It’s hard to believe how fast things can move on the web.
In life it seems like five years can go by without notice. Pretty soon you realize you’re falling behind the times or even worse maybe you don’t realize you’re falling behind.
There are a lot of websites out there that are about five years old and it shows.
Things have changed and something that was advised back then just seems amateur today. Even new sites that come out follow some of the old direction.
If you do any of these things you’re falling into a trap of following bad advice and it’s time for an update.
1. Keyword Stuffing and Old School Content
This is one of the worst out there. People that go to websites today can see through this in a heartbeat. If you have a bunch of keywords on your homepage, in the footer and anywhere else on your website people will be able to see exactly what you’re doing.
And the funny thing is that keyword stuffing doesn’t work anymore.
You don’t need to list 20 cities close to your business. You can work that content into your website in different ways that people actually want to read.
Old school content strategy was all about what we thought the engines wanted. Today, it’s about what people actually want to read.
2. Clutter
Clutter bothers me in all aspects of life including website design. There have been so many advancements online the last few years and it’s caused some people to clutter their websites.
You see countless social icons on pages along with photos, content and a bunch of other items.
You don’t have to fit everything on one page or above the fold. Focus on the most important things and go from there.
3. Stock Photos
Stock photos can be pretty cheap to use and that’s fine, but people can almost always tell when you’re using stock photography.
Make the extra effort to take some nice photographs of the real people in your business. Take real photos of your office and business location.
It makes a big difference and is really something people expect today.
4. Too Many Calls-To-Action
Confusion is a big problem for many websites. Something that leads to confusion is having too many calls-to-action on the pages on your website.
Having social icons, email signups, links to other pages and a contact button or purchase button is too much for people.
Have one prominent call-to-action that is most beneficial to the business and to where the visitor is in the sales process on your website.
From there you can make the other calls-to-action secondary in design and location. You don’t want to hide these secondary actions, but don’t make them stand out too much. It’s a tricky balance sometimes, but it’s important.
5. No Clear Main Call-To-Action
Then you get on the other side of things where some businesses don’t include any call-to-action. This happens on service-based businesses sometimes.
They have great content on the homepage explaining what their business does and what it can provide, but there is no call-to-action to read more on a services page or to contact the business with a form or with a phone number.
Make it clear what you want the visitor to do.
Conclusion
These mistakes are common. I’ve made them and have had to learn the hard way – mostly by being embarrassed – that times have changed.
Hopefully you can recognize if these are things you’re doing and you can correct them now. It will be to the benefit of your business.
