Top 5 website mistakes to avoid

 2017-10-23

While it is vital for every business to have a website in order to be successful, it’s important to ensure that the website is designed, managed and maintained effectively. A bad website is as harmful as no website at all!

Before designing a new website or upgrading your old one, you and your design team need to consider the following:
What are your goals for the site?
Who are the target customers/clients?
How will you drive traffic?
Who will be in charge of updating content? How regularly?

The following five mistakes MUST be avoided in order to have a successful website which appears highly in search engine rankings:

1) No Call to Action

A successful website should tell a customer what to do, where to go and how to feel. A call to action (CTA) will focus your customer’s attention on the next step. You need to promote your services/products before using persuasive text that encourages action. It is not necessary to be overly creative with your CTA, however it must be clear, simple and concise, telling people exactly what they should do. The most effective include:
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2) No Analytics

While your website might look amazing, the only way to tell if it is having the impact you require is to look at analytic data to track performance. You need to be able to measure your success. With the vast growth in social media in recent years, people can share all of your information and with the use of analytics, you can see exactly how many times articles, information, pictures etc are being shared around the community. You can also see how many times people are clicking onto your site, purchasing products and engaging with your communication.

One of the biggest benefits of analytic tools (the most popular being Google Analytics) is the ability to target specific audiences with your social media posts. You can tailor your digital marketing to any target group you want.

3) Weak SEO

Unfortunately there is no easy way to magically achieve high website rankings. It requires work and regular website content. We talk in depth about SEO next month where you will learn the basics and much more. Search engine algorithms have become much smarter than they used to and include the use of genuinely useful information, social media interaction, new content, keywords and properly titled webpages. An old and abandoned website has the attraction power of an old and abandoned building. No one will be interested in something which is out of date and full of badly written keyword related articles. The internet and Google has moved on!

4) Hidden Contact Information

If you are putting your business on the internet, people need to be able to contact you. Potential clients need to be able to call or email at their whim and do not want to have to trawl through your site map to find out how to do this. A good option is to have your phone number clearly marked (with a CTA) in the header. Ultimately, you need to minimise the clicks to maximise your growth. You should always have a contact us page on your site and allow as many communication options as possible – phone, email and social media. Make sure you reply promptly and encourage communication.

5) Not Mobile Friendly

In this day and age, it is not acceptable to have a website that does not convert to mobile. A huge number of people only view the internet from their devices and if your website does not load up properly, you could be missing out on a great deal of potential business! People are always connected nowadays and you cannot afford not to have a mobile presence. Make the most out of the 24-hour business hours your website ensures and be compatible.