6 Common Web Mistakes

Today’s little piece is all about MISTAKES made when building a website…

I am part of a few groups online and see many business owners asking for websites to be built, in most cases the words “on a budget” “inexperienced” “I want to control my site” come up. Well to those business I say this, watch out for these mistakes made by some so-called website professionals who let their clients make these mistakes.

1. Slow website hosting – lets start where you are hosting your site, make sure you are hosting on a server and with a provider that doesn’t limit you if your website becomes popular. Bandwidth restrictions can ruin your business. Make sure you are on the right package, let you provider bespoke your package to your business.

2. Domain names – make sure you have a domain name that is easy to remember, easy to spell, yes your domain may sound creative but if people have trouble with it then you may loose that client. If you can have something related to what you do, your location, then this is great. Make sure you own your domain.

3. Do you OWN your website? – Now this one is a big issue that some new businesses just don’t realise. If you are a business you should be hosting your website yourself. There are many platforms out there like Wix and Squarespace that make pretty sites but did you know you don’t have control, you don’t have the rights to that website. If you want to move your site you can’t. Custom websites are cheaper and yes they are fast to start up, budget is tight, but your future is up to that platform. You can’t move hosting, if you have a disagreement then what, what if your growing faster than expected? All of a sudden, you’re forking out for another website, you’ve lost everything you did.

4. Business emails – Nothing looks worse than a business email that you got for free, Gmail, Hotmail for a business is not professional. If you have your domain name you should have a professional email, it doesn’t take long to set up, its free with your hosting. Please don’t make this rookie mistake. Plus, your advertising your business, why miss that opportunity.

5. Stay up to date – You’ve got your website, but the software is out of date and you’ve not backed up in a while, your SEO hasn’t moved in years. Content is static.

It is essential to your business to keep your website UP TO DATE. I know that people worry about cost but not keeping you WordPress or CMS site up to date or its plugins can lead to the site breaking and fixing these issues is far more time consuming. Always backup your site before any update. Plugins are made by 3rd parties and sometimes can break in updates.
If you don’t update you have the risk of getting hacked, this could potentially kill your business.

6. SSL Certificate – I cannot tell you how important it is to have a secure certificate, this gives your site the https:// and without it you can now be not complying with the new rules for data protection. Its simple and should be address today.
Ok so these are just a few things I come across that are mistakes that just shouldn’t happen if your serious about your business.

Fell free to call or PM me if you think its time to move supplier or you have a new business you want to take seriously.

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