10 Mistakes Website Owners Make
There are basic features and functions that a website should have. New website owners may not know what their site should or should not include. This top ten is a quick but important list that even current website owners will want to run through.
- Not consulting an SEO before designing a new site
- Not doing keyword research before building pages
- Naming your title tags the same
- Placing Google Ads on your business website
- Not having services pages for your business
- Relying on one source of traffic
- Using cheap hosting
- Using WordPress but not maintaining updates / plugins
- Not setting up search console and google analytics
- Missing calls to action - using too many
Not consulting an SEO before designing a new site
There is nothing more discouraging than paying to have a site designed to only realize that it’s not SEO friendly. It’s important to ensure that the design company you’re working with has an SEO on site or hire your own to work with the design company. It will be worth the extra cost. Once the site is built you’ll wind up paying more to have the site updated after it is built.
Web design and development companies don’t always have SEO on staff and since they are designing or developing a site it’s not their responsibility to ensure the site is SEO friendly. Though it should be.
Not doing keyword research before building pages
When your site is being created or even in its current state you should understand how people search to find your service or products. What keywords are they using? Are you looking at your competitor’s websites? What types of pages do they have? What are the title tags of their pages saying? How does your site stack up?
Naming your title tags the same
If you do not take the time to title your pages properly or if your naming them all the same you’re missing out on SEO traffic. The title tag tells Google what a particular page is about. If you label them all the same then Google may assume all of the content is the same which impacts the ability of those pages to drive traffic.
If the title tag of your home page is labeled “home” your SEO is not tuned in. Most home pages should have a focus umbrella term. Not just your brand name and definitely not “home”.
Placing Google Ads on your business website
This one makes me cringe. I get the thought behind it, but it’s not worth it. You’re thinking - “I’m spending money on advertising and even if people don’t buy from me at least I’ll get a few pennies if someone clicks an ad”.
In reality what you’re doing is giving your competitors an opportunity to advertise on your site. Who wouldn’t want an ad on a competitor’s site? Sure, you’ll make a few pennies, but the client now has the opportunity to make a sale. You’re trading dollars for pennies. Don’t do it.
Not having services pages for your business
As part of your SEO strategy having a landing page for each service allows you to address the following concerns:
- Address the searches most common issues or pain points. This is very important. This is where understanding your clients’ needs come into play. If you can address their most common problems and concerns they are more likely to reach out.
- Explain how you can help them with their problem – This is where your years of experience comes into play and how you’ve helped others in similar situations.
- Why you’re the company they should choose – Case studies – testimonials.
This is how your company pages should be structured. These pages will also double as great paid search landing pages. They can also work well for any other type of online marketing. If you can generate pages based on your services, services by industries and possibly services by location you could have a solid strategy for generating leads.
If you have one page with all of your services listed with a small paragraph you’re missing out on a massive amount of relevant traffic.
Using cheap hosting
Cheap hosting is appealing because…it’s cheap! However, cheap hosting winds up costing you in the end. Hosting is one of the most overlooked aspect of an online business. If you’re using cheap hosting it may take longer to upload files to the server.
This could make it difficult to make changes when using platforms like WordPress. If files are slow to upload or it takes a long time for site to update then it’s also going to be slow for Google. If Google has a hard time crawling pages it’s less likely Google will rank your pages well. Google prides itself as the number one search engine because of the great results that load fast.
Even, if you could somehow get past Google and still manage to rank. If your site is slow to load no one will stick around long enough to view the site. Everyone talks about mobile friendliness and fast loading templates, but not much is said about hosting.
Using WordPress but not maintaining updates and plugins
If you’re going to use WordPress you need to maintain it. The open source software increases the number of patches it rolls out every year as it’s the most hacked platform there is. Plugins offer vulnerabilities that make it easy for hackers to take control of your site. Costing you hundreds in cleanup and a fair amount of downtime.
If you can’t afford to pay someone to update plugins and themes as WordPress rolls out new updates don’t use WordPress. There are other reliable platforms that may cost more but will save you the headache WordPress will give you and that’s money in the bank.
Not setting up search console and Google analytics
Both of these platforms are free to use and are equally import. Search console allows you to upload a sitemap, discover keywords your site ranks for and you will gain insight into any issues Google finds with your website.
Google analytics will provide you with information on which pages are most popular, which source drove the most sales and leads. You can easily download dashboards to get you started. Just login to your analytics account and click on dashboards.
Then choose "import from gallery" Download as many as you like and once you find the dashboards that provide the information you want delete the rest.
Missing calls to action - Or using too many CTAs
You want visitors to take some form of action when on your site. It’s important the main action is visible on the site. Especially for lead generation websites. You may want someone to fill out a form or to call. I come across sites all the time that have no call to action.
On the flip side I see sites that have so many calls to actions it’s not clear which action a user should take. Following on social media shouldn’t be more important than filling out a form.
If you need help with any of the items above feel free to contact me to learn more about my services.
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