With COVID-19 on the forefront of all newscasts nowadays, it’s more important than ever for your business to have a website. Building a website to fit your brand can be hard sometimes. The first time you build a website for your business, there will probably be many flaws, but over time as you continue to update and improve the site, it will begin to look much better. Here are the top 5 mistakes we see small businesses make on their websites:
Too Much
A crowded website is never a good thing. Websites with too much text, colors or images tend to lose customers very quickly. In fact, if your website can not tell customers what they need to know about your business in a few seconds, they will leave. The information on your site needs to look nice and be easy to navigate through to give customers a good impression of your business.
Too Little
At the other end of the spectrum are websites with way too little information on them. Minimalism is a popular style right now, but you don’t want to do it the wrong way. You want customers to know what your business does and what you can do for them without leaving too much to the imagination. Never leave your customers guessing. That is not a good marketing strategy for your business, and might make your business seem untrustworthy. (Not to mention, Google standards recommend around 500 words on your service pages.)
Not Hiring a Professional
You should always hire a professional when building and updating your website. We all see the ads that advertise a quick and easy-to build-website that only costs $29.99 a month, but they are not reliable and have many flaws. (Also, when you read the fine print with these places, many of them own your website. That means that when you decide to stop paying them, your website goes away forever.) These websites are some of the least appealing visually and can’t be found in search engines. And if you’re not showing up on Google, what’s the point of having a website?
Also, it’s never a good idea to hire a “kid good with computers” to build your site. Web development requires a certain set of skills, and if your developer isn’t properly trained, your website will have many errors. A professional may cost more money up front, but it is well worth the investment. It will save time, credibility and customers in the long run.
Missing Your Target Audience
As a business owner, it is important to know who your target audience is and how to reach them. The way your website looks and feels will attract certain customers. For example, if you’re a retail boutique, you may want your website to appear bubbly and playful while a personal injury attorney may want a website to appear more serious.
You want your website to reach as many customers (or potential customers) as possible, but trying to combine too many styles is never a good idea.
Putting off SEO
At this moment you might be asking yourself, “What is SEO?”. SEO is search engine optimization and it is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of traffic to your website. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize why SEO is important – if someone searches for your product or service online and you don’t show up in those search results, then you are losing out on that business!
SEO is an ongoing process that includes employing several different techniques to help your website rank better. Some of these techniques include looking at and editing the backend code of your site, writing and labeling tags correctly, writing blogs, gaining backlinks, etc. A good SEO strategy that keeps you in the top of search results is well worth the investment. Company plug – Southern View Media is available to help you with anything your website may need. We are one of very few companies who offer SEO, and we can also help you to create a solid strategy for your business. Visit our website for more details.