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The Top Ten Web Mistakes
Today, information as well as purchasing processes increasingly start with the Internet. According to a research, conducted by B2C world, for 70 percent of the households with incomes of more than $75.000, the Internet has become the primary source of information about products and services. However, this holds also true for B2B communication. The search for advice, consultant services or product information usually starts online.
Therefore, a company’s online presence has become critical to its business success as websites are recognised a company's signboard. In this regard, the professional representation of a company on the Internet as well as the need to be found by potential visitors or customers are essential criteria for the future information and business processes because a company's perception and credibility in the marketplace are determined online.
Liquid Development, a provider of integrated e-business and software systems, identifies the top ten web mistakes, that can reduce a website's effectiveness as well as its long-term growth prospects, and provides useful hints how to avoid them.
1st Mistake: Multiple Website Objectives
Failure to pick a singular objective is failure for a website.
Even if a website is well designed, is fully functional and meets the current technical requirements it often fails to produce the expected gains because it lacks a primary objective. The static websites of the early 90s have become dynamic and the range of possible, interactive features to include into the site are growing steadily. However, these possiblities often result in a "one-in-all approach" reducing the visitors attention to the website's main focus.
Offering different objectives, a website may confuse and mislead its visitors. Therefore, a website should rather focus on one primary objective which suites the site's main purpose. Define the primary objective and adapt it to the corresponding target audience. Other goals can be realized through different portals or sister sites, for example.
2nd Mistake: Creativity Over Functionality
The look and feel of a website is, of course, important to how your company is represented on the web but it should not deter the visitor from effectively accessing the desired contents. Therefore, rather integrate only functions that serve the purpose and help to achieve it.
There is no sense in presenting a well designed site if it confuses or misguides the visitor from the contents. Visitors of your website do want to get information, evaluate and purchase products – they just do not come to play.
3rd Mistake: Hard to Manage – The Website Is Too Difficult to Manage
An implemented CMS should ease the use of a website. A website that can only be managed by the web or the IT department fails its purpose.
Today's web applications make it possible for any user to interact with the website or produce and manage content. After your website is online IT should not be necessary to manage the content. The usability of the CMS should therefore support the idea of Web 2.0. In this regard, content management must not be too complex or difficult that personal apart from IT and website users are unable to contribute and update content.
4th Mistake: Missing Quality Control
The website lacks a proper rights and workflow management. Uncontrolled content mangement may jeopardise a website's quality.
The ease of use, however, does not imply to grant everyone uncontrolled access to your website. Content quality remains a decisive criterion with running a website. A precice rights management to define user roles and responsibilities is therefore critical to a properly manage a website. Moreover, the CMS should include a suitable workflow management to customise and control the publication process.
5th Mistake: Not Being Found – The Lack of Search Engine Optimisation
Without optimising a website users and customers will neither find your website nor your company.
Not only for sales companies has being found on the Internet become a key criterion for the business success. Therefore, already the conception of a website should account for search engine optimisation. First, a website should be build in a way to be found best possible by the most important search engines. Second, this also applies for a website's content.
There is no use in a perfectly designed website if it gets lost in the Internet jungle. Revenues can be increased by a proper optimisation of a website's content.
6th Mistake: Undirected Traffic - Lack of Analysis and Evaluation
Inbound traffic as well as outbound traffic need to be analysed in order to effectively direct the users of a website according to their expectations.
A website structured for the needs of its visitors will help them to find what they came for. Lead your visitors to the content they expect to find. In this respect, it is necessary to analyse the way users actually take. After the analysis you may change single pages and establish better links. However, it is important to customise the site step by step in order to find out which change actually made a difference. An optimal access of the desired contents not only improves a website's usability but may also make the visitors return.
7th Mistake: Unsuitable Design and Content Creation
Still, many websites are not designed for its addressed users. Although new concepts of presenting content on the web are increasingly applied but still there are pages providing services or products similar to the Print Media.
However, the average Internet user only spends eight seconds per page scanning the content. Content is the lifeblood of the Internet and, therefore, for your business, too. No matter if your site is aiming at selling products, provides services or just information, it is decisive to adapt the corresponding content to the needs of the website's visitors. Also, purchasing a product always starts with the customer's need for information. In the end, a page's structure as well as the content structure is a key factor to the usability of a website.
Also, the way the content is presented on a web page contributes to a website's usability. Texts are to be well structured, relevant and appealing. Find suitable headlines, devide the text into smaller paragraphs and highlight the most important words and phrases. Helping the users find the relevant facts faster supports the purpose of a website.
8th Mistake: Too Many Bells and Whistles
Improve functionality by limiting functions
The design of a website should always follow the respective needs of its target audience. As research shows, it is decisive not to confuse the users of a website with too many options, most of them not even necessary for accessing the desired content. It is, therefore, advising to limit the offered options.
9th Mistake: Unattractive Websites Do Not Give Visitors a Reason to Return
Attract visitors by interactive elements and regular updates.
On the one hand side, there are several elements to be included in a website that may increase its value for the visitors. It is, for instance, easy to add a poll or a forum to a website as function that users may consider interesting, useful or even entertaining.
On the other hand, a website's content should be updated regularly. Of course, keeping content up to date can be very time consuming. If possible, it is advising to delegate the updating process of certain sections of the website to staff members according to their field of interest. Moreover, regularly updated content may also be worth an RSS feed.
Also, certain content and accordingly press releases can be made available for download or submitted to public relations websites. In doing so, your content may very likely result in additional incoming links back to your website.
Once attracted the user may very likely return to check out the latest updates.
10th Mistake: Inappropriate Navigation
A website's navigation is the basic direction sign to the website's content. Therefore, the links should be accurately named, well limited and inviting to use them.
Moreover, the site should offer a good search functionality as well as a site map page, which links all pages with the corresponding contents.
Not only are these tips relevant to the usability of the entire website but they are also crucial to optimising the site for search engines. Avoiding these common web mistakes will improve a website's effectiveness as well as its long-term growth prospects.
This article is based on the Top Ten Web Mistakes – Report from Liquid Development.
Liquid Development simplifies technology for medium and Fortune 500 organizations by providing best-in-class application development and web content management technology and service. 02/2007
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