The Ketchup Theory
You wouldn't walk into a meeting with ketchup down your shirt. So why let your website do it for you?
You wouldn’t turn up to a meeting with ketchup down your shirt.
Not because you wouldn’t notice. Because you’d never risk the impression it makes. Before you’ve said a word, the other person has already decided something about you.
Your website does the same job as that shirt. It’s the first thing most people see of your business, usually before they’ve ever spoken to you. And for most of them, it happens on a phone.
Most people never see your site the way you do
Business owners tend to look at their own website on a laptop, at a desk, when they’re calm. Customers don’t. They look on a phone, on the bus, between other things, with their thumb.
That’s where the ketchup shows. The menu that doesn’t open. The phone number you can’t tap. The text that runs off the side of the screen. The photo that takes eight seconds to load. None of it is dramatic. All of it costs you.
Five questions to ask
Pick up your phone, open your website and ask yourself:
- Is there an easy way to get to your other pages from the homepage?
- Within a few seconds, would a stranger know exactly what you do?
- Can you tap every button and link comfortably with a thumb, without zooming in first?
- Is a phone number or a way to get in touch visible without scrolling far?
- Does everything load properly, with no overlapping text, cut off images or odd gaps?
If you answered no to any of them, that’s your ketchup.
Why I built a tool for it
Telling people to check their site on a phone doesn’t work. They nod, and then they don’t. So I built a small free tool that shows your actual website, live, inside a phone frame, with those five questions alongside it. No email address, no sales sequence, nothing stored.
Try the Ketchup Theory on your own site.
Most of the fixes are small. The impression they make isn’t.
Independent digital strategy consultant, Manchester