Nowadays, it is imperative that every business has a website. Moreso if you are the new kid on the block. After all, more and more people worldwide have access to the Internet.
On the other hand, not having a website makes people deem that your business is not legit. That is if they came across your brand. Thus, a business website is an important investment.
Since it’s an important investment, you most likely don’t want to make any mistakes with your first business website. Sure, you cannot avoid committing mistakes since you’re only starting out, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn from those before you.
On that note, here are eight common mistakes that you should and avoid when creating your first business website:
1. Under Planning Your Website
Establishing a website should be seen as something akin to opening up a storefront. It’s not a pet project that you are doing on the side. It is an integral part of your business. Thus, you should make sure that you do the appropriate planning dedicated to your website.
Planning your website isn’t like planning a scrapbook where you pick the colors and designs that you like and then slap it on a blank canvas. According to one Cheeky Monkey Website Hosting NZ, you need to be deliberate with your choices and get professional help if you need to.
If you under plan your website, you’re not going to get the results that you want. A quality website can sometimes bring in a lot of business to you, so don’t short-change yourself by not valuing it enough.
2. Not Customizing Your Theme
A lot of websites or content management systems have a number of themes available for its users. These are usually premade and they have a preset available for use.
The presets make it a lot easier to create your website based on the design of the theme. But if you want to elevate your business website, you shouldn’t just rely on that alone. Your content management platform should give you the ability to customize anything that you choose for your site.
And to really make your business website your own, you should make use of that theme customization.
3. Using Business Jargon
One of the reasons why people wanted to create a business website is because it’s a simple way of showing that you are an authority in the industry. This is the best place for you to culminate and summarize your work and expertise.
However, in your desire to be seen as an expert in your field, you might end up alienating the people who actually need your service. If you use too much business jargon on your website, your target audience might not understand what you are trying to say.
As much as possible, use layman terms that your audience can understand. Otherwise, you should define a particular business jargon. Don’t use them willy-nilly. Otherwise, it will be difficult for your audience to get your point.
Hence, you should make sure that you are careful with using business jargon anywhere on your website.
4. Too Blog Focused
The first thing that people think when they’re creating their business website is that they should have a blog. That is a valid belief since content marketing is quite beneficial to businesses.
However, if you only use your website for your blog, then you aren’t making the most out of your website and the potential it could give you.
Depending on the nature of your business, a blog might not be the best thing to center your business around. Although it can certainly make your website easier to find, you should make sure that your blog can help drive sales and revenue for your business.
You don’t have to create blog posts constantly, and how often you’ll utilize it will be up to your discretion.
5. Following SEO Myths
Search engine optimization is a buzzword for a lot of website builders and blog owners. Of course, this is for good reasons. That’s because a good SEO strategy can help drive a lot of traffic to your site.
However, you should be careful about which SEO rules you are following. Aside from that, you should be careful about how you apply SEO on your website.
For example, if you pack your website with too many keywords because of your desire to be discoverable on search engines and to rank high on the search results, you might end up getting penalized for keyword spamming.
It takes time for a truly excellent SEO strategy to be born, and a lot of effort as well. Take your time with figuring out which works for you and which don’t.
6. Going Pop-Up Crazy
You should make sure that if you are going to put pop-ups into your website that you don’t overdo it.
Although pop-ups are meant to get the attention of your website visitors, if you overdo it then they might end up leaving your website.
Aside from that, if you have too many pop-ups, search engines might take note of that and lower your ranking on their search results.
7. Slow Server Times
If you’re looking for a web host, then you should make sure that the provider you choose is reliable.
If their server is slow, that means that your website will take too long to load. Keep in mind that people are impatient on the Internet. Thus, a slow loading time might make them click out of your site.
8. Poor Navigation
Given the many ways that you can customize your website, it can be tempting to overload it with features and pages upon pages of a variety of things. This can lead to poor navigation.
Your website visitors should ideally be able to reach their desired web page within three clicks at most.
Be deliberate with how you plan out the navigation of your website so that it is intuitive to your web visitors.
Final Thoughts
Now that you know more about the common mistakes people make when they create their first business website you should be equipped with the knowledge to avoid these. Don’t worry if you make some mistakes when you’re first starting out; but hopefully, you will be more vigilant against them.
Featured image credit: pixabay.com
