The more mistakes you make with your website the more business will you lose.
If you are going to succeed in business, it is because of the foundation you are laying. Your website is part of that foundation. But, most businesses do a poor job when it comes to their website. They are doing it wrong from the very beginning.
In this article, we will be talking about some common website mistakes companies make and how you can avoid them.
Mistake #1: Optimize Your Website for Your Brand
A lot of business owners – wrongly – think that they should optimize their their website for their brand. If there is one thing you don’t need to worry about, it is optimizing your website for your brand name. The reality is that you should be the only business using your brand name. If your business name is not unique you have a much bigger problem than a poorly optimized website.
Instead of optimizing your website for your brand you should optimize for your target keywords. For example, our website is optimized for San Diego web designer and related keywords like ecommerce website, SEO, web designer, graphic designer, logo designer, PHP programmer, branding, marketing company, etc.
Think about it. What keywords would your customers search for to find a business like yours? Make a list of those keywords. Create content around those keywords and you will be way ahead of your competition.
Mistake #2: Focusing Only On What’s Being Sold
Your website is there to help you get more business, but only if you know what you are doing. If you just list your services and credentials, no one will care. That’s what all those websites do that don’t get any traffic.
You have to do much better than that. Share your story with your website visitors.
Answer the following questions:
- What is unique about your company?
- What is unique about your service?
- What is unique about your customers?
- What is special about your process?
The better job your website does answering all of the above the more you will differentiate yourself from your competition.
Mistake #3: Assuming That People Know What They Want
Customers usually have something in mind before visiting your site. However, they do like being presented with more options, especially the ones they may not be aware of. Don’t assume that customers only want what they think they want. Optimize your website with this in mind, and you’re sure to capture customers early in the purchasing funnel.
Focus on related services too. For example, we are a web design company. Our website is not just about websites. We also write about logos, graphic design, ecommerce, search engine optimization (SEO), PHP programming, marketing and branding, etc. As you write your website content think about related services too. Don’t just focus on one service.
Also focus on your target market. For example, in our case, we design websites for many different types of businesses from law offices, to accountants, to biotech companies to all kinds of service providers. Keep all of your potential customers when if comes to writing content for your website.
Mistake #4: Forgetting To Optimize Local Elements On-Site
A recent study by Moz on Local Search Ranking Factors shows that on-site signals dominate the rankings pie. It’s easy for many companies to forget to optimize for this, since they focus more on offsite SEO. Have your local optimization elements fine-tuned right after taking care of the content issues mentioned earlier.
Mistake #5: Forgetting To Optimize Off-Site Local Signals
Ignoring local SEO is one of the most common website mistakes. Make sure you claim your Google My Business page and optimize it completely. Check if your citations are consistent and listed appropriately. Get excellent links, with special focus on the locally relevant sites.
Mistake #6: Neglecting Your Homepage
Your homepage is your company’s face. If it is ugly your company is ugly. If it is poorly written, your business can’t write. If the photos on it aren’t professional, your company is looking unprofessional. Do you want that kind of first impression about your business? Do not expect people to flock to your website.
If you want increased site traffic, go beyond that picture slideshow by adding more meaningful content to your homepage. Potential customers need to learn about your company, what your customers say about your business and your services. More content also allows search engines find you more easily.
Mistake #7: Uninformative Internal Pages
This can’t be repeated enough: Customers want to learn as much as they can about your company, products, and services. Leaving them hanging with messages like, “Our stuff are also sold in this state, call us for more info” will simply not hack it. Your customers are more likely to check out your competitors, and Google won’t even rank your pages.
Mistake #8: Spamming Cities & Keywords
You will not rank at all if you simply mention a city or a keyword once on a list on your homepage. If this is your way of doing things, your website will not get the amount of traffic you want. Remember, optimization is not as simple as having a list of comma-separated list of cities or keywords.
Mistake #9: Spamming Your Title Tags
Google is likely to rewrite your title tags should they exceed more than 60 characters. If those are its parameters, then it doesn’t make sense to have 150-character title tags, because they’re simply too long to display. Just because you can have more doesn’t mean it will help your cause.
Mistake #10: Forgetting to update your NAP (Name, Address, & Phone Number)
There will come a time when you have to move your business, or change your contact numbers. When you do so, do not forget to update your NAP. Update your NAP whenever necessary. Should you fail to do this, your website could figure poorly in the rankings, because you’ve just given inconsistent citation signals. Perhaps more importantly, you also run the risk of losing a lot business because of this simple oversight.
These common website mistakes are actually quite easy to avoid. Just keep these in mind as you work on your SEO and website marketing plan. Don’t think too far ahead, work on building a position of strength first.