One of the mistake that lots of business owners have been making (due to my observation) is that they overthink the process of building a site. All too often new website owners are too interested in artistic value and having a product that resembles more of a beautiful painting than something that is straight-up business.
Here are some of the many mistakes that can be made by both, designers and instructors (the paying client requesting something).
Please take a minute to read through our article as it may help you to pinpoint why your website might not be meeting the purpose you have invested in it for:
1) Your site is not easy to find for keyterms it should show up in search engines for
Your site needs to draw targeted traffic.
Even if the amount of traffic is not huge, you can produce great income if the people who find you do so from keyterms indicating that they are eager to hire you or someone like you.
In order for you to be present where the most likely to hire you may wind up, you need to do the right keyword research and know how to implement your knowledge and convert it into becoming a magnet for the right traffic.
2) Your website is too cluttered, your design is unprofessional and lacks focus
So you mastered SEO (or think you have gained a lot of knowledge) and modeled yourself after sites you see up there ranking well. Now remember: Every website has a different purpose. Some sites are there to provide information to a well-established brand.
They may target potential investors, are built to keep a company´s reputation intact or simply answer frequently asked questions to clear up confusion.
First and foremost your step has to be to set a goal and stick with it throughout your website´s development and marketing process. Imagine your site already getting all the traffic in the world and focus on tweaking it so that more of your visitors do what you want them to do.
That can mean signing up for the newsletter, ordering a product on special or hiring you for a consulting service. Make it easy for people to click on the right link or button and get your team to service the responses properly. From there focus on gaining more targetted traffic.
Branding is a must. Branding includes a logo that is easy to recognize, an overall look or feel of your site which spells comfort, trust and familiarity and maybe a slogan which imprints your name and what you do into the minds of everyone that comes accross your web property causing visitors to likely return should they ever leave.
This is a first impression you won´t get a second chance to make for a long time … so know what you want your future clients to see. And leave a great taste with them. And most of all: Be recognizable and easy to recall.
Once they come to your site, you have already won … as long as you take the steps to ensure that the site you call your own represents you to the fullest without leaving doubt in what you are all about.
Remember: You need to make more money with every move that you make. So build a strong foundation that once the traffic spikes, you won´t have to go back into your site and re-arrange everything because you had “SEO tunnel vision” losing track of your original goals.
3) Your structure is a mess
Before you build a website, write out as much as you can specifically in terms of what you need your website to do. All else should be secondary. People without clear goals often get lost in a designer´s creativity losing their focus and purpose. In those cases, changes are often made later causing a ton of clutter which can lead to:
a) Long loading time leaving visitors frustrated and leaving and causing Google and other search engines to penalize you because of it.
Be a minimalist. Start with what you want. If needed, you can implement something catchy later. But chances are that once your site brings you more business, you will not want to change anything. You are the boss, so make sure designers follow your instructions. If you are unsure, hire a consultant. This will save you money and headaches in the long run.
b) Visitors get sidetracked and confused with unnecessary addons.
You are in danger of looking unprofessional. In those cases, you will get potential clients reading through your information … and then wind up at another website hiring them because they are warmed up by you, but your competitors´websites are closing the deal.
This is the worst thing that can happen to you. Avoid this at any cost as you are giving away free information and the other providers will benefit from all of your work and not likely return to a site that leaves them wondering what to do next.
4) You are giving far too much free information giving the impression your service is not needed
Even though you are needed, explaining too much will exhaust some readers and make them think they can come back in a while to upgrade their knowledge to become masters of your trade. Be simple, keep it short. You do not need to prove what you know in detail. Let people see that you have what they need and be available for customer service questions
without forcing something on them without those inquiries being made. If you run a WordPress blog allowing comment, you may benefit from moderating comments without adding them until you are ready to take your time and answer them one by one.
It will show your potential shoppers that you care about the needs of your clients. And it will let them see that you have answers. Having someone see a blog post with many unanswered questions is a No-No.
And remember: You are not just talking to the interested individuals asking the question, but everyone who drops by as an audience who may or may not have the same or a similar question.
So pick the right ones in order of significance and make an answer with each reply that
you provide.
5) Your checkout process is confusing
People can easily get lost when finishing the procedure they have come to complete. A lot of individuals are easily sidetracked and can wind up having second thoughts before pulling the trigger.
Doubts may crawl in when a service is not easily attained giving the impression that you yourself may not be so sure about what you have to offer (even though this is unreasonable).
Some people try to upsell with every order placed. This can be ok if you offer an addon service that doesn´t take away from the checkout process. But if you try too hard, you will often lead them away from the happy experience to continue to the payment button which is supposed to make them feel in good hands knowing their needs will be met.
Too much upselling will make the potential customers doubt that what they were about to purchase is enough to get them what they want. So make sure that if you ever try to upsell, it is an option to purchase something in addition and not spit out a few more bucks to get what they already thought the current deal would include.
6) Your value proposition and pricing are unclear
Believe it or not, but this is something that is going on all the time and many of the business owners who have these issues may not even be aware of it because they and their employees are all over different places. Part of creating a good structure is that you ensure that updating your site in the future will be painless.
Once a new price is set, you cannot risk some places listing items as lower than elsewhere, but everything needs to be uniform.
This goes back to Number 3 on our list:
Know where to list the prices, where to place the selling points and where to provide the easy checkout to ensure that everything a customers intends to receive is able to in a painless manner.
7) Last, but not least: Your site is not mobile friendly
our website needs to go with the times and if not there, be easily tweaked to stay up to date with the latest. In that case it is important to hire a design company that envisions what is next and doesn´t get lost when presented with changes.
Are you feeling overwhelmed?
Don´t be.
You can simply get more information by reading through our site.
If you are interested in hiring us, continue here.
We wish you all the best with your future endeavors. May your upgrade go painless and get you the results which you envision!
