In this episode we are sharing 3 features that are still popular, but need to go away now.
Divi Foundation Course > https://academy.keeganlaniermedia.com/downloads/divi-foundation-course/
Find this episode’s content on our blog > https://keeganlaniermedia.com/3-website-features-that-need-to-go-away-forever/
Keegan 0:00
What’s up Divi addicts? In today’s episode, we’re giving you three very popular features on websites that we think need to go away immediately. Welcome to the Divi addicts podcast, a podcast by Keegan Lanier Media, where we deliver news tips tricks on web design to education hungry entrepreneurs who are looking to change their life by starting full fledged business with web design. What’s up Divi addicts Welcome back to another episode this week, as we talked about in the intro, you know, we’re giving you three things that are pretty popular in website design that we think just suck, they really need to go away.
Keegan 0:41
And the first one would jump right into it is is Hero Sliders. They’re still really popular a lot of websites use sliders, and nothing against sliders themselves. I think the way that we’ve used them is is incorrect. You can do a lot of research and look at conversions and find the numbers they prove it sliders as as heroes on the landing page of the front of your website, or just a bad idea. And here’s why you’re depending on where you put them on which order you put them in. Really and truly the first slide is the only one that really gets seen people get to your site, they jump through real quick, if something doesn’t catch their eye, they’re out, you know, we get hung up on our websites, like I spend a lot of time on my website, I spend a lot of time in my clients websites. But I’m not the average visitor, when somebody goes they’re looking for a quick path trying to find the information they’re looking for. And if they don’t get it quick, they’re out and they’re on to the next we’ve got very short attention spans, people just aren’t going to see the second, third, fourth or fifth slide.
Keegan 1:45
And that’s just that’s just our just the way life is now you know, our attention spans are short, and not that our attention spans are short, maybe I should clarify that it’s that we have so many things clamoring for our attention that it’s hard for us to focus on something for a long time. So that’s really more what it’s about. It’s not that we’ve just given our attention to what you know, we just give it up freely, it’s just that things are really good at taking our attention. So we’ve got to be intentional about the way we design sites. And we’ve got to make sure that they’re very, they’re very pointed.
Keegan 2:15
And that kind of leads me into the second point here on on the hero sliders is that, you know, having that slider in place shows a real lack of focus. And if you’re a consumer or potential customer, you know, it almost seems as if the business doesn’t know what they want to focus on. Well, well, this is important. Slide one is important. Slide two is important. Slide three is important. Well, if everything is important, then nothing’s important. So you’ve got to be very intentional about your sites. And that goes for if you’re if you’re listening, you’re you’re someone who’s building websites, or if you’re just a business owner, and you have control over your website, I would I would recommend remove your slider today, find one image one call to action one main thing that’s going to drive the majority of your business and make that front and center.
Keegan 2:59
And the other big piece right here is you know that you need to build it with a clear path in mind. So that main goal, that main focus should take you through a journey, educating people or helping them get to the point where they convert or at least make contact with your team so that they can potentially become a client. So that’s, that’s number one, you know, the first thing that needs to just go away, the second one is going to be full screen video headers. And, you know, I’ll just make this one short and sweet. They’re absolute resource hogs, there’s no question about that they suck a lot of power from your website. And they do look really, really cool. I can’t lie about that, you know, their purpose, when they’re purposefully built, they can really help convey the feeling and the brand, or the feel of your brand.
Keegan 3:52
And, you know, if what a lot of people are doing is that they’re just taking stock images or stock videos and throwing it up on their website, because it’s movement, and it catches your eye and it looks cool. And but it doesn’t really serve a purpose. And even worse than that a lot of people install them or upload their videos directly to the back end of their WordPress site, which is a horrible idea. Even the shortest quickest most, you know, really optimized video is going to be multiple megabytes, which is going to drastically increase the amount of time it takes your website to load. You know, it can take a site that could load in a minute, I mean a second and a half up to you know, going up to 789 1215 seconds, which you do not want. Everything should stay under three seconds. That’s that’s the sweet spot two to three seconds max. So you definitely don’t want to do that.
Keegan 4:43
And they really should only exist to serve a true function. If you look at a video header and it doesn’t serve a big function. It doesn’t convey a feeling or message about the brand and it’s just there for aesthetic purposes, but it’s not really functional or Or converting or telling the story, I would recommend get rid of it, find an image that really conveys who you are, put that in place, optimize it and make it the thing that people see when they first get to your site. And before we jump into the third and final one, I want to see if you like these tips, if you’d like what we do here on the podcast, and you’re interested in really leveling up your game, as far as website building and learning Divi, the platform. I do have a course. And I’ll drop a link in the show notes for the Divi Foundation course.
Keegan 5:34
And this thing’s going to take you from the beginnings with absolutely nothing and show you how to end up with a fully functioning website from purchasing your domains and where you can get those to finding good hosting, to getting Divi, installing it, setting it up and learning the basics of Divi and WordPress, and really understanding. So this is this goes for if you’re just starting or if you’re a business owner who doesn’t feel very comfortable with your site, you can take this course. And you’ll learn like if you’re a business owner, you’ll be empowered because you’ll understand the way your site’s built, you understand what you can do with your website. And you’ll understand the the bottom lines of things like just enough of the technology to connect the pieces, you don’t have to be the expert. But it’s very important to know a little bit about what you’re talking about with your site or else you can be taken advantage of.
