Did you launch your website or thinking of creating one?
See, having a website is another level of responsibility.
There is the aspect of keeping it up and running through regular maintenance.
And then there is the need to make it do whatever you created it for.
But all these come later on once the website is up.
Also, you have to ensure that everything is working towards making these possible from the start.
How?
There is only one surefire way to set up your website for success; avoid some common mistakes.
If you ignore the things you are going to read about in this article, you are setting your website up for failure.
So, what are these mistakes and what can you do to avoid them?
Website Mistakes to Avoid #1. Slow-loading websites
Slow web pages is bad news.
You not only lose customers but also search engine rankings.
In fact, a 100-millisecond delay in load time can cause conversion rates to drop by 7% (source).
This proves one thing; time is money.
To coin this, there is another study by Akamai which showed that if your page takes an extra full second to load, there will be up to a 70% decrease in conversion.
For this reason, a slow website is not only a headache, it drains your pockets.
How?
79% of online shoppers who have trouble with website performance say they won’t return to the site to buy again.
Causes of a slow website
- Unoptimized images – images with large file size, no alt tag, and undescriptive file names can make your website load slower
- Lack of content delivery network (CDN) – a CDN serves your visitors content based on their location. Without it, therefore, leads to slow-loading pages
- Experiencing high website traffic – a website can only handle specific requests at a time. When the requests increase (due to a spike in traffic), your website will slow down.
- Serving too many ads – in order to make money, most web owners serve ads on their sites. This is a good thing since it brings you income, but it hurts your site loading speed when you overdo it.
These and many other reasons can cause you losses through a slow website.
What is the solution?
First, you need to make sure that you are hosting account is reliable. To get that, only host websites with reputable companies.
Here is why;
A poor host makes your website unreliable.
In order to solve the traffic issue, you need enough bandwidth to accommodate all the traffic coming to your site.
If you have maxed out bandwidth in your current hosting package, consider upgrading to a higher plan.
Additionally, make sure to optimize all the images before you add them to your site. This reduces its size and adds alt tags and such.
Here is one fix-all solution;
Use OLITT website builder.
This tool is free for use and comes with a global CDN network with over 42 PoPs.
As such, your website will load a lot faster since your users are receiving requests from the nearby servers.
Website Mistakes to Avoid #2. Not Mobile-friendly pages
Go on now and open your analytics dashboard.
And then go through the report showing your traffic source by the device (mobile and desktop).
There is a high chance that over 50% of your traffic comes from mobile users.
Here is something for you;
Around the globe, people spend up to 5 hours a day on their smartphones.
It doesn’t come as a surprise to learn that 70% of web traffic comes from mobile phones.
And that 80% of the top-ranked websites are mobile-friendly.
What does this mean?
It simply means that if your website is not optimized for mobile devices, you are missing out on over 70% of the internet traffic.
The consequences are even worse if you are running an online store.
In 2017, mobile eCommerce accounted for over 34.5% of total eCommerce sales that year.
What is the solution?
Among other things you can do to optimize your website for mobile, there is one that trumps it all; mobile-optimized templates.
See, when creating a website, you often opt to use pre-made templates instead of coding everything from scratch.
While this saves you a ton of time, it can actually hurt you in the long run if you are not careful.
What should you do?
Instead of picking any template that captures your eye, only focus on using designs created with mobile users in mind.
Lucky for you, OLITT had over 200 such website templates.
Better part?
You can access them for free here.
Website Mistakes to Avoid #3. Out-dates SEO practices
Here is the thing;
You don’t have a website if there is no traffic (unless you created it for private use, a journal, or something).
To make money online with a blog/website, you need eye-ball.
And there are two ways you can get it;
First, spending money.
Here, you are leveraging PPC (pay per click) campaigns to drive traffic to your website.
For example;
You go to Facebook ads and create a campaign using their traffic objective.
And whenever someone clicks on your ad and visits your site, you pay.
