Major Mistakes On Websites

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Major Mistakes on Websites

• Revealing Via content auditing

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Mistake 1 No clear calls-to-action

• The goal of a page should be obvious to any
  visitor (or content auditor). What is it that you
  want a visitor who lands on this page to do next?
  Many of our clients are not e-commerce, so it may
  feel less obvious however, assuming you want
  someone to stay on your website, whats next?
• Even if answer is I want them to visit my
  store, make it easy for them. Add a prominent
  Visit Our Store button. If its a simple blog
  page, what are the next blog articles someone
  should read based on what they just read? Or do
  you have a relevant e-book youd like them to
  download? You got them to the end of your post
  dont lose the visitor because they arent sure
  what to do next!

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Mistake 2 A lack of content for all stages of
the customer journey

• One thing we often do when conducting content
  audits is track where in the sales funnel each
  page is aimed (awareness, consideration,
  purchase, or retention). What we sometimes find
  is that clients tend to have a disproportionate
  amount of content aimed at driving a purchase,
  but not enough for awareness, consideration, and
  retention. This isnt always the case,
  particularly if they have a blog or resources
  hub however, the consideration and retention
  stages are often overlooked. While the buyer
  cycle is going to be different for every product,
  its still important to have content that
  addresses each stage, no matter how brief the
  stage is.
• Retention is a big deal too! It is way more
  cost-efficient and easier to upsell and
  cross-sell current customers than bring in new.
  Your customers are also less price-sensitive
  because they know your brand is worth it. You
  definitely want to provide content for this
  audience too to keep them engaged with the brand
  and find new uses for your products. Plus, youve
  already got their contact information, so
  delivering content to them is much easier than a
  prospect.
• Here are some examples of content for each stage
• Awareness Blog posts (explainers, how-tos, etc),
  e-books, educational webinars, infographics
• Consideration Product comparisons, case studies,
  videos
• Purchase Product pages, trial offers, demos,
  coupons
• Retention Blog posts (product applications,
  success stories, etc), newsletters, social media
  content

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Mistake 3 Testimonials arent used to their
full potential

• There are so many pages dedicated solely to
  testimonials out there on the Interwebs. Its
  painful. Who trusts a testimonials page over
  reviews on third-party sites like Yelp, Google My
  Business, or Tripadvisor? No one. That being
  said, there is a place for testimonials. Its
  just not on a testimonials page.
• The best way to use a testimonial is to pair it
  with the appropriate copy. If its a testimonial
  about how easy and fast a customer received their
  product, use that on a shipping page. If its a
  testimonial about how a product solved a problem
  they had, use it on that product page. This will
  enhance your copy and help to alleviate any
  anxieties a prospective customer has with their
  decision to purchase.
• Testimonials can also help you improve your local
  relevance in search. If you have a storefront
  that is targeting particular cities, ask for a
  customers city and state when you gather
  testimonials. Then, include relevant testimonials
  along with their city and state on the
  appropriate location page(s). Even if your store
  is in Lakewood, Colorado, collecting testimonials
  from customers who live in Denver and including
  them on your location page will help both search
  engines and users recognize that Denver people
  shop there.

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Mistake 4 Not making content locally relevant
(if it matters)

• If location matters to your business, you should
  not only use testimonials to boost your local
  relevance, but your content in general. Take the
  auto dealership industry, for example. There are
  over 16,000 car dealerships in the United States
  and they all (presumably) have websites. Many of
  them have very similar content because they are
  all trying to sell the same or similar models of
  cars.
• The best car dealership websites, however, are
  creating content that matters to their local
  communities. People who live in Denver, for
  example, care about what the best cars are for
  driving in the mountains, whereas people in the
  Los Angeles area are more likely to want to know
  which cars get the best highway gas mileage.
  Having your sales team take note of common
  questions they get asked and addressing them in
  your content can go a long way toward improving
  local relevance and gaining loyal customers.

