If you’re a small business owner, you know the importance of having a well-branded, professional-looking website for new and potential clients to view. People want to get to know your business. What better way to understand what you do than to have a descriptive website explaining your services, mission, and a bit about yourself.
Here are the most common turn-offs that will have people fleeing your website searching for your competitor who will capture their business (if you don’t!). Make sure to keep these items updated and review your website annually to see what changes need to be made to increase your SEO and keep your best marketing tool fresh and updated.
The importance of website design for your small business
Website Design Mistake #1: Putting Too Much Content on One Page
If you want to have good SEO, you’ll need a minimum of 300 words per page for your information to be indexed by Google. This means you’ll need at least 300 words per page for your website to be searchable by others. This is extremely important if you want people to find your website and buy from your company.
However, you can put too much content on one page, leaving your reader in a mind-spin on what to read and look at. Instead, keep your website pages simple, with your vision and mission statement on your Home page, along with answers to your client’s worst pain points in summary. Then, you can explain more at length about what you do on your services page and within your blog content.
Website Design Mistake #2: Cluttering Your Site with Too Many Images
Although a picture can say 1000 words, you don’t want so many pictures that your story is lost in the shuffle of images. Keep your design simple, and make sure you are using engaging photos with people looking directly at the camera, so your readers and viewers of your small business website stay engaged with your content.
Website Design Mistake #3: Not having Clear Call-to-Action
Your call-to-action is the next step you want readers to take after viewing and reading the content on your website. For example, you may wish readers to sign up to be on your email list, get information for your next webinar, or have a sample product snail-mailed to their home. Whatever you want your readers to do next, you should have a simple button that people can easily click to funnel them into the next marketing step for your business.
Website Design Mistake #4: Writing Your Website Content without Having Professional Assistance
Let’s face it, you decided to get into your vertical because it’s your superpower, right? The same applies to content writers. Professional website content writers understand how to place keywords in headings and content, a skillset that many entrepreneurs don’t have. Why? Many small business owners like yourself wear such a variety of hats. You don’t have time to learn every marketing skillset needed to grow your business. By hiring a professional website content writer, you can easily create beautiful SEO-friendly content and attract new customers to your site to purchase from your company.
Website Design Mistake #5: Having Too Many Page Headers on Your Home Page
Many people want their website visitors to see all the information on their site, and rightly so. However, when you’ve put so much time, money, and effort into your website, you want your best marketing tool to have the information your clients need to decide to make a purchase from your company.
However, the mistake that we see so often is small business owners placing every subject title for their business across the top of their website, making the amount of content to your reader overwhelming. This, in turn, will turn them off and have them looking at your competitor’s website instead.
Make sure to have your basic topics for each web page, then have dropdowns underneath your topics. Another option is to cross-link one page in your website to another page or blog post, increasing the time your readers will spend on your website, thus increasing your SEO and the likelihood that your consumer will buy from your business.
Let Visual Web Group assist your company website in dominating your vertical! We offer video packages to enhance your website SEO. Not sure where to start? Contact us today for a complimentary consultation to see how Visual Web Group can boost your SEO ranking with quality video media to start connecting with your customers today!
