Top 5 Website Mistakes You Shouldn’t Be Making

by Louis Tanguay - January 9, 2015

Top 5 Website Mistakes You Shouldn't Be Making
Whatever size your business is, chances are, you’re making some major mistakes when it comes to your website. We have listed the Top 5 biggest mistakes below. There are more, but these are the top of the top and will have the biggest negative effect on your business. These all must be corrected ASAP, because each of these hinders your ability to get found, get more clients, and ultimately use your website for what it’s meant for…to help your increase your business!

1. No Clear Call-To-Action on Web Pages

The first step is what happens when someone comes to your Home Page. This is one of the biggest issues, and creates an incredibly high Bounce Rate (people come to your site and leave immediately without doing anything). High Bounce Rates = Bad Website. Most visitors will leave a site if they become confused or can’t easily find what they are looking for. Let’s fix this.

You’ll need a clear Call-To-Action (CTA) on every page, especially the Home Page. A Call-To-Action is a main element, picture, box, messaging, etc which instructs the visitor what you want them to do above all other options. Whether it’s a slider on the home page, or an email sign-up form, or your blog posts, you must have a clear and clean instruction for what you want the visitor to do now that they’re on your website. If you’re selling shoes, then put some pictures for shoes on the home page and a few links and pictures to purchase your shoes. Make it obvious and the main thing that sticks out on the page. It’s preferable to have two Calls-To-Action, but don’t make them both the same size and importance. There should be a main CTA, and a secondary one.

This goes for your interior pages, as well. Nowadays, with blogs and search engines pulling up the most relevant information for any and every search query, not every user will come to your site through your Home Page. This is important to know that you will need a main Call-To-Action on the interior pages as well. Maybe your Blog’s CTA is the blog article itself, but the secondary CTA is your e-mail sign-up form, for example.

2. Website Isn’t Properly Optimized for Search Engine Rankings

In today’s world of Search Engines dominating the world we live in, have a website that’s not properly optimized for maximum Search Engine rankings is a huge mistake. If you can’t be found, then you’ll either have to buy traffic to your website, or you won’t have any traffic at all, because you won’t exist in the eyes of the search world.

For a longer list of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tips & Tricks, please read our article on that subject, but here’s a quick over view so you know what you’re looking for. You want to make sure you know which KeyWords you want to rank for, how much competition there is for those KeyWords, and also place those KeyWords throughout your pages, page titles, web page addresses, and in the ALT Tags of your images. Don’t over-do it. Just follow the best practices guidelines and you’ll be rising in the rankings in no time (if you constantly keep doing it, of course).

Also, make sure that you create an XML Site Map and submit that Site Map to Google and Bing through each of their Web Master Tools Accounts.

3. No Social Media integration

Much like Search Engines, Social Networks are also ubiquitous these days, and offer a great deal of visibility opportunity for your business. It’s very easy to put in a free WordPress plugin (if you’re using WordPress), which will automatically place Social Media sharing buttons at the end of every Blog post on your website. You can also enter in a line of code to allow visitors to Like your Facebook page or Follow you on Twitter without ever leaving your website! This is great functionality, and the combined possibility of allowing sharing and capturing social fans is immensely powerful.

Another great idea is to replace your default commenting area in your blog articles with a 3rd Party platform which can help encourage sharing. For example, Facebook Comments will allow the poster of the comment to allow that comment to be visible on their Facebook Profile and in their News Feed so their friends can see that they’ve commented on your Blog article. This increases the opportunity to connect with others without having to do anything (and for FREE, too).

4. Not Tracking/Analyzing results/progress

If you didn’t know how many visitors were coming to your site, how would you know if you had increased traffic? If you didn’t know where they were coming from, how would you know which off-site efforts were working? If you didn’t know what pages on your website your visitors were viewing, how long they were viewing each page, and which page they left on, then how would you be able to know how well your website is working, what’s working, and where you need improvement? You wouldn’t be able to fix anything.

Good news. Google Analytics does all that…and then some. The best part? It’s way more than most websites will ever need, and it’s all free! Install Google Analytics on every single page of your website, especially your shopping cart and all pages throughout the entire checkout process (if you sell online). Now, you’ll be able to see which pages get the most views, which pages people your site leave on, and even how much money you’re making! It’s truly one of the most helpful tools available on all of the Internet that will help your business.

5. Not Having Strong Lead Generation Element (aka E-Mail List Sign-Up)

When a visitor comes to your website, they are most likely a potential customer. They are on your website looking for something. Imagine you have a brick-and-mortar (aka “real life”) store front, and you could capture most of the personal contact information of everyone who walks in the store. Would that be helpful to you? You better believe it. Yet, many many websites don’t have a clear and inviting way for these visitors to sign-up for your email list. Instead, they make the visitor not only work to find the sign-up form, but don’t convince them that it’s a good move.

Instead of just having a “Sign Up for our Email List” form, incentivize them with giving them something for signing up. This also helps you know what kind of people are signing up for your list. Also, you’re making the sign-up form more obvious. Maybe give away an E-Book when they sign up. Something of value that they would want, and by the nature of your offer you’ll know what the person is looking for, because that offer was valuable enough to them to sign up.

Finally, telling them what they can get from signing up goes a long way to them actually signing up. For example, a travel website with the form reading, “Sign Up for our Weekly Travel Tips and Suggested Destinations” will get way way more sign-ups to their E-Mail List then just the plain, vague and boring request in the above paragraph.

E-Mail is one of the best forms of communication with your customers and potential customers. Reason being is because these days the user has to go through a double-opt-in process. hey fill out the form, and then have to click a link in their e-mail to confirm they want to be on your E-Mail List. The person who goes through that process really is interested in hearing what you have to say and doesn’t mind you telling them about it periodically. So, treat them with the respect they deserve as your best prospects and those who are ready to find out more about your company, products, and services.

There you have it. If you notice that you are making one or two of these mistakes, they are easy fixes. If you notice you are making all of these mistakes, then thank goodness you found out now before it’s too late! We offer a Marketing Course which is done online and will give you all kinds of immensely valuable information like the tips above. If you’re making more than one of these mistakes, you might be making mistakes in other areas of your business, too, which could be inhibiting you from attaining your desired business goals and success. Call us if you have more questions, or just comment below and let us know what you think! As always, thanks for sharing this and for your comments!