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Mistake 5 Not talking about pricing

• Many companies, B2B companies in particular, do
  not want to list pricing on their website. Its
  understandable, especially when the honest answer
  to how much does your service cost? is it
  depends. The problem with shying away from
  pricing altogether, though, is that people are
  searching for pricing information. Its a huge
  missed opportunity not to have any content
  related to pricing, and it annoys prospective
  customers who would rather know your cost range
  before giving you a call or submitting a form for
  follow up.
• Its mutually beneficial to have pricing
  information (or at least information on how you
  determine pricing) on your website because itll
  help qualify leads. If a prospect knows your
  price range and they still reach out for more
  information, they're going to be a much better
  lead than someone who is reaching out to get
  pricing information. This saves your sales team
  the trouble of wasting their time on bad leads.
• Having pricing information on your website also
  helps establish trust with the prospect. If you
  arent transparent about your pricing, it looks
  like you charge as much as you can get away with.
  The more information you provide, the more
  trustworthy your business looks. And if all of
  your competitors are also hiding their pricing,
  youre the first one theyll likely reach out to.
  

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Mistake 6 Getting lost in jargon

• There are a lot of great companies out there
  doing great work. And more often than not, their
  website does not reflect it as well as it could.
  It isnt uncommon for those tasked with writing
  web copy to be quite close to the product. What
  sometimes happens is jargon and technical
  language dominates, and the reason why a customer
  should care gets lost. When it comes to
  explaining a product or service. A web page
  should include
• What is the product and why should a prospect
  care about it?
• How will this product make the prospects life
  easier/better?
• Whats the next step? (CTA)
• Its also important to include business results,
  real use cases, and customer successes with the
  product on your website too. This establishes
  more trust and supports your claims about your
  products. Doing this will speak to your customers
  in a way that jargon simply will not.

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Mistake 7 Page duplication from migration to
HTTPS

• With more sites getting an SSL certificate and
  moving to HTTPS, its more important than ever to
  make sure you have 301 redirects set up from the
  HTTP version to the HTTPS version to prevent
  unintentional duplication of your entire website.
  Duplicate content can impact search rankings as
  search engines struggle to decide which version
  of a page is more relevant to a particular search
  query. Weve been seeing quite a few sites that
  have an entire duplicate site or some isolated
  pages that didnt get redirects in place in their
  migrations. We also keep seeing sites that have
  www and non-www versions of pages without 301
  redirects as well. Running regular crawls will
  help you stay on top of this kind of duplicate
  content.
• Here are a couple of good resources to check out
  when doing an HTTPS migration HTTP to HTTPS
  Migration The ultimate stress free guide
  Implementing HTTPS Options to consider with JR
  Ridley (podacst)

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Mistake 8 Poor internal linking and site
architecture

• How content is organized on a site can be just as
  important as what the content is. Without proper
  organization, users can struggle to surf a
  website successfully and search engines have a
  difficult time determining which pages are
  considered most important. Making sure your most
  important pages are structured to be easy to
  find, by listing them in your navigation, for
  example, is a good user experience and will help
  those pages perform better.
• Part of making important pages easy to find is
  through internal linking. Web content is often
  created on an ongoing basis, and being smart
  about internal linking requires taking the time
  to look holistically at the site and figuring out
  which pages make the most sense to link to and
  from. I keep encountering blog content that does
  not link back to a core page on the site. While
  you dont want product to be the focus of your
  blog, it should be easy for a user to get to the
  core pages of your site if they want to do so. As
  youre auditing a site, youll find pages that
  relate to one another that dont link. Make notes
  of those as you go so you can better connect
  pages both in copy and with your calls to action

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Conclusion

• Getting the best results from your digital
  marketing efforts will require you to find the
  right professionals to assist. Our team here at
  Sriwebeo.com Web has a proven track record when
  it comes to taking your business to the top of
  Google.
• If youre stuck with a company that is not
  providing results or just want a fresh
  conversation to discuss results-driven digital
  marketing strategies, feel free to get in touch
  with us.