Top 5 Website Mistakes – How Many Are You Making?
Your website is the backbone of your marketing efforts and provides the foundation for your digital presence as a business owner.
So, it’s crucial that you get it right and keep it on top form if it’s going to serve your business well in terms of attracting visitors, converting them into customers and keeping your brand reputation strong.
Did you know that 55% of website visitors take just 15 seconds or fewer to decide if your website is what they’re looking for, or not?
The problem for many business owners that I talk to is that they don’t know what they should be doing with their website beyond adding content.
Once the web designer has delivered their shiny new website that looks amazing and does the job, many people will leave the website untouched aside from uploading a blog now and then. Unfortunately, as your business evolves and changes, a website that worked well a few months ago could be out of date now.
That could be costing your business leads, profits and even damaging your credibility.
Today I want to run through the most common website mistakes that I come across and how you can avoid making them or fix them if you already have.
1 – Out of date information
Are the details on your website still right for your business?
If you’ve changed phone number, email address, home or office address then you need to make sure that your website reflects these changes. It’s vital for customers to be able to contact you but did you know that if the information is different elsewhere on the internet, Google could rank it down in terms of SEO?
Another thing to look out for is your social media profiles – if you’ve changed the name or URL the links may now be broken. Make sure that when you click through from your website, they go to the right page.
2 – Page speed
Ok, this one is a little technical, but bear with me.
We all hate slow loading websites, right? I bet you’ve clicked back to search results when a website was taking too long to load. So naturally, your web visitors are likely to be doing the same.
There are several reasons why the page speed may be taking longer now than when your website was new, like:
- you’ve uploaded large image files
- you haven’t cleared the browser cache
- you’ve installed new WordPress plugins
- you’ve exceeded your data allowance with your web host
I suggest installing an image compression plugin (WP Smush is a good one that’s free although there is a premium version) which will reduce the image file size without affecting the quality of the picture. A caching plugin that deletes data is also worth installing – WP Fastest Cache is a simple one to use, or check if your security plugin has one built within it.
Disable any plugins that aren’t essential to the running of your website and delete any old ones that you just won’t be using anymore.
Check with your web host from time to time that everything is working as it should be (your host account will show you how much data you’re using, etc).
3 – Too much text
I’d also say too many pages along with too much text.
How much is too much?
That’s difficult to say as it will vary from business to business, but really you want to be able to say what you do, why it helps your target audience and why they should choose you as succinctly as possible.
Google does prefer a minimum word count of around 400 words per page so this is a good amount to aim for. In many cases, if it takes you much more than that to get your sales message across you’re probably waffling too much and the text isn’t as clear to your target audience as it needs to be.
You can give additional information in your blog (and absolutely should be!) but crisp, clear copy that’s easy to read and understand is what your visitors are looking for. Avoid chunky paragraphs and a page full of text wherever you can.
4 – You don’t have a call to action
You have a wonderful website that’s straight to the point but still those customers won’t come?
Do you have a clear call to action on every page?
You might think that it’s common sense for people to read your website and find your contact page but that isn’t the case when it comes to websites, in fact, you really do have to make it explicitly clear what you want your visitors to do next.
You achieve that through a call to action – click here to contact me now, sign up here for your freebie, fill in this form and I’ll get back to you, etc.
Make the call to action big and bold so it jumps out from the page and don’t be afraid to use more than one if there’s a lot of text, or you’re talking about more than one product or service.
5 – Your website isn’t mobile friendly
More people look at websites on their phone or tablet these days than on a laptop or desktop, which means your website must display well on a small screen.
It’s called mobile responsiveness and most WordPress themes do come with it as standard, but there may be some tweaking needed on your part.
It’s always a good idea to check what your website looks like on different screen sizes to ensure it’s working as it should – what is my screen resolution is a free website that allows you to check things quickly and easily.
If your website is a few years old, or isn’t WordPress, there’s a good chance it may not be displaying correctly on mobile devices. If this is the case, you may need to contact your web developer to fix this.
Those are my top 5 website mistakes that I come across fairly often. Have you made any of them?
If you’re not sure about your WordPress website and need a hand making things right again, get in touch with me today for a quick chat on how I can get your website performing well again.