After decades of working with business owners and nonprofit leaders, I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to hiring a website designer and developer. Large organizations aren’t immune to the mistakes outlined below, but small businesses (and nonprofits) are the most vulnerable.
1 – Opting for “Cheap”
I get it. Budgets are tight, and when you find someone who is willing to build your website at a fraction of the cost, it’s soooo tempting.
The adage “you get what you pay for” typically rings true for any service you’re buying, including website design. You know this to be true for the products or services you offer. Why would it be different for website services?
You have to start somewhere, of course, but cheap usually means you have to pay double or triple:
- Once for the flawed website
- Twice to fix or finish it
- More for the opportunity cost to your business because it wasn’t built well in the first place
A related mistake is not understanding the importance of ongoing post-launch maintenance and opting to forgo it.
We’ve had to finish or fix a lot of websites lately, and while we welcome the business, I do not want to see this happen to you. Seeing and hearing about website contractors or agencies getting hired, then not finishing a website – or, worse yet, not building it at all – makes my blood boil. It’s happening across budgets large and small, and it’s just not right.
2 – Missing or Misstepping with SEO Basics
If you want to attract business via Google searches and, increasingly important, AI searches, on-page SEO best practices are critical.
When a website isn’t written, designed and built with at least the SEO basics, your website investment isn’t going to help your business like you hope it will.
I have seen way too many clients come to us with existing websites created and taken live with no regard for SEO. If your website is simply a “brochure” website, SEO isn’t as vital, but it may become more important to you as your business grows. And since SEO takes time, the sooner you implement best practices, the better.
What are the SEO basics?
- A website that’s written well, with a user-friendly (and therefore SEO- and AI-friendly) structure
- Original content that doesn’t sound like (or plagiarize!) other websites in your industry
- Design elements (fonts, font size, colors, color contrast, graphics, etc.) that are ADA-compliant
- Trust signals, such as professional affiliations, client testimonials, awards, etc.
- Optimized images that don’t slow your website down
- Attention to other elements that affect your website’s speed
- Page titles and meta descriptions (smart, unique and compelling for each page)
- Pages strategically written with keywords in mind, without sounding like your content was written for SEO rather than users, and resorting to keyword stuffing (which can hurt, not help you)
3 – Opting for a Cookie-Cutter Website Designer
Not all website firms that specialize in a specific industry take a cookie-cutter approach, but many do. We see this in the roofing, real estate, restaurant, healthcare fields and more. Template-based website companies are budget-friendly and can often get your site live quickly.
The problem is that your website will look, sound and feel like your competitors, rather than helping you stand out and spotlighting your unique differentiators. Plug-and-play language is often used to describe services, features and benefits. Where state laws are different, such as in the roofing industry, this can create potential legal issues for a company.
If you opt for a website like this, provide the website company with good, unique content of your own. Next, read everything and ask for any edits needed.
The issues we see most often with template websites, in addition to the sameness problem, are broad-based claims made that aren’t true (i.e., “we’re licensed and insured” … when not every state even has a licensing mechanism), services that are described generically or inaccurately, little to no company story, social media links that don’t work, off-brand design and little to no basic SEO work done.
4 – Rebranding Without a Plan
When you rebrand, a new website is often part of the rebranding effort. Sometimes, this requires a new website url. We’ve seen website companies build the new site without regard or guidance to the client about what to do with their old brand and url.
If you’re an existing business, you have not only built up customers and prospects, but you have likely earned some SEO creds with your existing url. Don’t forget to plan and ensure that anyone (including Google) can find you at your online address by:
-
- Keeping your old domain active (you still need it, unless you have never used it)
- Properly pointing your old url to your new one
- Clearly communicating the rebrand and new url via all available communications channels
5 – Not Focusing Enough on the User Experience
If you have a beautiful, on-brand website that showcases your products, services and unique differentiators … that’s enough, right?
No. It’s vital to step back and look at your website through your users’ eyes. To do this, you have to answer some key questions:
- Who is my primary target audience?
- Who is my secondary target audience?
- Will decision influencers AND decision makers likely visit my website? How are they different from each other?
- Why is each user group there? What are their needs and pain points? Does your website address these?
Next, step into your users’ shoes and look at your website through the lens of each. Ask yourself, as each user group:
- Is there a clear path to contact the company?
- Is the website navigation clear or clunky for me? Is it easy to find what I’m looking for?
- Does the website language (and visuals) talk to me, my needs and pain points?
- Does it show/tell me, at all, why you and your products/services are uniquely qualified and trusted to solve my needs?
- Does the website appear to be current? Or outdated and potentially unreliable?
- Does the website design appeal to me? Is the font size and/or color easy to read? Or does the website make me work too hard with small fonts and low contrast? Are my eyes fatigued from too many colors, too much contrast, color combinations that are difficult or unappealing?
- If I’m a brick and mortar, is it easy to find the company’s address and phone number?
- What is my experience with all of the above on a computer? A mobile device?
Want to book a website design consultation or need a website audit? Reach out!
