When you visit a website for the first time, you may have different reactions. You may feel satisfaction, annoyance, pleasure, frustration or something else. But why do some experiences turn out to be more negative than others? Here’s a look at five common mistakes that many businesses make when creating their websites.
Mistake #1: Neglecting the navigation experience
Navigation on your website must be user-friendly and intuitive. This means that tab names and symbols should never leave room for interpretation. Visitors shouldn’t have to click several different links before finding the information they’re looking for. Beware of customer frustration.
Avoid “abstract” menus and integrate simple buttons, links and forms that will easily guide your visitors to their goal.
Mistake #2: Visually overloading the layout
Opening a website with giant sentences in capital letters, jerky videos or photos that change every two seconds can be overstimulating and deeply irritating, especially if it slows down the page loading process. The same goes for pop-up windows, ads and background music. Less is more!
Mistake #3: Failing to prioritize mobile navigation
Although many people still browse the internet on their computers, you must keep in mind that a huge proportion of your target audience will visit your website from a smartphone.
If you’ve ever browsed a website that wasn’t adapted for mobile navigation, you know how annoying it can be. Deploying an adapted version will help improve your organic search engine optimization (SEO).
Mistake #4: Forgetting to include sections for adding content
Even if the layout of your website seems perfect in every way, you must think long-term. Ideally, you should create one or more sections that can be modified or updated on a regular basis, such as a blog, news, events or job offers section.
The important thing is to keep your site active — Google loves that!
Is business slow and you have nothing new to share? Publish sustainable content! To find out more, read our article on the relevance of evergreen content.
Mistake #5: Entrusting copywriting to a non-expert
Written content is extremely important when building trust with your customers and business partners (now and in the future) and optimizing your SEO.
Your company’s credibility can plummet in the blink of an eye if there are grammatical errors and spelling mistakes on your pages — or if your texts are overflowing with unsubtle keywords.
At Scriptum, we create high-quality content for websites of all kinds. Get in touch with us!