5 Biggest Mistakes Small Business Owners Make with their Website

Over the years we've talked with and helped 1,000+ different business owners with their websites. Everything from website design, to eCommerce to search engine optimization. In interviewing business owners I've found there is a pattern that develops when it comes to their perception of the value of their website and their opportunities from it. Often times websites either start out bad or start out good, but fail to keep up with the competition over time. These are the top five mistakes that business owners make with their websites.

#5 - Assume that their Competition is Just Local
Many small business owners, particularly those that service local people assume that their competition is just the business down the street. In cases of things like restaurants, that may be the case, but in most cases small businesses now face national and international competition from non-traditional sources. How do you compete? It really depends on your business category, but things like search engine optimization and enhanced Google My Business listings are a good place to start. Call us at 720-334-7496 and talk to us about your situation.

#4 - Website Isn't Important, Just Don't Want to Be Embarrassed by Not Having a Website
In most cases that statement isn't true. Unless you are a business that just services a select few customers, you probably can find new business online. We've seem multiple situations where we either enhanced the website, introduced new online marketing strategies or changed the business strategy that provided a big impact in new revenue growth.

#3 - Search Engine Optimization Isn't Important for My Business
There are some rare circumstances where SEO might not fit a business needs, but that isn't common. If you want to find new customers, why wouldn't drive traffic to your website from Google, Bing and other search engines? Great search engine optimization is a small investment that typically can drive a ROI when the SEO, website and sales team are all working together.

#2 - My Website Looks Great, I Don't Need to Redesign
I see this too often. Sometimes a small business owner is emotionally attached to the current website. Or they aren't sure that investing to refresh the current site would be worth the cost. Did you know that one small change to website in some cases can almost instantly drive mobile traffic to your website by 50+%? There has been times where the website owner said they thought their website looked great. From experience we know that wasn't the case and a few quick focus groups with potential customers agreed. What did we do? We did a mock up design for a new site utilizing the latest user interface design techniques and presented that to the client free of charge (we've done this more than once). We walked through the differences and the benefits with the new design. In every case the client accepted the change and after making the change and being educated on the benefits they've stated that they should have made the change sooner and didn't realize what a determent their website was being to their business.

#1 - Website Content that Doesn't Speak to the Audience
Content is king and well written content is so important. When a website visitor comes to your website you have about 3 seconds to keep them on that website and from going back to the search engine results page. In those three seconds the user will evaluate the site on its professionalism, but more importantly they will look at the content on the first screen and evaluate if this site matches the need they have or gives them the solution to their problems. Because of that the content (images and text) have to exactly speak to what the user wants. Concise language that is quick and to the point is the key. All users (including myself) are inherently lazy. They don't want to read a bunch of stuff. Bullet point types of presentations, with great navigation invites a user to stay longer on a website. The good news is that when you approach your website content in this way, typically you are enhancing the search engine optimization with it. Because more often than not the content becomes keyword rich and clear to the search engines what the site is about.

Need help with your website? Get a FREE consultation! There are so many little tricks to creating a great website that we would love to share with you.