Keegan 6:21
And again, if you’re somebody who’s building websites and want to get into it as a side hustle and or your full time gig and leave what you’re doing, because you’re unhappy, this course will absolutely set the footing underneath you to to really supercharge this and take it to the next level. And if you finish this course, I have a few, a few buddies of mine who do some amazing business courses that can really help you scale and know process and systems and take it to the next level. But that’s enough about that will link leave the link below. And if you’re interested, check it out. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out. But jumping into number three, here is the very last one on this list. And it’s full screen takeover pop ups, specifically the ones that asked you to give me your email. And really any of them means a video, it doesn’t matter.
Keegan 7:07
Those are absolutely completely aggravating. They destroy user flow. And they’re almost never optimized for mobile. So there’s some companies that have some good plugins that are optimized for mobile, just the use cases are usually pretty crappy. If I’m honest, most people will put up something that takes over the whole screen, it breaks what you’re trying to do it, it rips your attention away from what you’re focusing on. And I have to admit, like I’ve been guilty of this myself, up until very recently, my website had one on there. And I started looking through the conversions because I’ve been deepen in some client work. And I hadn’t really looked at the numbers on my site in a little while a few months. And I found that really wasn’t converting at all.
Keegan 7:49
So all I was doing was keeping people from leaving the website, which was what they were wanting to do. And yeah, the goal is to keep people on their site. But I don’t want to, I don’t want to hold people hostage if you’re if you’re in the process of leaving the site, because you’ve either not found what you were looking for, or you found what you’re looking for had the answer and it’s time to go on. The last thing I want to do is keep somebody there, because all it’s going to do quite frankly, is piss them off and make them not want to do business with me. So that issue has been fixed the head, that whole process has been changed. And if you’re going to do it like again, I’m not against email marketing at all, I think it’s probably one of the most if not the most important thing you can do for your business is to build your audience and a platform that you own. Your list is something that you own. It’s much better than any number of followers you can have on social media, because you don’t necessarily have access to them, and not the way that you think you can’t pull their data. And if that platform decides to shut down, you just kind of sLl You know, you’re out of luck.
Keegan 8:48
So highly recommend building an email list. But do it in a way that’s optimized, maybe make it pop up from the bottom make sure it’s you’re really intentional about the way you do it on mobile. It’s really important. And yeah, so absolutely do that sign up, have email, signups do those things, maybe put them in line in your in your blog posts, you can see if you go over a link up a similar blog post to or something, it’s actually the blog post for this episode, over on my website. And you’ll see over on the right if you’re on desktop, there’s an option to get our free website starter PDF. That’s a good example of a way you can do it where it’s in line. And it doesn’t distract from what people are ultimately there to do.
Keegan 9:30
And people who are going to my site trying to read this blog, really just want to read the content. So everything is on the right side. And if you’re on mobile, it will be underneath it. So it’s kind of tucked away in and it’s less, less intrusive. So that’s kind of the the goal for this. You know, the ending of this is trying to build a great website, trying to build a great web. That’s good not only for developers, but for us users. I mean, even if we build sites, I mean, we’re ultimately consumers of websites.
Keegan 9:58
So it’s really important that The web is not a jumbled mess, it’s not hot trash. And sites are clean. They’re, they’re quick, and they’re built in a way that that is easy to use. So you know, I appreciate you listening in on another episode of the Divi addicts podcast, we’re going to keep on chugging along, we’re going to keep on making more episodes. And you know, if you’re interested in seeing video form tutorials and different business tips, we’ve just kind of split and really divided the, the YouTube channel, so we’re going to have things specifically for Divi. And then we’re going to have tips and tricks for business owner.
Keegan 10:33
So the two communities that I want to serve, number one, I do want to help people who want to grow a design business who want to do this as a side hustle and grow it into something more, absolutely love coaching people who are trying to build websites and trying to grow their business. And on the flip side of that is I love talking business, I really have a soft spot in my heart for for small business owners. And for medium sized owners too, you know people who are trying to grow their business and trying to scale, I love those types of individuals, I think it takes a huge amount of guts. And if I can help you understand and drive different traffic through your website and ultimately make some cash, I’m going to teach you those steps and help you understand that websites are not a liability. They’re not. They’re not a cost, they should be seen as an asset. And they should be a major part of your sales funnel and ultimately, your conversion process.
Keegan 11:28
So let’s stay in touch. If you’re interested in that, go over to the YouTube channel. We’ll also link that below. And the podcast is always and will always be a great place to come and hear this voice and talk about Divi talk about business, talk about WordPress. So go out there, stay safe. treat those around you with kindness mask up, because it’s a kind thing to do. And we’ll see you in the next episode of the Divi addicts podcast. Have an awesome week.