Poorly developed websites often lead to disaster. We’ve compiled a list of common website mistakes that might be costing your business’s online performance.
Website mistakes
Optimised for disaster
No meta title or description
When search bots crawl your website, the first thing they read is the metadata.
Therefore, it’s important to briefly describe each page (within 160-characters) within the meta description and also to include an optimised meta title. Be sure to include quality keywords within both of these too.
No alt tags within the imagery
Just like meta titles and descriptions, alt tags work in a similar same way.
Search engines can’t read images and therefore it’s important to describe each image with an alt tag.
Again, be sure to include the relevant keywords in there too.
Error handling
Broken page links
Web developers often develop websites with placeholders links, whilst they wait for content from their clients.
Unfortunately, it’s common for developers to forget about updating these, as a client can take up to 6 months to gather all their content.
A good way to solve this is to use Google’s Search Console tool and discover any broken links within your website.
Fatal errors
If your website is using PHP and SQL databases, fatal errors within scripts can reveal your database’s username and password for anyone to access.
It’s important for the developer to ensure that error-debugging is switched-off to avoid revealing any sensitive data.
Errors displayed on a website also make a business look untrustworthy and outdated.
Template website designs
Website builders & un-bespoke designs
Templates used within free website builders and cheap website designs make businesses look off-putting and untrustworthy.
This is because visitors may have already seen the same template design used on another website.
These templates also hinder overall website speeds and performances as they’re filled with unnecessary scripts that your website may never even use.
This is why we always build bespoke websites for each of our clients.
Capturing customer data
Not using Analytics, CRMs or CTAs
If your website isn’t using analytical tools to measure and capture data, it really should be.
This free tool by Google provides invaluable data that can give key insights into your customers when visiting your website.
CRM tools such as HubSpot’s free CRM platform can also be used to capture customer data and generate CTA lead flows.
Failing to maintain
Non-responsive website design
Responsive website design has become the industry standard. Google says that on average, 60-percent of search queries are sent through mobile devices.
If websites aren’t mobile-friendly, these 60-percent of visitors could be tapping elsewhere for their information.
Not adding new content
Content is everything when it comes to search results, the more quality content you have, the better chance for your website to overtake a competitor’s.
Blogs can be a great way to start generating content to ultimately boost these rankings.
When building bespoke websites, we always use content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress, as this allows our clients to easily update their website and utilise the inbuilt blogging platform.