5 common web design mistakes.

Common Website Mistakes Small Businesses Make

When it comes to creating and maintaining a successful website for your business, there’s plenty you need to take on board to ensure it’s working. Having a poor performing site can lead to losing customers.

1. Non-responsive design

Having a responsive website is no longer just an option. Over 3.5 billion consumers now use their mobile phones to browse the internet. Therefore, you really can’t afford for your website not to be responsive. What’s more, Google also penalises any non-responsive sites, so your website won’t even rank highly.

2. Poor navigation

When users visit your site they want to be able to easily navigate the site.  Search Engines also use this to methodology to scan your site. If they can’t navigate easily, they simply leave and move on to another site. Make sure that your navigation is easy to access. You need to optimise your websites user experience. By making the user experience as simple and easy as possible, your web visitors will spend time looking around your site and, in turn, are more likely to become paying visitors.

3. Lacking quality content

When it comes to ranking on search engines content is key. Despite this, many companies invest in a beautifully designed, sleek, and functional website but writing content and photography is usually an afterthought. It’s not only search rankings that are affected by this, it’s your visitors too. Quality content helps to engage web users and drives them to take action. Take a look at your bounce and click-through rates for the pages of your website to see whether people are taking action, viewing multiple pages, or leaving the site quickly.

4. Failing to link with social channels

Social media is here to stay and should form part of your digital marketing strategy. As such, you should ensure your website is linked to the social media channels you use, whether that’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or one of the many other channels. Ensure the links are on your website and that they work. Direct traffic back to your site from your social channels, as this will not only drive more visitors to your website but will also have a positive impact on your search engine rankings.

5. Not keeping your site up to date

When it comes to maintaining your website, it’s important to consider your security, functionality, and information. There is a number of cybersecurity risks that you need to keep abreast of. You need to keep any themes or plugins fully updated to ensure all entry points are protected. Get your developers to install protection software and a CAPTCHA option to prevent automated attacks and keep any administrative passwords regularly updated. Aside from the importance of keeping your site security up to date, it’s also essential that your site is regularly reviewed to check for any outdated information or broken links. Don’t risk your credibility by leaving outdated, inaccurate information on your website, regularly review and add fresh, new content, and check links.