As a new or existing business owner, there is a whole host of benefits that can be produced from creating a website for your business. For those that have yet to create one, there is a huge amount of potential traffic and conversions that you are missing out on!
When owning and maintaining a website, there are a selection of problems that can be faced. Often these mistakes and problems can occur at the beginning of the process when the website is being built. With most businesses unsure of where to start when it comes to creating their very own site they sometimes end up falling short, creating an un-optimised and underperforming site that has little benefit to the business.
In order to make the process of creating a website for your business easier and help minimise the amount of mistakes made, we will be discussing the most common pitfalls and how you can avoid making them for yourself. Along with helping you to be prepared, we will also educate you on how to tackle, resolve and create the best website possible for your budget.
Settling With A Slow Loading Time
One of the biggest downfalls a business can have on their website is a slow loading time.
When creating and maintaining a website, it is recommended to regularly check the loading time to make sure that the load speed is faster than 2 seconds. Most visitors will only wait a few seconds for the page to load, the slower the loading time, the higher the chances that the visitor will click off your site before going elsewhere.
The website must be quick at loading each page, by doing so it can offer the visitors a satisfactory visit and closes a conversion in record timing. To resolve this issue for yourself, first, make sure the site is hosted on a high-quality server.
It is also recommended than when originally building the site, consider avoiding the use of too many plug-ins and add-ons. This is because the addition of too many plug-ins can slow the loading speed. Instead, focus on fully optimising, working to ensure everything is correctly sized and sustainable so users only download the parts of the website they need. Caching is one of the most effective tools, taking load off the server while massively decreasing the time taken for a user to download a page.
Poor Navigation
Likewise, with the loading speed, visitors want to be able to visit a site and be able to find what they are seeking both quickly and easily. If, however, the website is crammed with sections and categories that make finding a simple page difficult, they will resort to again, finding another site to use.
There are a few ways that businesses can use to keep a simple website navigation, while still keeping the site looking professional and sophisticated. For example, they can do this by sticking to a standard website template. For this, each page should look exactly the same with the same navigation points, and provide the website with all the basic features that can make it durable and simple to use.
It is also recommended when building a website to stick to the most standard navigation features possible. Because of these, every page will run smoothly, and they won’t be any special feature that could possibly cause navigation disruptions or confusion to new website visitors. Remember first impressions are important and if the visitor is struggling to navigate and make their way around the site, they will leave and not to return again.
Confusing Branding
When creating a website for your business, it is important to visit the site as though you are a customer, and look at every feature and detail with a critical eye. One thing that should be looked at closely, is whether your brand identity is clear and apparent, featured throughout each page on the site. If it is not, it can become very confusing to visitors, about who you are as a brand, the service you can provide and the problems that you can solve.
Something as simple as having the business logo in the top corner of each page, or using a colour scheme that corresponds to a corporate company, or that of a makeup business, are all important. The more consistent the branding is throughout the webpages, the easier it will be for the visitors to recognise your business, and therefore decide whether or not they will buy into your services.
Missing A Call To Action
A business may assume that when a visitor comes onto their site, it is because they know exactly what they want from the company, and that they will make their own way around the site until they find what they are looking for. However, this assumption is far from the case.
As a matter of fact, instead of letting the visitor make their own way around the site, the website should show the visitor instead.
When landing on your site through a relevant URL, through the addition of links, you can navigate and guide your visitors throughout the pages, showing all the services that you can offer.
The sign can be as small as a contact button or a link to a services page, as long as it forces the customer to make the action and press the button. By adding a call to action on all pages, conversions can be increased as the website is making the visitor follow them around each page with the use of these CTA buttons.
Another top tip when adding call to actions onto the page, place these buttons in a contrasting colour, different from the rest of the web page, this allows them to stand out while demanding that they are clicked.
Not Using SEO
All businesses want to create websites that will be seen by the masses. But what is often forgotten is that Google needs to know about the site first, before an audience can be generated.
For this to happen, the website needs to be optimised. One of the easiest ways to optimise your website for a higher search engine position is through SEO, ‘Search Engine Optimization.
The way in which this works is by having a high-quality SEO management strategy. Each page should have links to resources and other partnering companies, images should have labels called ‘ALT tags’ that aid them in getting recognised by google, and each piece of content produced should be optimized with keywords and content terms that will allow Google to notice them and understand not just the relevance but the meaning and the topic of each webpage.
By taking the time to optimise yourself, preferably before the site has been created, you can tell Google that along with being a trusted source, your webpage is relevant to the search query asked by the visitor. An effective and well put together SEO strategy, along with bringing your site as high up the search results as possible can also ensure that those clicking onto your site are at a higher rate of converting and returning as a customer in the future.
Where Should I Host My Website?
Aside from understanding the possible issues that may be faced by a business when creating a website, it would be beneficial to know where the site will be hosted.
When building your site, it will be evident that there are two main types of web hosting that is available. These are ‘Internal’ and ‘External’, each with their own unique benefits.
Internal Hosting
Internal web hosting is performed and hosted by the company themselves. In doing this, they must have the resources at hand, which can usually become rather expensive. For example, their tool set must include high-quality hardware, applications, software and servers, to ensure the best performance is always given.
A particularly good example of a server would be that of a Rackmount server. This is because they are highly flexible and reliable, something a company personally hosting a website will need, ensuring that it is up and running at all times. Similarly, using a server is energy-efficient, scalable and comes in a range of sizes to suit an office space to create the best working environment possible.
The most attractive feature of internal hosting is the control a business has over their new webpage. Each choice made can go through the IT department, and any issues presented can be sorted with efficient timing, rather than having to wait for a different service to complete the tasks for you.
External Hosting
This is usually the most practical choice taken by many businesses. Unlike internal, external hosting is done by outsourcing their website for a company that can host it for them. It is simply done as it is much more efficient and a lot less costly, taking away a huge workload from a business where time may be short.
Because of the liking to external web hosting, there has been many different hosting services made, each offering a diverse range of features to cater to every website, allowing both parties to gain from this set up.
If external hosting becomes the chosen option, the company will feel at ease when handing over their site, knowing that someone can help when a problem was to occur.
Summary
Overall, creating a website for your business can be hard work, and you will face a number of challenges. However, by keeping these often forgotten mistakes in mind, you can create a fast, optimised site that can help increase revenue, productivity and conversions.
By keeping in mind that the website is being produced in order to generate these kinds of leads, adding the finishing touches may not seem as difficult. From ensuring that it has a quality structure and navigation, is optimized for Google, has a loading speed that is reputable and clear branding with call to actions, there is no reason why this website will not be beneficial to the company.
We would love to hear your thoughts, share and comment mistakes that you too have made when creating a new website and how you have overcome them.
Written by Sydney Tierney
Sydney Tierney; just recently finished her studies; is working her way into the world of content writing as a digital marketing assistant. She writes for clients that specialize in workstations, energy procurement, and seo specialists.
