Why You Shouldn’t Have Social Media Icons At The Top Of Your Website
After months of nagging, we’ve eventually convinced Daniel, our MD, to get in front of the camera to share his words of wisdom!
This week, he’ll talk about the positioning of social media icons on your website.
Social media icons. Where should you put them on your website?
There are some people who believe that you should have them, loud and proud, in the header of your site. So, should you go with the majority?
Daniel doesn’t think you should EVER have them at the top, and here’s why:
If a visitor lands on your site and is immediately presented with social media links, it’s an opportunity for them to leave the site. Straight away – no looking back!
If they click on them, granted they’ll be going to your Facebook page, but they are already getting distracted. They’re drawn into various types of content, news, updates, the latest cat videos, images of the best vegan lasagnes money can buy – the list goes on.
Suddenly, a notification will pop up inviting you to an event! It is the middle of November so let’s say it’s for a Christmas party. Your potential customer (from only a few minutes ago) then starts interacting about the party, worrying about the mince pies and if they have a bottle of sherry to take.
What to wear? What to bring? The ‘customer’ has now potentially forgotten all about your site, as well as your products and services, and they’re gone forever. All of the hard work you put in to getting them onto your site has vanished into thin social air!
We’re not saying to not have social media icons. You 100% should have them for whatever social sites you have active accounts on, as they are a very powerful marketing tool.
BUT, have them in the right place. Always be thinking about the customer journey: that journey shouldn’t involve you encouraging a visitor (and potential customer) to leave your site.
Ideally, you should position your social media icons in the footer and/or on your contacts page.
There is a default expectation that the contact details should be in the footer – so that’s where they should be. Make sure you also add them to the bottom of your blog posts so that readers can share your quality content.
You’ve worked hard to get a click and a visitor to your site – don’t lose them to a social media site!
We hope you enjoyed the first of our new VLOG series. We’ll be doing them each and every week going forwards.
Feel free to comment on YouTube and we’ll do our best to reply to any questions that you might have.