Having a website is no longer a luxury for small businesses; it’s a necessity. It will create greater brand recognition while allowing you to connect with a broader audience. And when more people discover your business, you’ll have an easier time generating sales and conversions. Unfortunately, though, many business owners are guilty of making some critical mistakes when designing their website, negating all of their hard work.
Not Compatible on Mobile Devices
Don’t assume that your website will function correctly on mobile devices just because it functions on desktop computers. Smartphones and tablets have different screen sizes, operating systems and web browsers. Therefore, you need to take a different approach to web design to ensure that both desktop and mobile users can access your site’s content.
There are several different configurations available for creating mobile-friendly websites, including the use of a separate mobile URL; dynamically serve HTML based on user’s web browser; and the use of a Responsive Web Design (this is the only configuration recommended by Google).
Lack of Original Content
High-quality content is the backbone behind any successful website. If your website has little-to-no original content, you’ll have a difficult time trying to optimize it for a top search ranking. Granted, there’s nothing wrong with using small amounts of duplicate content in the form of a privacy policy, legal terms, templates, boilerplate content, etc. But if the bulk of your site’s content is found elsewhere on the web, it could have a negative impact on your site’s search ranking.
Poor Navigation
Proper navigation is critical to achieving a positive user experience on a website. Tossing all of your internal navigation links into a sidebar isn’t going to work. Sure, it may suffice for smaller sites consisting of just a dozen or so pages. But as your site grows — and it will — you’ll need a more methodical and structured approach to navigation. This may include the use of upper level and bottom level categories, complete with multiple sections within.
Broken Links
Does your website have broken links? Omitting just a single letter or character from a linked URL may send visitors to a 404 error page instead of the actual webpage. Not only does this create a poor user experience, but broken links may even have a negative impact on your site’s search rankings. To prevent this from happening, try to get into the habit of checking your site for broken links — both internal and external — on a regular basis.
Tip: www.brokenlinkcheck.com/ can be used to scan entire sites for broken links.
