7 Fatal Website Mistakes All Business Owners Should Avoid

A guide to the top 7 fatal website mistakes that could be losing you money.

Is your website not as effective as you’d like? Would you like to generate more enquiries or sales? Here are 7 of the top fatal website mistakes that could be losing you money!

1. Contact Details

It may seem quite self explanatory to have contact details on your website, but many people aren’t currently using this to their advantage. Have you ever been on a website and just got the impression that they don’t want you to call them? Entice people to call you up, send an email, request a call back, or chat to you online. Customer interaction is incredibly important and goes far when the customer is making their final decision on who to do business with. It is incredibly important to have contact details on every page, rather than them having to go to specific page in order for them to call you. If you give somebody an opportunity to click off your website, they probably will.  With contact details on every page, when they are ready to contact you they can easily.

2. Stand Out From The Crowd

Most websites do a great job of explaining who they are and what they do. How many websites explain in detail the reasons why you should use them? More importantly, how does your website explain why people should use you? Most Internet searchers today will be looking at 3-4 websites when browsing, so if you don’t give them something that’s unique about you, then you are just like every other business, and missing a trick.  You could be underselling your business and therefore loosing out to your competitors.

3. Not found

This is probably the most important reason why business websites aren’t effective. You could have the best website in the world, but if nobody goes on it, there isn’t really a lot of point in having one at all. A website that can’t be found will never generate new business, as the only people who use it will know you already.  For more information on getting found online read this article: https://www.jdrgroup.co.uk/blog/bid/344777/what-is-the-best-way-to-market-my-business

4. Not updated

Keeping your website up to date can be time consuming, but it is a vital part of developing an effective web presence.  There are lots of benefits to keeping your website up to date, most notably that it keeps your business current and on trend. If you are a retail business and have last season’s stock on your site, not only will you struggle to sell them, but people will ask themselves whether you are still in business. Also, Google loves regularly updated websites, and will reward a regularly updated website accordingly, with higher search engine rankings.

5. Not mobile optimised

Mobile usage is taking off, and at an alarming rate. Have you ever seen what your website looks like on a mobile phone? Does it even work? It isn’t just phones either, tablets are outselling laptops and desktop computers, so why would you disadvantage yourself by not making your website work effectively on a mobile device? If your customers can’t navigate properly around your website, then they will just click off and find a website that they can navigate.

6. Not social enough

One of the biggest mistakes business websites commonly make is not engaging with their audience. We are in the social age now, and you need to be interactive with your customers. Social Media is going to be a vital part of your business over the next 5 years, so there’s no better time to start. Build your Twitter followers or your Facebook likes to increase customer awareness. Let your customers know about special offers, start blogging so you can show that you are an expert in your industry. You want to be the go to person in your industry.  More information on blogging can be found here: https://www.jdrgroup.co.uk/blog/bid/354675/benefits-of-blogging-7-reasons-for-business-owners-to-blog

7. No enquiry form

Do you think there are people who have clicked onto your website, potentially interested in what you do, and just clicked off again? There will have been plenty. You can’t win them all, but there are lots of things you can do to keep in contact with them. One of these tactics is to have an enquiry form on your site.  Some people simply prefer to email rather than talk over the phone, make sure you have this option available to them. Something else you can do is give your potential customers something that they will find of value. A free e-book, free sample, free report etc will go a long way for people who may not buy from you at that point, but may do in the future. With every enquiry form or download, request an email address so you can start collating a database of potentially interested people, who you can build relationships with and market to in the future.

Of course, there are many other mistakes that business owners are making with their websites, start by ensuring these seven basic mistakes are rectified, and you will go a long way into developing an effective and profitable website.

Article by Andy Gibbins