31 Jan 13 Common Website Mistakes.
It has become common knowledge that it is necessary for businesses, even the small ones, to have a website. The online presence the business will almost immediately open up their market. Reaching people who may not have initially wanted your services but learn that they may actually need them. What is not considered when a business decides to invest in a website is the overall functionality of the website and the user experience. These are just two highly potential business killers. Consider how you experience various websites using the points to come. This will definitely lead you in the correct direction. We are all ultimately consumers.
The Non-Negotiable:
1. Under-Planning Your Website
A website is like a restaurant. One would not open a restaurant without extensive planning; this applies to the design and development of a website.
The planning begins with content, particularly high quality content that has researched and refined prior to any designing. Content marketing is the starting point to greatness
2. You Need a Clear Call to Action
Gathering leads or subscribers is not even close to leaving an impression. Now, it’s time to entice them and pull them into your website. This can be achieved with the use of clear Calls to Action. One can use colour, shapes or images to get the users’ attention and ultimately getting them to click that button.
3. Being Tempted by Keyword Over-Optimization
Keyword are just a small part of increasing your Google ranking. Overloading your site with keywords can be detrimental to your business. Google is so incredibly effective when it comes to isolating websites that abuse keywords. If you happen to be doing such, dial it back. A lot. Google will end up removing your website for the Google Search Results.
4. Including Unnatural Links
We all know using links on a website can be highly beneficial when it comes to your Google ranking. However, this only applies to inbound links that come about naturally, such as guest blogging. I seriously advice that you make use of them because Google will know where the links come from and it is not found of unnatural links. These are the links people purchase with the hopes of increasing their Google ranking. Google will remove your website from its search results if it is aware of all the unnatural links with which you have populated your site.
5. Learn About Google Analytics
Get serious and make Google Analytics your best friend. It is going to supply you with the information that could make or break your website. One route to failure is publishing low quality content. If you don’t know how your audience is receiving your content, how can you possibly improve on it? This is just one piece of information Google Analytics can provide you with and there is still so much more. Find out how many clicks your pages are receiving, the type of audience that’s viewing your pages and even how much time a user spends on various pages. The cherry on top… It’s FREE!
6. Starting a Website Without SEO
Let us consider SEO as the foundation of your website, it is definitely not the roof. Consult an SEO expert before uploading your content to make sure you maximise on the site’s capability to be discoverable online.
The Basics:
1. Using Headlines That Directly Talk About Your Product or Service
You need to lure your users into your content. It is useless to just give the headlines a generic name or the name of the brand/product. The user is on your site hoping to find a solution to their problems. How you present the product to the user matters. The title should appear to be the solution.
2. Exclusively Focusing on Your Products or Services
It’s understood that the website will be used to share your products and services and the relevant prices. This basic outlook will ensure that you fade into the background. If you intend on standing out, you need to look into how to differentiate yourself. Make your site unique. Just one way of doing this is by focusing on your branding. Inject your personality into the website. Personalisation makes the user experience far more enjoyable, IF executed well.
3. Write for All 100% of Your Website Traffic
If you would like to turn your website visitors into conversions, then pay attention to your target market. Writing for everyone will not work in your favour. The content may come out unfocused and unpleasant to read. Focusing on your niche target, will help you make more conversions.
4. Being Anti-Social When It Comes to Social Media
Bring your website to the party, how else will users be exposed to it. Social media is very helpful when it comes to pulling users into your website. These users probably wouldn’t have found you through the convention searches. Social media is an aid, use it.
The Experience:
1. Falling Victim to the Poor Navigation Trap
You will lose a potential customer if you don’t take note of the navigation of your website. Your sitemap should be accessible, preferably at all times. The Bounce rate will hurt if your users get lost.
2. Overlooking the Importance of Your Site’s Blog
This is the easiest place to embed your personality as well as the company’s brand. Ensure that the content is written well and the content is engaging, informative or even entertaining. Schedule these updates regularly. If possible, have your blogs researched, written and prepared for the next few updates.
If the idea of blogging rattles you, then make use of a copywriter. They should be able to write engaging and meaningful content while hopefully making use of SEO when writing the content.
3. The Users Value: Need for Speed
Anything that’s not necessary on your site, remove it. One of the worst things you can do to your site is to overload it with high resolution graphics or animated images – particularly long videos. If that animation is there because it looks “cool”, remove it. A slow loading website can be detrimental to the ROI of the website. There’s no reason to hinder yourself so just optimise so that your users enjoy engaging with your website.
So there you go! Stay clear of these mistakes and you will definitely be on the right track regarding the success of your website. For those who already have sites which happen to be struggling, take these points and implement them. Positive results are pending.
