Read part 3 of The Website Challenge

What are your biggest frustrations when you go onto a potential supplier’s website?

Phil Page, Managing Director, Compass Contract Hire: “I get very frustrated if a website is hard to navigate – and I find a lot of sites have either been designed by a younger generation or are designed to appeal to a younger generation. I also like being able to download a brochure from a company – and find it annoying if I can’t.”

Felix Bolger, Managing Director, Homelodge Buildings: “I hate it when it isn’t clear where to go on a site; for example, if I just want a table, but have to work out that I need to go to the dining room section. A site has to be easy to navigate. It’s also frustrating when something is listed but when you hit the button you see a notice on the screen that the page is no longer available.”

Richard Sawney, Finance Director, Micheldever Tyre Services: “I also don’t want to spend a long time on any site because we’re all in a hurry these days. I want to have clear, concise directions for how to get something, and I like the pages to be uncluttered.”

Rick Munro, Partner, Lamport Bassitt: “Nobody wants to wait for more than a few seconds to access what they want, so it needs to load quickly. The number of clicks is important too. It still surprises me how many sites don’t guide you easily to where you need to go next. People just come off a site if they get frustrated. Our ‘bounce’ rate, the proportion of people leaving the website after seeing just one page is down to 23% now, which is good; if you have a bounce rate over 50% you have a problem.”

Louise Moir, Head of Marketing, Haskins Garden Centres: “I don’t like being bombarded with pointless emails from websites you’ve used – you end up just deleting them anyway. On our new website we do have a function for get people to sign up for our emails but we’re making sure we only send out relevant and informative material, and not too frequently. I hope their reaction is ‘oh, the Haskins emails usually say something useful’, and they’ll open them.”

Ross Breckenridge, Director, B&V Digital: “Not being able to click through quickly enough to what I want to find is the biggest frustration. It’s also important because it’s easier for search engines to index your pages if they’re within two clicks of the home page. Good navigation is key. The sites which have the best navigation are those which are built from a starting point of the company knowing exactly what they want to achieve from their website. I’d also make the point that there is something reassuring about a site which has the registered office listed. With that ‘bricks and mortar’ reference, the company comes across as more legitimate. If it’s not there, subconsciously I think we feel that something is missing.”

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Read part 5 of The Website Challenge