Chamber web design mistakes to avoid
When it comes to your local Chamber of Commerce, your website should be the core of your marketing efforts. It’s a place where visitors can learn about your initiatives, members can keep up with upcoming events, and potential members can find out more about why they should join.
However, many chambers have websites that are stuck in the early days of the internet. As a result, they’re doing their organizations and communities a disservice by not showcasing how essential chamber membership is for local businesses.
To help you decide if you’re in need of an update (hint: you are), We have outlined five issues with traditional Chamber websites below.
You don't know who your audience is on your Chamber website
It’s essential to know your audience in order to create a website that works. Knowing who your audience is and what they need helps you prioritize what content should be featured on your site. This gives you the best chance at making sure your site is relevant and valuable for your target audience, which means people will want to visit it often, share it with others and return for more information.
Your Chamber website offers outdated information
If your business is disorganized, it will show. If your website content is stale or outdated, it can reflect poorly on the organization’s commitment to its members and the community. For example: if there are no links to any recent news articles posted on the site and there hasn’t been an update in months, this might be a sign of disorganization.
Your Chamber website has a poor design
Make sure your chamber website looks professional and reflects the image you want to project to your members. If you want to be perceived as an innovative, forward-thinking organization that welcomes new ideas and is always looking for ways to improve, then make sure your site shows that through its design.
A bad design:
- Can cause low brand recognition
- It can drive away visitors
- It can negatively affect the user experience
- It can hurt search engine optimization
A good design is so important to show the community that the Chamber of Commerce is an authority on business.
A well designed website:
- Should be mobile friendly
- Easy to navigate
- Well organized
- Have a consistent look and style
There's too much information on your website
One of the most fundamental mistakes businesses make when setting up their websites is the deluge of information they present to visitors. While it’s essential to be as thorough as possible with your site, you also need to keep in mind that people don’t want to browse through pages and pages of material, they want what they came for, and then they want to leave.
If you have too much content on your Chamber website, there are a couple of things that can happen:
- Visitors won’t find what they’re looking for
- Visitors will get frustrated and abandon the site
Your Chamber of Commerce website design isn't focused enough on conversions
Conversions are what you’re after with any website, but this is especially important for Chamber of Commerce websites. If no one registers for events, sponsorships, or becomes new members, you are doing something wrong.
It would be best if you were tracking your conversion rates and optimizing them, so more people convert into customers. But don’t forget about the other things we mentioned earlier: making sure your site looks good, has an excellent mobile experience, has easy navigation, and so on. All these things add up to create an overall great user experience, and they’re just as important as conversion optimization.
Conclusion
We know that Chambers of Commerce have a lot on their plates, and managing your website is probably not at the top of your list. But it should be! A well-designed site is a great marketing tool to help you reach out to potential members and promote their participation in your initiatives. So if you have an outdated and underused chamber website, it’s time for an upgrade! Talk to us about web design or other digital marketing services today!
