While creating an effective business website may not be rocket science, it does require an understanding of what’s working and what’s not working in today’s digital marketplace.

Common Pitfalls With New Business Websites

This guide will help you avoid the most common pitfalls that might easily cause your business website to hurt, rather than help, your entire online marketing effort.

1. Lack of a Clear-cut Call to Action

What is the basic goal of your website? Do you want your visitors to make an immediate online purchase? Call or submit their email address for a consultation or quote? Subscribe to your monthly newsletter? Whatever you want your prospects to do, make sure that you offer an easy path for them to respond to.

2. Choosing an Inappropriate Web Hosting Provider

For starters, stay away from free web hosting plans. You don’t want visitors to your website distracted with the paid ads that subsidize free hosting accounts. Shop carefully for the best web hosting service for your particular website’s size and volume of traffic. Your primary criteria should be guaranteed up time, which needs to be between 95 and 99 percent, and page loading speed.

3. Boring or Stale Website Content

Think about why visitors came to your website in the first place: for interesting and informative content that relates to their search engine query. Your content needs to be on-track with what they want to see or they’ll go elsewhere. Ideally, your website should be updated with new articles and information on a weekly basis. Fresh content will also help improve your rankings with the search engines.

4. An Overly Cluttered Home Page

Don’t try to do too much with your home page. Boil everything down to no more than three major points about your company or products. Eliminate long-winded blocks of text whenever possible, and use videos, photos, charts, and bullet-point lists to make your page more appealing and easier to digest.

5. Lack of a Mobile Friendly Website

If your business website does not display properly on a mobile device, you’re missing out on a lot of visitors. Just under 60 percent of all local searches are made using a mobile device, yet 90 percent of all small business websites are still not optimized for mobile display.

Your website should have one simple purpose: to help market your products or services to prospective customers. Think of it as your online salesperson; it needs to make the case for choosing your particular company over all of your competitors in a crystal-clear, straightforward manner.

Rianne Hunter

About the Author: Rianne Hunter

Rianne has developed a strong passion for writing about various subjects including health, business, marketing, and finance.

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