While this strategy works really well, not everyone has a budget.
As such, they resort to way number two; free traffic.
Here, you are sharing links to your site on social media. And then there is an organic search.
This is the best way to drive traffic to any website.
Here, you are making sure your site can be found through search engines such as Google.
For that to happen, there are some things you need to take care of first.
This is where things get messy.
Website owners understand the value of attracting organic (targeted and free), and they end up engaging in bad practices trying to cheat their way to the top results on SERP (search engine results pages).
For example;
- Keyword stuffing
- Writing for robots instead of users
- Spamming article marketing and article directories for links
- Article Spinning instead of writing fresh
- Buying Links
- Obsessing over Exact-Match Domains (EMD)
What is the solution?
Simple;
Adopt the best SEO practices.
Website Mistakes to Avoid #4. All About You
When starting a website, it easy to lost in how amazing you are and how awesome your products are.
This is a trap that most website owners fall into without even realizing it.
Thing is, a website is not actually about you.
It is about your target audience.
Once you make that mental shift, it becomes easy to design a site that hooks a visitor and make them take action.
For example;
Instead of focusing on how your company is the best, show your target audience how you intend to solve their pain.
With this, you move away from discussing the features of your product, to showing the benefits of using your solution.
One thing is true;
A customer does not care about you or your business until you show you care about them.
And this highlights the importance of first seeking to understand your target market before deploying resources to attract them.
For example;
You can leverage online tools such as Google Keyword Planner to understand who your users are and what they care about.
Website Mistakes to Avoid #5. Too much or too little text
When it comes to running a successful website, you should always focus on quality over quantity.
With that in mind, it is better to have only 4 pages with the best information, than 20 pages with mediocre content.
Why does this happen?
Among other possible reasons, most website owners fall into the belief that having many web pages is a sign of a ‘successful’ site.
Here is the truth;
Too many pages call for constant maintenance, which brings up another challenge if you are a one-man show.
Without such health-check, there are bound to be a few broken page errors here there, which by the way, hurts your SEO rankings.
The last thing Google wants is to send their users on a wild goose chase.
What is the solution?
If you have multiple pages on your site, consider either improving the content, combining short pages, or break long pages.
Website Mistakes to Avoid #6. Unclear call to action
A website is like a digital store-front.
It is there to help attract and keep your visitors’ attention.
And that is why people are encouraged to first visualize the user’s journey once they land on your site.
Often, the end goal involves them taking a specific action. This can be;
- Fill in a form
- Download a file
- Request a quote
- Purchase something, etc.
Now, without this ‘end goal’ in mind when creating a website, your user will be lost.
What is the solution?
Avoid creating a website because of peer pressure.
Only start a site with an objective in mind.
This way, you can incorporate everything from the start that will contribute to users taking that action.
For example;
If you are running a marketing agency, your goal might be to generate sales leads. As such, you will implement strategies to make this happen, which include having lead magnets.
Website Mistakes to Avoid #7. Lack of written website strategy
Quick question;
How do you judge whether your website is successful or failing?
Without a strategy and metrics in place, it becomes hard to determine the performance of your website.
In fact, this ties with the previous mistake; not having a clear CTA.
How?
Without a clear website objective, it is hard to know whether the site is actually helping or hurting you.
What is the solution?
Have a clear objective.
For example;
- Generate leads
- Make more website sales
- Drive awareness
With such objectives, you will have something to benchmark on at the end of the month.
For example;
From all the leads you generated last month, how many came from your website?
To answer that, you may require additional resources that make reporting possible.
For example;
You can use Goals on Google Analytics to track specific events.
And then make sure all these reflect on your periodic reports.
Final thoughts on website mistakes to avoid
Always understand what you are getting into before committing time and resources to it.
Also, as they say, you learn through mistakes, but it doesn’t have to be your mistakes.
Go ahead and create a free website on OLITT.