Don’t make these fatal mistakes when building your website
Whether you’re trying to promote your business or your personal brand, one thing you’re going to need is a great website. Your website is something your customers can look at 24 hours a day, accessing it whenever they want to know something about your business or your service.
Your website is often the thing that makes the first impression on your audience. You should be thinking about making the best first impression imaginable – so making mistakes when building your website is to be avoided at all costs.
To give you an idea of the sort of things you should be avoiding when building your website, read on. Some of them could be fatal!
- Trying to build it yourself
Trying to build your website yourself can be tempting, especially if you’re just starting out. However, building your site yourself could lead to some terrible errors. It’ll take you a lot of time (time that could be spent on your business elsewhere), and won’t end up looking nearly as good as it would have if a local web design company had created it. Avoid building it yourself and choose professionals to do it for you.
- Not targeting your audience
Knowing exactly who your audience are is key in any business. Have your targeted your site to your audience? You can’t please or target everybody, so you need to make sure you’ve considered your target audience in everything you do, from your colors to your font.
- Making it too complicated
No website should be complicated. The navigation should be simple, and your visitors should be able to find what they are looking for with ease. If they can’t, they will leave and make a mental note not to come back.
It’s no good if your site becomes complicated at the checkout process, either. They will abandon their carts if it isn’t simple enough.
- Forgetting clear call to actions
Having a clear call to action is imperative for getting your visitors to take the action you want them to take, whether this is sign up to your newsletter or make a purchase. You need to be clear and let them know exactly what you want them to do.
Using A/B testing on your call to actions will help you to find the best placements, colors, and sizes.
- Poor copy/content
Your copy/content needs to do a few things. It needs to entice your readers, as well as solve their problems. Website copy needs to be compelling and accurate, describing your products/services well. Your content can be on a number of different things, but it should still offer value to your reader.
Typos, grammatical errors, and other issues can be distracting for the reader. As can chunks of texts with no subheadings. Make sure you focus on creating quality content, or better yet, outsource this to a pro.
- Poor quality photos
Photographs help to break things up and give people an accurate idea of who they are dealing with or what they are purchasing with. Your smartphone usually won’t be good enough, so it’s worth investing in a better camera, or some professional pictures.
Pictures should be used to break up copy and content. Some blogs can even be picture heavy. Just make sure they are attractive and enhanced!
- Failing to optimize for mobile
The majority of people browse using a mobile device. If your site isn’t built right from the start to be viewed on mobile, it can be tough and expensive to rectify later. Make sure you consider this right from the start and that your site can be viewed on multiple browsers and devices.
You will lose traffic and sales if your site is not responsive.
- Forgetting SEO
Search engine optimization is the only way your audience are going to be able to find your website. Somebody could be looking for your exact product/service, but they won’t find you if your site isn’t properly optimized. This is something else that needs to be considered from the very start, so that it isn’t too tough to fix later.
- Going for style over function
Your site needs to look great, but ultimately, it’s not a brochure. There’s no use trying to fit everything on one page, or forgetting function in favor of style. Make sure your site is functional first and foremost, and then make style your second focus.
Make sure you avoid the above 9 mistakes when building your website and you should end up with a wonderful website that helps you to achieve your goals!
