The Top Website Mistakes That Almost Every Company Makes

A solid website is one of the most important, if not the most important, assets to a company.  Regardless of the size and strength of the business, everyone needs a website whether they’re a child selling hair ties or socks out of their parents’ basement, to a Fortune 500 tech company. Unfortunately, not everyone knows the proper way to set up an efficient website.  Here are some of the top website mistakes almost every company makes, so you can avoid them on your next web redesign:

Top website mistakes almost every company makes:

1.   Having A Website That’s Too Cluttered or Too Confusing — How many times have you gone to a website to find a very specific piece of information only to give up after twenty minutes of frustration from not being able to find what you were looking for?  Chances are you probably googled it and found a competitor that had the answer you were looking for.  If someone feels like they’re a secret agent trying to get into mission control when all they’re doing is looking for your hours of operation or price points, this is a sign that you need a new web design.
2. Not Knowing Enough about SEO and What It Can Do for You — SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, has become a really hot topic lately, especially for companies that try to sell you web design services.  Unfortunately, not a lot of people actually know how SEO really works.  It’s up to you to make sure you’ve maximized your search terms, keywords, titles, and meta-titles on every single page of your website, or that you can find someone who can.  At Komaya, this is absolutely something we can help you with, so if you get stuck, don’t hesitate to contact us.
3. Not Having a Clear Call-To-Action or Way to Buy — Someone can come to your website and think you’re the bee’s knees, but that doesn’t mean anything unless there’s a clear call to action or way for them to buy your products or services right there, on the spot.  People are often impulsive buyers and will talk themselves out of a purchase if they have time to think about what else they can do with those finances.   If you sell goods and services, there needs to be an extremely prominent way for people to add to their cart on the main page, and if you have a different type of service, there needs to be a clear call to action (follow us, join today, etc.) in an equally prominent place.
4. Not Encouraging Interaction from Clients and Consumers —  Chat rooms can be a really good call as they allow consumers to interact directly with the “powers that be” of a company, and it really makes people feel like their voices and suggestions are heard.   Forums are also a really nice way for people to be able to leave their thoughts and opinions on a product.  You’ll receive a couple of bonuses for doing this as well.  For starters, you’ll receive free feedback on your product (without having to pay for testing or a consumer panel).  Additionally, if people start to interact with other consumers within a forum space, you’ll find that they check in more often on your site for follow up responses.
5. Not Capturing Information from the Customer to Continue to Follow Up — Speaking of follow up, one of the biggest mistakes you can make in any business model is not following up with your consumers.   A lot of times, someone will check out on a business website and enter their credit card information, receive their package, and never hear from the company again.  You’ll want to make sure to record customer information for future use.  You can also have a subscription box on your homepage that someone can use to fill out their name, e-mail address, and possibly even a phone number to sign up for some kind of freebie (or discount code) that you have decided on in advance.  This way, you’ll be able to subscribe them to your offers, and mailing list, and you may even be able to send them a survey asking for feedback on your new and improved website.