Many businesses understand the importance of establishing an engaging online presence through a website. But achieving that is a big task. If your business is relatively new or just developing its online presence, you may have made some detrimental but easy to fix mistakes. So take some time and review these common beginner mistakes so that your website can attract more visitors and drive traffic.
1. A lack of vision or purpose
Was your website created just because you know you need an online presence? Does your website have a purpose? Your website’s purpose should have been decided early on in the decision-making design planning stages. Take a good look at your website and ask yourself, ‘What does this do for my business?’ Does it sell a service or product? Does it provide leads or information about your business or products? If a user lands on your website and doesn’t immediately know what your website is about, you’ve just lost a potential customer. Keep your leading goals at the focal point of all your website design and decision-making. Everything on your website can work harder for you; make sure to use every website element to contribute to your growth directly.
2. Undefined target audience
What is your market? Did you research your market before designing and building your website? Who is your target audience? How old are they? What do they do for work? Where do they live? Is your website designed with your target market in mind? Market research and planning will make your website more effective and accessible to your target market. Having a well-structured web presence brings your website closer to your target audience.
3. Overcomplicated design
Keep it simple. Flashy, complicated, and difficult to navigate websites with NOT reach your target market and will not improve your traffic flow. It doesn’t matter how good it looks or how impressed you are; if it is too flashy or difficult to navigate, your website will not be effective. Visitors will get frustrated and not explore further.
4. Outdated content
When was the last time you updated your content? Is your website up to date with your current business? Older, out-of-date content makes your business look behind the times or even out of business. Ensure your audience knows your business is active and flourishing by curating a fresh and modern website.
5. Lack of graphics or poorly designed graphics
Graphics are essential to any website, but if they are poor quality images or outdated images, it will be a turn-off for potential customers. Your website will look cheap, poorly designed, and not what you want your customer to see. You want the images and photographs to draw the customer into the website, not give them a giggle and have them move on. Plan your images. Do they make sense for your business and your message? Use high-quality stock images or hire a professional photographer.
6. Lack of branding
Branding extends well beyond your company name and logo. Everything from the color choice, website design, and voice in your content work together to present a specific brand identity to your audience. Be smart and compressive about your brand’s image. Spend time outlining your brand purpose, aesthetic, and mission so that all of your design choices and content amplify the brand.
7. Lack of functionality
Is everything working on your website? Are there broken links or pages? Fix it now, and don’t let your users end up on a dead link or 404 page. Test every single page and link. Then test it all again any time you make the needed changes.
8. Lack of readability
Take a critical look at your font and color choices. Is it readable in paragraphs? Is it big enough, or would a user have to scroll in or lean closer to the screen to read it? With fonts, simple is better; in other words, readability is better than aesthetics. Consider your page and font colors carefully. Color choice also contributes heavily to readability. For example, a black page with any color text is challenging for the average person to read. Even high contrast colors, such as red and yellow, work great for road signs or warnings but diminish the readability of websites.
9. No Call to Action
While visitors may find your website, what do you want them to do once they are there? Without a call-to-action, your website is just another site with no reason for the visitor to return and no reason for them to interact with the site or with your business. So what do you want them to do? Sign up for an email list, purchase something, call your business or company, or share your content on social media? Build a call to action into your website and make it prominent and straightforward. Don’t be another online business card.
10. Lack of contact information
Is your business contact information available? Is it hard to find? Why are you hiding it? Lack of or missing content information, especially for smaller to medium-size businesses, decreases the credibility and legitimacy of your website. You need visitors to be able to contact you with questions and comments. Make your contact information visible and easy to find. Otherwise, you are just frustrating your visitor.
11. Missing search function
Simplify the customer experience and navigation. Add a visible search bar. Your customers will appreciate it and be more willing to explore further into your site. Visible search bars improve your visitor experience.
