5 Small Business Website Mistakes To Avoid

Creating your own small business website is often a lot cheaper and allows for more customisation than paying someone else to do it. However being an expert in your business does not make you an expert in web design. Creating a great small business website is not just about driving sales. It’s about creating great content and adding value for visitors. Furthermore web design is advancing all the time and to create a great website which is pleasant to use, you should ensure that you are keeping up with these trends.

There are many different forms of media that you can now use with your website such as video and taking advantage of these will allow you to drive more sales. Your business website should aim to convert visitors into customers and increasing your conversion rate should be the main aim for your website.

Your website isn’t responsive

An increased number of visitors these days are viewing websites from mobile devices and tablets. One of the most annoying problems is a website that is not easy to view on these websites. Responsive web design is when a website resizes to fit the screen it is viewed on. These days all business websites should be responsive to ensure a great viewing experience for visitors. If your website is not viewable on mobile devices then you are potentially missing out on business from these visitors.

Slow loading content

A website that takes more than two seconds to load starts to make visitors want to leave. If your content is not loading then visitors are just going to click on another website.  A fast loading website is also favoured by search engines and is one of the factors that they consider when ranking your website. One way to increase your website speed is to reduce the size is to reduce the size of images by compressing them. If you are using WordPress then you can also use a caching plugin to keep your site running fast.

No contact details

Your website should have clear details on how to contact you. A small business should have a page specifically for getting in contact with you. On this page you should include all your contact details including you business address and contact numbers. A contact page with just a contact form on it is not good for business. As well as this you could also include your business address in the footer of your website so it is visible on every page.

Poor navigation structure

A website with a poor navigation structure is going to make it difficult for visitors to navigate. This could mean them not getting to your main content and you loosing conversions. Your small business website should have a clear navigation structure at the top which is clear and easy to navigate to your most important pages.

Autoplay music and video

One of the most annoying things when you are visiting a website is when music or video starts to play automatically. Videos or music should never start to play automatically when you visit a website. It is great to embed a video into your site but it should only start when a user clicks on the video. If you are going to use videos on your website then it is best to embed from a site like YouTube. By doing this you are ensuring that the video player is reliable and that your website will load fast.