The Worst Advice About Your Website That We’ve Heard

In today’s world, it’s just not possible for a business to be really successful without a really solid online presence. This is not ground breaking news, so business owners and company executives hire web designers or assign the task to a designer in house, and go about setting up a website.

However, good web design that converts is not as easy to accomplish as it seems. It takes a lot of research, creativity, analysis, and testing to design a website that brings visitors to the front door, convinces them you are their saving grace, and then moves them to conversion.

Being a website design and digital marketing company, we’ve had over 20 years of years of seeing trends on web design evolve. We opened the vault of the stupidest things we've heard, and compiled this list of the worst advice we’ve ever heard clients be given when it comes to their website so you can avoid making them yourself.

1. NO NEED TO UPDATE YOUR WEBSITE REGULARLY

Now we’re not talking maintenance... THAT you should do early and often, especially if it’s a WordPress website!  We're talking DESIGN.  Think of your website as your online store showroom. You wouldn’t setup your showroom once and never lay a hand on it again. You'd regularly update the window displays or the specials board out front, you'd evaluate what would and wouldn't bring prospective buyers in through your doors, and you’d stay up to date on the latest trends in your field and incorporate them wherever you can.

Your website should be treated the same way! Once your website is designed, you don’t just let it sit for decades. You need to constantly be tweaking it to optimize what’s working and get rid of the stuff that’s not, and keep it up to date with trends that will help you use it to convert more business.

And online trends are constantly changing! Best practices say your website should undergo a redesign every two to three years to ensure it still optimized and converting at the highest possible level it can be.

2. YOUR WEBSITE SHOULD REFLECT YOUR PERSONAL LIKES

One of the worst pieces of advice you can ever be given is to have your website built for your own personal likes and dislikes. Throughout the design and review process, it should never be a question of “what do I think about this?” This also doesn’t mean asking everyone in your family, including Aunt Martha, what they think.

Remember you’re creating a website for your current customers to reference and to convince more visitors to become buyers. It’s your customers that matter, not you.

Start thinking about what information is the most important to them? What do they really need to know in order to convert? What size fonts and what colors appeal to them? Is beautiful imagery important to them? Would they prefer more text or more images?

In order to make sure you’re keeping your personal preferences out of the equation, TEST TEST TEST! Get in touch with past buyers and conduct surveys! This way you don’t have to trust what you think you know.

3. THE PRETTIEST WEBSITE WINS

This goes hand-in-hand with the priorpoint, your website should be so much more than just beautiful design. Again, don’t go off the deep end on this one, we’re not advocating butt-ugly websites. You want your website to be visually appealing to draw in visitors. Don’t lose out on customers because your site looks homemade and untrustworthy!  But the user experience is more important to consider.

Sit down and think about how you want visitors to move through your website and make sure the design allows this to happen as easily as possible. Navigation should be simple and easy to use. If you have products, your visitor should be able to easily move from one product to another and get to checkout without much fuss. Your checkout process should also be what the user is expecting, nothing wonky, and easy for them to give you their money. Take advantage of calls-to-action throughout your website moving your visitor to the next step.

4. YOU DON’T NEED TO SPEND A LOT ON WEBSITE DESIGN

Simply put, you get what you pay for.

No one is saying that you have to fork out hundreds of thousands of dollars for a website.  But if you’re not willing to set aside a decent budget for your website to ensure it has the capability to get you a decent ROI, then you’re not putting your best foot forward and wasting money.

Let’s go back to the showroom example. You pay rent or lease a building in order to use that space as your showroom. Then, you decorate it, place items in just the right spots, purchase computers and appropriate technology, and anything else you need in order for your showroom to drive business. You wouldn’t cheap out on the design of your showroom.

The more budget you have, the more you can create and build an enticing, user experience tested, conversion focused, search engine optimized website with the functionality your business needs.

5. WRITE THE COPY YOURSELF... A COPYWRITER IS A WASTE OF MONEY

You want your website to have the chance to be high in search engine rankings, right?  Then you need to realize that since Google’s Panda and Penguin algorithm changes, SEO has relied primarily on quality content. Gone are the days of stuffing the right amount of keywords into unnaturally-written articles, and building as many (spammy) backlinks as possible.

Sure, you need onsite optimization and high quality backlinks, but Google now rewards websites for their ability to hold onto a target audience, along with their ability to encourage the visitor to interact with the website and click on the desired calls-to-action.

So how can you keep visitors glued to the page?

Through brilliantly-written, entertaining, valuable and relevant content.

And how do you get this kind of content?

That’s right… a copywriter...  Especially a creative one!

Especially especially an SEO-savvy creative copywriter who knows their way around good keyword research tools, like we do.

If your content is actually good,  building backlinks becomes easier... your awesome, valuable content will be naturally shared, and naturally linked to from other people’s blogs and sites. This is exactly the kind of organic back linking that Google now rewards.

ARE YOU LOOKING TO REDESIGN YOUR WEBSITE?

Well, now that you’ve heard some of the worst web design advice out there, are you ready to get some GOOD advice?  If it’s time for your brand to undergo a website redesign - Talk to Us!

BCP Digital Marketing boasts a team of highly skilled web design and user experience-minded experts who can help you create an optimized website that will allow you to see more ROI for your business.

Learn more about our branding, web design, user experience, SEO and hosting services now by calling 904-710-3203 to speak to us directly or click the "Click To Apply" button and tell us your website needs some help!

Make your business successful online today!