The most common mistakes small businesses make with their website are seemingly important not to be ignored. Here, we try to explain some of the visible mistakes in the websites of startups and small businesses that can possibly ruin the user experience and business growth. Let us get into each of the points now.
1. Not setting aside a clear budget for the website
We understand, as a startup or small business, you need to structure your finances properly. But not allocating a part of the budget to website development means that you are being penny wise, pound foolish!
Small businesses ignore the importance of investing in a good website and crib at the end when they do not get the expected results.
Instead, allocate a part of the budget to build a website to support your online business. Hire the services of a good web development company like Rentech Digital to design a website that will help your business grow and earn profits. This decision will be worth the money spent.
2. Using free resources to build a website
There are hundreds of websites on the net that promise websites for free. And small businesses are made to believe that this will suffice.
But, is it really so? A good website is not just providing information on the surface. There is a lot of stuff that goes into making your website visible to both the visitors as well as the search engine ranking bots.
We agree, small businesses may not have the budget to spend on a high-quality website. But make a checklist of all the important features and tools that you need in your website.
Have a discussion with a reliable website development company. They will guide you in selecting the best features to be included in your website based on your budget to gain visitors on it.
3. No periodic updating of website contents
Imagine serving stale food to your guests! Would they visit you the next time? The same is the case with your website. Do not serve outdated content to the visitors.
Contents once uploaded are not enough. Review your website periodically and update contents, images and videos as per the latest market trends. Fresh properly organized content is what visitors expect when they visit yourwebsite.
How do you go about this? The answer is to select a good website development company that would be forthcoming in guiding you through the content updating aspect of your website.
You can also opt to create your website on the content management system (CMS) platforms like WordPress, Magento and Wix to easily update content yourself.
4. Having a website design that repels visitors
There has been much research on what drives out visitors from a website. In technical parlance, it is termed the bounce rate. A high bounce rate means that more visitors have left your website. It is important that a website has a low bounce rate.
So, what makes a visitor leave the website?
Slow loading pages, ugly themes, poor navigation, cluttered content, intrusive advertisements, low-quality content & images- basically it has got to do much with poor website designing.
Then, how do you ensure that you not only get visitors but also turn them into prospective customers?
Select a good website theme or invest in customizing it as per your business needs.
Make a flowchart of page navigation beforehand and implement it accordingly.
Be consistent with the color combination and fonts on the website.
Write simple, minimal, clear, keyword-rich content to describe the products/services.
Use visually appealing high-quality images to accompany the written content.
Insert short crisp videos wherever relevant.
Categorize products and services for easy search query results.
Place Call-To-Actions in strategic locations.
To sum it up, hire the services of a good website development company to have a good website design. Let us talk about it in our next point.
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5. No CTA or poor CTA positioning on the website
A CTA (Call-To-Action) on a website prompts or encourages the visitor to take a favorable action. It may be as simple and direct as a “Buy Now” button or an indirect way like the “Subscribe to our newsletter to keep receiving latest updates” button. Even the contact forms, chatbots and pop-ups have CTAs in them.
Many of the small businesses never give enough importance to CTAs and their placing on the website. As a result, they may not be successful to get an intended action from the visitor to turn them into customers.
A good website will have plenty of CTAs big or small, direct or indirect. Its content and positioning compel the visitors to take direct action. It has to be clear and engaging enough to catch the visitor’s eye yet subtle enough not to disturb them unnecessarily.
A good web designing company will be proficient enough to help you deal with CTAs and their placing on the website to compel the visitors to take action immediately.
6. Not having a website that is responsive
It is the world of mobiles! People shop on mobiles more frequently than they do on laptops or desktops.
A responsive website is one that aligns or rearranges its design and content to fit across all device screens be it on laptops, desktops, mobiles or tablets.
Small businesses do not pay much heed to the website being responsive. The user experience suffers big time and you risk losing out on potential customers.
Have a talk with your website development company regarding the website being responsive. Most of the ready themes are responsive. But if you are building your website from scratch, make sure that it is responsive and cross-platform compatible.
7. Incorrect contact information
One of the most common mistakes small businesses make with their website is to display wrong contact information. How can you expect the visitors to trust purchasing products on a website that has incorrect contact information or none at all?
Never display a wrong address or contact number. You may have forgotten to change it on the website or you may not have felt the need to do so, but it will have a negative repercussion on the visitor.
Letting out your business contact information is giving a sense of trust to the website visitors. Be clear about the location of your business (if any), it’s working hours, the contact address and the contact numbers.
The contact form on your website should ask for relevant information from the visitors as well as provide information to them. Place the “Contact Us” menu on the header so that it is visible to any site visitor.
Display the contact details in the footer of the website. If you have a physical location, integrate Google Maps on the website so that it helps visitors know that you mean genuine business.
8. Not ready to hire professional services
Many of the startups and small businesses focus on drastic cost-cutting measures and website development is the first target. Many of them settle for sub-standard websites from unreliable website development agencies or inexperienced freelancers. Alas! That doesn’t serve their purpose. The result is that there are no visitors to the website or a higher bounce rate.
We advise you to go in for a professional website from the beginning itself. There are many trustworthy web development companies. Rentech Digital offers a good package of comprehensive website development service. It offers custom themes, scalable & responsive websites and excellent support services. This way you save in the long run.
In a Nutshell
The most common mistakes small businesses make with their website is not something that you can ignore. In fact, it needs immediate attention and correction. A good website attracts visitors and isn’t it what you want in an online business?
To sum it up, we would advise you to invest in a good website by hiring the services of website development experts.
