If you have a personal business or an online store, you know that your website is your main point of contact between you and your customers. So, if it is not working as well as you hoped for, you’ll certainly want to find the issues and fix them as soon as possible. Here are 4 of the most common mistakes that could be affecting your website:
1. Overcomplicating the design
When building a new website, it can be easy to get carried away. However, a messy design can cause confusion and frustration for the users, as they may struggle to understand what you do or where to click. Therefore, sometimes less is more in web design.
To determine whether this is an issue with your online store, have a look at how many different elements you have and compare them to your competitors. Does your menu have too many items? Is your home page lacking white spaces and proper text hierarchy? Are there too many CTA buttons or too much information on one page?
2. Complex technical implementation
Your website may need a lot of complex technical features, especially if it’s an ecommerce platform. Trying to do implement it all yourself may become a costly mistake, leading to lots of different issues. For instance, features like shopping cart functionality, shipping updates, secure payment processing, etc., all must work seamlessly together.
Therefore, pick a website builder that already has all the complex features implemented for you, as well as provides technical support when needed. For example, the all-in-one ecommerce website builder by IONOS includes everything you may possibly need for a successful online store, from payment methods and shipping options, to sales tracking and even mobile app integration.
3. Lack of credibility
In order to purchase your products or services, customers must trust your website is reputable and credible. There are common mistakes that business-owners make, which unknowingly damage their reputation.
For instance, aggressive pop-ups that keep repeating throughout the website will make it look spammy and put people off. Overusing product discounts is also a poor practice – if everything is on sale, then nothing is on sale. Fake reviews under products can also be very obvious.
To help you build trust, consider introducing an “About Us” section on your website, where you can provide detailed information about yourself and your business. Make sure to include clear contact information and any certificated that provide evidence of your business existing legally.
4. Poor SEO performance
Lastly, if you find that your website is designed perfectly well and the technical features work great, then your problem might be related to poor SEO performance instead. SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, is all about ensuring that your site performs well on different search engines, such as Google.
SEO involves a lot of different aspects, so to find your particular issue, you may have to complete an SEO audit. You may have to do such things as optimise your image sizes, add meta descriptions to your pages, improve the text hierarchy through headings, or delete overly spammy text with too many keywords. If all of these things are already done, consider starting a blog as part of your SEO strategy.
Conclusion
Finding an issue that is affecting the performance of your overall website can sometimes feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. These 4 most common website mistakes are a great place to get started.
