The internet is evolving and expanding at a rapid pace, and your digital marketing strategy must move alongside it. Yet, you might be guilty of sticking to poor or ineffective techniques that are impacting your reputation, online visibility, bounce rate, and web traffic.
If your past tactics have fallen short or you want to iron out weaknesses in a strategy, you must identify where your brand is going wrong. Read this guide to the biggest website mistakes.
A Poorly Optimized Website
Well-optimized sites rank higher in Google. Yet, many brands make the mistake of not continually assessing and adjusting their sites to adhere to Google’s guidelines and algorithms.
Unfortunately, one SEO analysis is not enough to consistently reach the top of the search engine results pages. You must ensure your content adheres to the latest rules to avoid penalization by search engines.
Click Intelligence can keep your brand updated on the latest SEO techniques and secure your position at the top of Google for specific keywords. The SEO experts can audit your site, optimize it, and introduce effective link-building tactics to boost your brand’s visibility online.
Failing to Address Visitors’ Pain Points
Most consumers are looking for solutions to their problems. However, many brands promote products on their website instead of addressing their web visitors’ pain points.
Rather than promoting a product’s best features, you must produce content that highlights how an item will make their lives much better. If a product fills a need, it is more likely to turn a web visitor into a happy customer.
Pinpoint common pain points through online surveys, customer interviews, company reviews, or customer support feedback. Also, routinely connect with your customer service and sales teams to spot patterns in customers’ requests.
Blogs with Little or No Value
Google’s Helpful Content Update has confirmed the importance of providing interesting, helpful content for users. If you are one of the many webmasters publishing low-quality, boring copy designed solely for the search engines, don’t be surprised if your site plummets down the SERPs soon – and remember that readers can spot these types of websites, too.
Never write blogs for SEO purposes alone. Instead, produce SEO-friendly content that is published to help, inspire, or educate users. Well-written, informative, and well-researched blogs with a niche will perform much higher in Google and drive more traffic to your site.
Separately Working on Content and Design
It is surprising how many brands underestimate the importance of copy and web design teams working together. Most web designers will be the first to mention that copy needs to be a specific length for an attractive design and conversion rate. Yet, content marketers must ensure copy works for SEO purposes and a positive user experience.
Content and web design teams must work in unison to create an attractive, user-friendly, informative, and well-optimized website. Compromise is essential, and one strategy might need to take priority over another. For instance, long-form, insightful content will perform better in search, but web design might require punchy, short, and compelling copy inside content blocks or visuals. Think about your company’s goals for each page to encourage supportive, effective collaborations.
Ineffective Use of Whitespace
Web designers must find the correct balance of whitespace on a site. Too little whitespace will make visitors feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content on a page. Too much whitespace can feel sparse and uninformative.
When executed well, whitespace can improve a visitor’s readability, attention, clarity, and comprehension. Use whitespace to support focus and improve interest in copy, images, or calls-to-action buttons on a page.
Failing to Answer Visitors’ Questions
In addition to promoting content that indicates how a product improves a user’s life, you must highlight why they should choose your brand over a rival. Customers may have specific questions about your brand when browsing your website. If you cannot answer them, they might click away from your site to find a more helpful competitor.
Some common questions may include:
- What is the company’s return or exchange policy?
- How do I talk to a customer service representative?
- What is the shipping policy?
- Where is the company located?
- What is the brand’s USP?
- Why choose the company over an industry rival?
Unhelpful Navigation Menus
A site’s navigation menu will make or break the user experience. If a customer doesn’t know where to find a product or service, they will quickly become frustrated and leave a site.
A clear navigation menu provides a visitor with a visual clue about where they can go across a website. Remember, if your navigation bounces, flashes, or rolls during a search, a visitor might give up altogether.
Customers don’t want to waste their time on complicated navigation menus when they could be finding solutions to their problems. If customers are abandoning your site left, right, and center, a poor navigation menu might be the cause of your high bounce rate.
Skipping the Favicon
A favicon is a small icon in the browser tab, which you may spot each time you open a website. Also, the image appears in other areas where your site appears, such as in history results, address bars, and bookmarks.
Don’t underestimate the importance of a favicon, as it instantly improves trust in your website and creates a brand identity. Also, the small icon will help a user find your site among a crowd of browser tabs. Favicons are easy to introduce, as they tend to be saved as a PNG with a transparent background and 16×16 pixels.
Conclusion
Usability is everything when it comes to running a website. If you want your company to enjoy success online, you must consistently produce informative content, improve your site’s optimization, help visitors find much-needed answers to their questions, and increase trust in your brand.
Never take your eye off the ball when it comes to online tactics, as consumer behavior can change, search engine algorithms will evolve, and designs might become outdated. Keep your site fresh, consistent, and helpful to wow visitors, attract customers, and dominate search engines.
