A company website is the most important marketing tool a business has. Potential customers and blog subscribers who visit the site will base their decision to stick around by the appearance and content. That’s why having a top-of-the-line online business is imperative for a site to succeed. We know it takes a lot of hard work to make an online business succeed, which is why we offer a free webinar training that can help you learn the ins and outs of developing a high converting website. In this article, I’ll outline some tips on what to avoid when building a brand new website.
Not Organizing Your Content
Ice Cube Digital reminds website owners that having scattered and disorganized content won’t attract people when they visit your website. To solve that problem they explain how to effectively organize content:
Our professional Magento eCommerce developers know this art of keeping your content in an organized fashion for your Magento website. Let us think about the website of a news portal.
The list of what is important and which news is going to attract maximum eyeballs keeps on changing. It becomes very difficult for them to keep on changing their format all the time.
The idea to tackle this problem is very easy. Make an inventory of your content. Study the seasonality related patterns quite comprehensively.
Take the support of your web management company to the task. Give them some time for gestation and allow them to imbibe certain features in your web page.
Any great WordPress developers will tell you that WordPress is very versatile content management system to manage your content effectively and it has the power to accommodate all your needs, all you need is to jot them down correctly.
Create some expectations and deliver them every time a person visits your page. It is the expectations of the people that will bring them on your page.
It can also increase repeat customers for you. Now you can understand that retaining a customer means half the efforts are saved.
If your content is organized, then this automatically creates anticipation in the mind of customers and the same anticipation brings them back on your web page repeatedly.
Infrequent Content
Infrequent content is an issue on websites, which is why it’s vital that business owners not only plan out a content calendar but follow through with it. Forbes mentions how long-form content is essential as well as a few other things to apply:
For years, there was a focus on making website content short and sweet. Recently, however, there has been a trend among search engines to prefer pages with long-form, in-depth, informative content. When a search engine encounters a page without much content, it might conclude that the page is of lower quality or that the content is “thin,” causing it to have less visibility in search results.
In order to ensure that your website is competitive today, ensure that you publish only valuable, relevant, and informative content. Generally, long-form articles that include images, proper text formatting, and even video embeds tend to rank better in search engines, get more social media shares, and higher engagement with readers. Google wants to display content in its search results that people will love. So, take a close look at your website content and ask if anyone would really love it. Be honest. If not, remove it or combine it with other content to create new content that’s valuable and shareable.
Forgetting About Mobile Traffic
Do you forget about mobile traffic when setting up your website? If you are, that’s something you need to remedy quickly. In some cases, you may get even more traffic via mobile as opposed to online traffic. As Lifehacks points out, you need to make sure your site is set up to work for both.
It’s amazing how many people are glued to their smartphones while out and about. You might see a group of people at a bar, totally ignoring each other as they intently tap away at their phone. They might be shopping for a new product or service, but are you prepared to receive them? Your website needs to be responsive to smartphone based web browsers, meaning it needs to be configured to load quickly and display quickly on a screen of any size. If your page cannot be adequately navigated using a smartphone, then you could potentially be missing out on a significant amount of traffic and conversions.
Using Poor Quality Images
Images are another vital website feature that you can't ignore. Images should really make your website shine and should also be clear and bright. Let’s see what else Lifehack has to say about not using poor quality images:
Your website might be the first introduction a potential customer has to your company, and so any imagery used on your website needs to be top quality. Ensure that photos and images are crisp, and anything that is blurry or pixelated should not be used. If you need original photos to illustrate a product on offer, ensure that the subsequent images are of the highest quality – even if it means you’ll need the services of a professional photographer. For other images, you can utilise many of the free online databases that provide stock photos that are free of copyright. Don’t simply “borrow” images freely from the internet, as this is not only illegal, but it can make you look unprofessional.
Not Having a Color Scheme
Similar to making sure you are using high-quality photos that stand out, website color is just as important. Color may not seem like that big of an issue, but if visitors visit a bland website where nothing stands out, they’re less likely to stick around. That’s why Business 2 Business recommends putting more of an emphasis on the colors you use and making sure they look appealing.
Top notch websites all have color signatures that visitors can identify with and relate back to the business. For instance, Inc.com uses black and white, Netflix uses red, UPS uses its trademark brown, and H&R block uses light green. Websites with colors that are all over the place lack identity, and that can make these sites very forgettable.
No Description of Your Website’s Service
Whether you have a blog that you’re making money from ads or products or both, having a description or an “about us” page is essential. Entrepreneur goes into further detail as to why this should be an important aspect on your site:
Your “About Us” page is where you display your products, services and tell what makes you one-in-a-million. Don’t be afraid to show off a little bit here.
Accurately describe to your visitors what they can expect on your website. Provide information about your products and services. Let them know they’ve arrived at the right place. Describe what separates your business from your competitors and why people work with you and buy your products.
Not Incorporating Opt-In Forms
Entrepreneur also explains just how critical opt-in forms are and unfortunately, many people forget to incorporate them on their site. However, without one, you’re going to have a hard time making a profit!
Even if your “About Us” page isn’t the most popular page on your site, there are still a lot of people landing on it. Without an opt-in form those people will probably never return. That’s money going down the proverbial drain because email marketing is gold, Jerry! Gold!
An opt-in form will capture these visitors and convert them into email subscribers for your newsletter. Once you have these readers on your email list, send them relevant content about your business. Engage with them until they become paying customers.
Incorporating a Product Into a Blog Title
Some website owners think it’s okay to use their product’s name in the title of a blog post. If the blog post is only about the product that might be okay. However, Lifehack mentions that it’s better to use a compelling title and later introducing the product in the body of the article. Naturally weaving it into the content is a lot better than putting it in the subject line which can turn off potential customers.
Users generally visit your website looking to solve a problem. If you’re selling a piece of exercise equipment, then the headline needs to be alluring, so “Here’s how you can be trim and toned in just 5 minutes per day” works far better than something like, “Acme Ab Master 5000.” It’s really that simple.
There you have it! Make sure you follow these simply tips when you work on your own or on your client’s website and you won’t have problems. Do you have questions? Leave a comment below.
Not Understanding the Basics of Creating a High Converting Website
Bringing more traffic to your website should be the ultimate goal, and if you don’t understand how to do that, then it’s in your best interest to learn the skills on how to do that.
Whether it’s the site’s copy, layout, design, or overall content, there’s a certain finesse involved in creating a professional website that adequately serves the purposes of your business. Some websites simply don’t have that same “it” factor that others do, so it’s important to do your due diligence when it comes to researching how to create a business website in today’s age before actually getting started.
If you’re interested in learning the secrets on how to develop a high converting website we have a free webinar training you can attend. Sometimes learning about what it takes to build a useful site that makes money takes time, which is why we simplify things for you. We look forward to hearing from you on our next webinar!
Sources: Ice Cube Digital, Forbes, Business 2 Community, Entrepreneur, Lifehack
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