If you own a business website and aren’t happy with your traffic or leads, you might be making some big mistakes in your business website design.

There are certain things that if you didn’t do… can cost you thousands of dollars in lost customers, wasted time and frustration, and even worse… make you wish you never started a business website at all.

Don’t have a business website, and want to create one? This article will help you avoid some major errors as you begin.

So here we go with the top 7 cardinal sins business owners make with their websites;

Mistake 1 – Not Having Any Website at All

Did you know that 50% of business owners do not have a website?

If you’re in this group then your business is missing out of one of the most important growth trends ever.

Lock-downs have accelerated the adoption of online business several years, creating a website has never been easier and more cost effective.

Your Customers Expect A Website

According to the 2019 Telstra business survey, 60% of customers will stop considering a business if they can’t find information about it online or it doesn’t have a website. That’s a significant amount of trade your business could be losing just by not having an online presence.

If you want to grow your business then make it easy for your customers to find and buy from you. Even if you don’t source new business online, having a website is a great way to keep in touch with your current customers. It will provide a way to build a relationship and turn them into repeat business over time.

Mistake 2 – Spending Too Much

Website design and construction can be an expensive process, if you don’t know what you are doing.

Very often business owners end up spending money on features they don’t need.

What should be a $2,000 dollar site can turn into a $10,000 or even $20,000 expense. Don’t let this happen to you.

Don’t Try To Build The Pyramids In a Day

More often than not your site will go through several iterations before you decide on the final version.

To begin with you can use an online web building service like SiteGround or Wix. These services do most of the setup work for you and provide a great choice of design templates to quickly get going.

Spend some time planning the structure of your site before you begin. This will save time and prevent you having to rework sections later.

Always Plan Your Business Website Design Before Spending Time and Money

If you don’t want to do it yourself then hiring a business website designer is the next best choice. You will still need to have your site structure mapped out to get the best value from this service.

For a basic website this should cost no more than 2,000 to 3,000. This will get you a well designed site using a standard design template and basic features listed below;

• Homepage
• Website Copy or Text
• Visitor “Opt in” and contact capture
• Site layout, Images, add-ins and licenses

Mistake 3 – Using Your Homepage As a Landing Page

Most websites have a homepage, this is essentially just a jumping off point for visitors to the site.

The purpose of a homepage is to allow people to navigate to information they are interested in. For return visitors who already know you this works fine, for new potential customers something more is needed.

If You Confuse Them, You Lose Them

This is where a landing page comes in, this type of page has a specifically targeted message to new visitors. The purpose of this page is to get those potential new customers to take the first step.

Sending new prospects to your home page is likely to confuse them with too many options and information. Often this results in them leaving the site without taking any action. A landing page is like a slide they fall down into your marketing system where you can follow up later.

Get Your Visitors To Take Action

Having call to action is essential, or your visitors wont know what to do next. A call to action can be an offer to purchase, a free download or an email subscriber opt in. You need to be specific, visitors need clear instructions on what to do and what they will get in return.

Mistake 4 – Having a Weak Headline (Or No Headline)

When a typical visitor browses to a site, they will stay for about 8 seconds, the average attention span online.

If nothing has captured their interest they will move on. That’s 8 seconds you have to capture their interest and have a chance at getting a lead or a sale.

Most websites typically start with the company logo, the name of the company and what they do. The customer doesn’t care what your business name is or how great it is. They care about the benefit you can provide to them, they are always asking “what’s in it for me?”

You Logo Is Your Ego

The most effective sites have a great headline that targets the visitors emotional buttons. It may take a few tries but getting the right headline will capture your readers interest and get them intrigued. Leave the logo for later, your first job is to get them to stay on your site.

Here are some examples of effective headlines

• How to avoid having you car stolen this summer on the gold coast.
• How to obtain guaranteed credit anywhere in Australia
• To people who want to build websites – but cant get started!
• How to make a killing in close-outs

A good headline is the number one thing you can do to improve the engagement on your website. Without a strong headline, it doesn’t matter how good your offer or pitch is, they will never see it.

Mistake 5 – Significance Marketing

Significance marketing is when you focus on you, your product, your solution and offer before anything else. This is how most sites open, with a description of the product or service, and a huge logo.

Potential customers are not interested in this. They want to know “what’s in it for me” whenever they go to a website, so make the content about them.

The most effective sites trigger an “emotional” response by tapping into the wants, fears and desires of the target audience. This takes research to do properly however the right copy will cut through the noise and distractions like a spear.

Example 1 : The wrong way – all about you

Our business website design services are the best in Australia. We have been in business 40 years and are a multi-award winning company.

Example 2 : The right way – all about the customer and their benefits

Get your car repaired here and you will receive an iron clad 6 month guarantee on all work. Our service system will track over 100 check points on your car. Always be sure you never have to worry about your families safety.

Mistake 6 – No Way To Capture Leads

Once you get traffic to your website, paid or free, you will want to make sure you own that traffic.

The most effective way to do this is to ensure that potential customers make it on to your marketing list.

This list is one of the most valuable assets in your business, as a general rule you can expect to earn $1 a month on average for each contact on your list.

Use Free Tools

Modern business website design packages provide very cost-effective and easy to implement lead capture features. This information can be sent directly to your email account.

Make sure its easy to call, email or contact you and that you have a “call to action”. Here is a link to a tool called Optimonk that creates beautiful lead capture forms.

Offer Bait

Not everyone will want to sign up to your list of course, and that’s were a free offer comes in. Offer your visitors free valuable content that solves an immediate problem for them. This will maximize your response rate for list opt-ins and build your marketing list.

Mistake 7 – Poor Search Ranking (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Did you know that, of those that do have a website, 72% say they do not intend to use any search optimization or tactics to improve the visibility of their site within major search engines.

Now consider the same survey found that 47% of customers under the age of 40 say they use a search engine to research a small business at least once a day.

That’s bad news if you’re a one of these business owners. You’re missing out on a huge audience for your product or service. You might have the best business website design in the world and be doing everything right. But if you don’t get traffic to your site then you are wasting time and money.

If Your Not On Page 1 of Results, Your Invisible

If your not on the first page of google search then the chances of people finding your site reduce dramatically;

• 71% to 90% of search result clicks occur on the first page
• Around 6% of search result clicks occur on the second page

A large part of SEO involves ensuring that your site pages have the right keywords and links. Good keyword selection will increase your site ranking in the search engine results.

Popular website tools such as Moz and Ubbersuggest have SEO tools that make it easy to identify what areas of your site are lowering your search ranking.

Use The Right Keywords

Having the right keyword phrases included in your website, headings and site tags makes a huge difference to your ranking.

Keywords are phrases that people enter into search engines based on their search “intention”. Having the right phrases and content that is relevant to their search needs is critical. Check out free tools like Keywords everywhere or Ubersuggest to research he best phrases for your business website design.

Here is a quick SEO checklist

• Does your site have keyword phrases included in its web page content?
• Is your page content relevant to the topics they are searching?
• Do you have other sites referencing your site (back-links)?

Relevance And Authority Rule

Google rewards relevancy of content and site authority the highest when choosing where to rank your business in the search results.

And, of course site speed is critical. A slow site will get you penalized so be sure to use tools that ensure you have the fastest load times possible.

To Sum Up

Even the most seasoned web site owners make mistakes, sometimes without even realizing it. These tips will help you avoid the common pitfalls that leave most websites in the doldrums.

Get these right and you will be well on your way to long term success with your site. It will be a lead generating machine that will give you a constant stream of quality enquiries.

Want to discuss your site and marketing, book a time below. Get a free intro call with a web site health audit and report.

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