The Most Common Mistakes Website Owners Make

Do you feel uncomfortable when prospective customers say “I’ll have a look at your website and call you later”? Most business owners are experts in their field — not in website design. In all likelihood you’re currently making one or more very common mistakes with your website that can turn customers off or even put you in legal jeopardy. Here’s our list of the errors which crop up most frequently — check your website for them, and you will probably be glad you did.

Viewing your website as something you “just have to have”

Most business owners tend to take a generic view of websites, as if they are another form of brochure. They load them up with their past awards, personnel, and other ways of “boosting their image” as a firm — but in many cases actually omitting anything that drives their marketing goals.

When you design a website, you need to take into account what you would like it to achieve. Should it drive people to call you for an appointment? Purchase something from your online store? Sign up for your newsletter? This goal should inform every aspect of your website design.

Furthermore, the business owner (likely you) should generally not be in charge of the design. As the owner you tend to want to focus on elements (such as your business history) which customers are not interested in. It’s simply very difficult to put yourself in the shoes of your clients, visiting the site without any prior information about your business. Instead, you — or, better yet, your web designer — should find out from your clients what’s important to them. You will almost certainly be surprised!

Spelling or grammar mistakes

It may seem simple enough, but they’re devilishly common. Especially if English isn’t your first language or writing isn’t your strength, have a professional review your website for errors. Your online image is important and first impressions tend to carry the day. You do not want your customers mistaking you for a website based overseas (many prefer dealing with local providers) and even simple grammatical errors convey the wrong image.

Copying legals from other sites

Some web developers suggest their customers copy Privacy Policy or Terms and Conditions statements from similar websites. This is not just poor advice, it is illegal!

The risks of doing this are threefold. First, copying another businesses’ legals puts you in breach of copyright, which opens you to legal action from the company whose legals you copied.

Second, it means you will likely have Terms on your page which aren’t in fact related to the business you do. The result may be regulators hitting you with penalty fines that can be as high as $1.1 million.

Lastly, since you are relying on your Terms to protect your business, by copying legals you put your business at risk. Any court looks to your Terms and Conditions first in the event of a dispute, and if they have been copied you may find it difficult to rely on them in front of a court.

A dated website design

Websites are not a ‘set and forget’ affair. If you do not update your website on a regular basis with new images and content, and re-designing it periodically to keep up with the trends, your site will start to look dated extremely quickly. You do not need to have the latest-and-greatest bells-and-whistles nor do you need to spend a fortune on a high-end web design studio to build your page, but you should make sure your design fits with the times.

Not having a mobile-friendly website       

Google has just announced they will be penalising websites which are not friendly to mobile users. If you do not have a version of your site which is optimised for mobile users, you should get one. More and more of your customers access the Internet, use their email, and make their purchases on mobile phones and tablets. Part of having a website is ensuring you are accessible to the people who would like to use it. This needn’t be expensive, and you do not need to develop a dedicated ‘app’. Just be sure that your website’s code is updated to the latest standards so it is accessible with mobiles and tablets.

Incidentally, if you haven’t updated your website design in a while, adding mobile functionality is a great time to update the whole site.

Leaving your blog dead or empty

If you have a blog, customers will tend to look at it first. If you don’t have one, consider getting one! Customers want to make a connection with you and see what your business is about, and a blog can be a powerful credibility and trust building tool in that respect. However, if you’ve never added to your blog or haven’t updated it in a year, it can also hurt your image severely. Therefore, make a point of posting on your blog regularly, or don’t bother having a blog at all.

Alex Pejak is an economist currently working on a few projects in Australia. She is interested in topics related to project management and business IT.