Common mistakes businesses make on their website

A website tailored to your business can help you fully capture your target audience’s attention more effectively online.

If you’re seeking long-term business growth, then investing in building a high-quality performing website is key.

A well-performing website can add huge value to business performance, however, a bad website can seriously hinder any progress made.

Ensuring your website has a bespoke design, compelling copy and content, and simple navigation can all contribute to a successful website experience.

However, there are many common mistakes that businesses tend to make on their website that will be hindering performance.

We’re going to highlight some of these common mistakes that should be avoided at all costs.

Having a dated website experience

When your website visitor lands on your website for the first time, it won’t take long for them to form an opinion about your business.

So to help ensure that opinion is a good one, a bespoke website design and simple layout will help a lot.

If your design looks dated or your navigation too complex, your website visitor will most likely move to a competitor’s website.

Whilst keeping your website up to date may seem time-consuming and expensive, the alternative is a poor experience that doesn’t engage your visitors.

A dating website can cause visitors to question the quality of your company’s services, and your credibility may suffer as a result.

Therefore, it is a very good idea to keep your website up to date in terms of copy and technology, so that you’re putting your website in a position to add real value.

A design that doesn’t reflect your business

Many easy changes may be performed to your website without the requirement for external assistance, which is required for your website to be whatever you are.

It is so important that the fonts you use throughout your website are consistent and complement one another. Tying them in with your offline branding or printed materials is a good way of doing this and will also help in achieving a seamless brand experience.

Image quality is next.

This is also very important as high-quality imagery can help to provide a professional representation of your business and will increase user engagement as visitors are more likely to spend more time on your website.

Simple navigation is key to any successful website performance.

When it comes to navigation, you don’t want to make it hard for visitors to find what they’re looking for. A comprehensive understanding of why your visitors are using your business website will help you to place importance on those pages they’re looking for.

Your colour pallet is up next.

The colour used on your website is key to reflecting your brand. The colours used must be associated with your business and matched throughout all channels right down to the Pantone, so it is easy to identify and recognise your business.

Using a templated design

Whilst templates do have their place, a bespoke website design will help your business stand out from the competition.

A bespoke design helps to provide a distinctive and memorable website experience as it is unique to your company.

Pre-defined templates that you can customise are normally a one size fits all solution, which may impede any future development that you wish to add later down the line.

Not making your website responsive

Your website visitors are now likely to visit your website through multiple devices, so it’s important to design an experience for the intended device used.

It is becoming more common for mobile devices to be used to access websites over any other device.

Ensuring that your website is responsive, will help to keep load speeds quick, keeping the attention of your website visitors.

Maintaining several websites for multiple devices can get expensive and time-consuming.

So having a responsive website can help to save money and time as it’s a lot easier to manage.

Not sharing content consistently

We’ve all heard the saying ‘Content is king’ … Maybe a little too much!

But, content is SO important if you want your business to grow.

Posting regular content that is insightful and of value to your target audience will help drive traffic to your website and engage your audience.

Educating your visitors on certain topics about your business and the industry that you operate in will help to grow your following and position your company as a thought leader.

Lasting thoughts

If long-term business growth is what you seek, then your business website must avoid the common mistakes that many are making.

Your business website should provide a true and honest representation of your business and what it stands for, which will help to capture the attention of your target audience.

Maintaining your website and keeping it up to date does require time and effort, and sometimes external support, although the value that it brings makes it all worthwhile.