Websites and Social Media Icons

Why Even the Smallest Details Matter When Building Your Website

There are so many things you need to know to build a website, but today, we’re going to tackle one seemingly tiny but potentially irritating feature: those stinking social buttons.

Some buttons are meant to give your visitors an easy way to follow your social channel without leaving your site. Others are used to allow your visitor to share your web content across their social channels. When designing their websites, people often mix up these two functions.

This tiny mistake can have huge repercussions. Don’t believe us? Here are 3 things that happen when you fail to use your social buttons correctly:

1. Your Visitors Tune Out

Put yourself in the shoes of someone who’s visiting your website. You’re having a wonderful experience, and you come across this awesome piece of content that you want to share. You noticed that there are social media icons under the cover image, and intuitively, you assume that this is how you share the content with your online social circle.

…Nope, it’s just a way for you to follow the author on their channel.

Hold up. Now, instead of simply clicking a button, you now have to copy the URL, open your social media, paste, write a post, and share. That interruption sours what was once a seamless browsing experience.

Instead of falling in love with and sharing the awesome content on your site, your potential customers might just decide it’s not worth the hassle.

2. You Miss an Opportunity

When someone is starting to fall in love with your content, but they’re suddenly met with an annoying obstacle (like unhelpful social buttons), it actually does something to their brain and shifts how they view you.

This is due to the affect heuristic. The affect heuristic is a phenomenon that occurs when the sub-conscience, in an attempt to save valuable time and mental energy, makes a split-second decision in response to an external stimulus. It stops the person from taking in any further information or research, which means he/she bases the decision entirely on that one factor.

One small negative aspect of an experience, therefore, can cause your potential customer’s subconscious mind to completely write you off.

3. You Lose Credibility

Another aspect of affect heuristic demonstrates the principle of guilt by association. For example, say that you’re a local physician who has built her own website. The problem is, however, that it doesn’t quite work like it should.

“Oh well,” you think, “I’m being paid to practice medicine, not build websites.” While that may be true, anyone visiting your site will automatically view you as less competent overall. That’s just the way our brains work. Logically, we know that a doctor doesn’t have to know how to create a website to successfully treat an illness, but our subconscious brain doesn’t draw that distinction.

That’s why the devil’s in the details when you’re building your website. Every little thing matters because it’s all a reflection of the quality of your business as a whole.

While it might seem silly to stress over the difference between a few social buttons, it’s what we do here at Michaels Wilder (and for good reason). Websites can be, and most of the time are, the first impression you make on a prospect. It’s, therefore, absolutely vital that you pay attention to the details and put your best foot forward.

So, if you have questions or just want someone to take the work off your hands, Michaels Wilder is a great resource for your business.