sure to think, “Is this company even legit? Maybe I should look for other pest control companies instead.”
Hiring Bad Web Designers
If you hire an amateur website designer, they’re likely to make all of the above mistakes and then some. Good web design is an art; you can’t just hire the first person you come across because they’re the cheapest available. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for, and when you pay peanuts, you get bad websites.
No Maintenance Plan
Suppose that you avoid committing any of the above SEO website design sins, yet you neglect to implement a solid maintenance plan. Without one, all of your hard work could go down the drain in an instant.
All websites need regular patches and security updates to stay current. Without these updates, your business site could crash irreparably or fall into the hands of a hacker.
Not Choosing a Reliable Host
Your website is only as good as the service that hosts it. If you pick a web host solely because it’s cheap, prepare for disappointment.
The biggest danger of picking an unreliable host is frequent downtime. Your website could go down for hours, or worse, more than a day simply because the host doesn’t have anyone available to fix it. That downtime could potentially cost you thousands in revenue. On top of that, it could harm your position in search engines.
Top Tips for Improving Pest Control Business Web Design
You know what to look for when it comes to bad web design, but what makes a website a good one? How can your pest control business score a coveted position at the top of the search engine results? Whether you’re creating a new site or revamping your current one, consider these in-depth top tips and key optimization factors for SEO web design and digital marketing.
Keep Your Page Layout Simple
In SEO web design, white space is a good thing. You needn’t clutter up your site with dozens of images and blocks of text. Cutting down on unnecessary fluff makes your website easier to navigate and read.
If you have a lot of content stuffed onto a single page, consider breaking it up across several pages. This is also good for SEO because you can target different keywords for each page.
Make It Clear What To Do Next
Visitors should never have to guess what to do next when they land on your business website. For a user-friendly site, ensure potential clients have a clear path to their goals.
That means almost every page on your site should have an obvious and compelling call to action. To attract more clients, consider CTAs such as:
- Call us to schedule our pest control services now.
- Contact us to get a free pest control estimate.
- Sign up for our newsletter to get a discount on pest control.
Choose a Modern, Attractive Theme and Layout
It’s tempting to use bright, exciting colors if those are your favorites, but you must think of your users first. Are those colors appealing to others? Do they make it obvious you are a pest control company?
Good colors for pest control companies include white, dark green, brown, and navy blue. If you can’t decide on colors, consider using a pre-built theme. Some themes are free, but the best ones cost a bit of cash.
Fix Navigation Problems
Do internal links and menus flow intuitively from one to the next? If not, make fixing this your top priority.
Here’s an example of a navigation problem that needs fixing. You have a link for “Pest control services.” Visitors click on it thinking they’re going to see a list of your services. Instead, the link takes them to your contact page or, even worse, to a dead page. Fix mistakes with internal links ASAP before you start losing customers.
Build Up Your Incoming Links
Incoming, or external, links are a must for any pest control page. These are links on another website that point to your site. If the links come from reputable sources, Google will see your website as an authority, too. The best external links come from domains ending in .gov, .edu, and .org.
Ensure Your Website Is Mobile Friendly
Given that most web searches come from mobile devices these days, if you want more leads, your website must be mobile friendly. That means it needs to load quickly and correctly on any mobile device. If it doesn’t, your ranking in the search engines could tank.
The best way to ensure proper loading is to use responsive SEO web design practices. Responsive design enables a website to adjust automatically to the user’s specific device.
For speed, keep images to a minimum and compress them. Only include necessary content on your pages, as too much text can seriously slow a page down.
Check Usability for Disabled Visitors
Try approaching your website from the perspective of someone who’s visually or mentally impaired. Is it simple to read, navigate, and understand? If not, it’s time to make some improvements to ensure an excellent user experience, such as the following:
- Use dyslexia-friendly fonts.
- Avoid plastering your website with overly bright images and instant-play videos.
- Don’t use flashing videos or pictures that may cause seizures.
- Use short, easy-to-read paragraphs
- Provide alternative text (alt text) for non-text content
Perform Thorough Keyword Research
Good keyword research is another top priority for your pest control business website design. The right keywords can elevate a page in the search results, while bad ones can cause it to linger at the bottom.
Once you’ve found some relevant keywords you want to rank for, boot up your keyword research tool and look for the focus keyphrases setting. This feature lets you set the keyword you want to rank for. Using it gives you a search engine-optimized website that ranks well.
Spruce Up Your Meta Titles
Meta titles show up in the search results, so they’re a big part of local SEO website design. Good titles should be 160 characters or less and contain your primary keyword for the page. Make your titles as descriptive as possible so visitors are compelled to click.
Publish New Content Regularly
In addition to following good SEO website design principles, you’ll need to publish fresh content often. Consider starting a blog and publishing something new at least once a week. Google likes brand-new content, and by publishing often, you could enjoy a nice jump in the search rankings.
Need topic ideas for your blog? Try these:
- How to get rid of cockroaches
- Tips for keeping mice and rats out of your home
- What to do if you suspect you’ve got bedbugs
- Staying mosquito bite-free in your back yard
If you’re having trouble coming up with topics or writing regularly, consider hiring a writer and content manager. A good content manager will publish content for you in a variety of places, such as social media and authority sites that allow guest posts.
Ensure Your Google Maps Information Is Correct
Have you looked up your pest control business on Google Maps lately? If not, the information could be incorrect, costing you customers. If you spot an error, click or tap “Suggest an edit” and then choose the type of edit you want to make.
Need Help With SEO Website Design? Contact Relentless Digital
Now that you’re an expert in bad web design, you can use these local SEO website design principles and pest blog topics to craft a beautiful, user-friendly website that visitors will love. Not up to the task? Let Relentless Digital help. We’re pros at creating search-engine-optimized websites for pest control companies just like yours.
To learn more about web design for pest control companies, book a strategy call with Relentless Digital now.
