Joel HouseIn a world where there is an extension or plugin to handle every little task and feature you can imagine, I see bloated sites on a daily basis. And each time I simple shake my head knowing that if they’d kept their site simple their bank account would be thanking them big time.
So to make sure you don’t make the same mistake, here are the 5 reasons why a simple website will increase your profits.
1. Fewer Development costs
From the very moment that you launch your site you can save anywhere from $ 5,000-$ 30,000 by stripping out the extensions and features that aren’t essential for your websites core functionality. Especially if you’re dealing with specialist developers whose rates can run as high as $ 300 an hour.
When launching a new site that’s a large amount of capital that you save on the front end, plus you’ll soon discover that your site will still work fantastically without the additional bloat.
Just to clarify, there are some extensions that are fantastic and are essential to running a great online store, but most simply aren’t.
2. Less Extension fees
The average extension will set you back approximately $ 100-$ 250 in license fees. When you multiply that by the 10 extensions you’ll skip during the development, your savings stack up very quickly.
3. Site loads quickly
A recent study by wordstream revealed that a faster website can boost conversion rates by up to 15%. By keeping your site simple, clean and easy, you’ll find that it will launch faster.
Recent tests complete by Great4You revealed that by simply eliminating a third party social media widget they boosted their speed rank on Google’s developer tools by 3 points. Then by further stripping out 5 other non needed plugins they were able to boost their results by a further 8 points. Not a bad effort for an hours work.
The result of this was a 6.7% increase in opt-in conversions and a decrease in bounce rate by 8.2%.
This isn’t where it ends though. By having less extensions and plugins, it’s far easier to implement caching services which can boost your speak by a further 10-12%
4. Easier To Optimize
When your website is kept simple, its far easier to optimize it to increase your sales. As you already know, a high conversion rate is the holy grail in eCommerce success, so being able to easily implement split tests is essential.
For example, if you had 5 different extensions on your product page, it’d be very hard (and expensive) for your developer to implement split tests due to extension conflicts. Not only will this cost you more to implement each test, but it will also slow down the rate at which you can adapt and change.
There are many conversion rate optimization checklists out there that will walk you through the tests that you can run. And as you start doing your research you’ll find that that a simple website will make your life a lot easier
5. Creates an easier visitor path.
How many times have you landed on a website but didn’t know how to simply buy the product you’re after? Its not rocket science, but all too often website owners get so caught up in offering features that they forget about the simplifying the visitors experience.
As a general rule, your reader should be able to find what they are looking for in 3 clicks from the home page, and in under 10 seconds. If it takes longer, re-think your strategy and eliminate anything in the way.
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