Mistakes to Avoid During Website Development

Your website is equivalent to your business card in the online environment. As a representative of your business, your website needs to be more than just good. The website should be interesting enough to capture the attention of your customers while also staying simple enough to surf through. This is more than true for eCommerce businesses. You won’t be generating traffic, sales, and conversions if your website is not user-friendly. The big question here is how to achieve all of this and much more. For most businesses, the answer is to hire a web development company. This may work for some businesses, but it is not the only possible choice. You can always go for a little adventure and build your own website. This may require a particular set of skills and mastery over a few domains. This may sound a bit overwhelming, but this also gives you complete control over every aspect of your website.
No matter which path you choose, the integral part is to avoid mistakes that can derail the whole process. Web development is not as easy a sit seems, so chances are that a number of mistakes will be made. To address these mistakes we have complied a list of some of the most common mistakes to avoid during the web development process.

Website not Mobile-Friendly

Out of each and every mistake, this definitely deserves the top spot. At this time and age when search engines prefer mobile-friendly websites, not having one can be a grave mistake. With most people moving towards mobile search it is critical to make your website mobile-friendly more than ever.

Over 7 out of 10 consumers now use their mobile devices to search on Google. Furthermore, Google has stated for some time that mobile adapted sites will have an advantage in terms of SERP positioning. In other words, your website’s adaptability is becoming an increasingly crucial SEO element.

As more individuals convert to mobile surfing, we can only expect mobile search percentages to rise in the coming years. In 7 out of 10 cases, not having a mobile and tablet compatible website in 2019 is equivalent to opening a business and purposefully closing the door in your clients’ faces.

Slow Website Loading Time

This may be the most unforgiving mistake of all. The world is pacing with the speed of light. Everyone is in a hurry and doesn’t want to spend time waiting for the website to load. People want to visit a website, do what they want, and leave the website as soon as possible.

Different factors influence the speed and loading time of your website. The leading reason is the content on your website. The more content you have the more time your website will take to load this content. That’s why it is important to stick to what matters. Say all you want, add anything you want. Just make sure to not include anything useless. This will only lag down your website and decrease its speed.

Many people confuse long-form information with detail. While Google favors longer content, this does not always imply that your users would. Again, the goal is to make it short and sweet for real people while also remembering those keywords for Google.

Keyword Stuffing

Continuation of our last factor, keyword placing and stuffing to be exact can be dangerous. When writing content for your website, you may try to add as many keywords as possible. This urge leads to the keyword stuffing. No matter what anyone says, keyword stuffing can never be good for your website.

We’ve seen a lot of people make the mistake of stuffing keywords into their page titles or targeting keywords that aren’t relevant. For example, trying to rank for a term like “email marketing” on a new website in the social media marketing niche is generally pointless. Sometimes website masters target keywords taht have hight traffic but fail to convert. All of this happens because they target the wrong keywords or try to target as many keywords as possible.

Using too many keywords in your text generates a negative user experience and makes it difficult to read your website. When it comes to search engines, keyword stuffing, according to Google Search Central, might hurt your site’s ranks.

Content Not SEO Optimized

This is another another fatal mistake, and one that most people are well aware of. Because the Google algorithm is constantly evolving, SEO material will always be at the top of everyone’s list. Optimizing your SEO content is a big job, but it’s necessary.

Writing SEO-optimized content entails conforming the material to Google’s specifications. That’s quite straightforward for the most part. The tough part comes in when you need to make it SEO-friendly and appealing to real people. You don’t simply have to create material to make a robot happy; you also have to keep your users pleased. In 2020, SEO will rely heavily on relevancy — your website’s content should be 100 percent relevant to your target audience. You must strike a balance. Keep the Google robots in mind when you develop your brand voice. If you don’t, it’s possible that this will be the first and final error you make on your website.

Too Long Page Titles and Descriptions

A page informs a visitor what a certain page is about. Search engines have specified guidelines when it comes to page titles and descriptions. If your title is too long it would most probably be cuff short. A concise page title provides the best reader experience from the standpoint of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The impact of each term in your page title will be diluted if the title is too extensive. It’s possible that this will prohibit you from ranking well in search engine results pages (SERP).

Keep your page title around 70 characters so that the reader can see the complete title before deciding whether or not to click through to the content.

The same goes for your meta description. Writing a meta description that is too long or too short can have negative impact on your website’s performance. Meta descriptions are necessary for attracting visitors from search engines. In search results, the meta description is the text that appears beneath the page title. If meta descriptions are too long, they will be cut off and replaced with “…”, just like page titles.It is ideal to keep the length of meta description between 155 to 160 characters. This boosts your chances of appearing in the search results snippets.

Misplaced CTA Elements

A website that does not offer information in an appealing manner and does not use Call-to-Action (CTA) features to influence sales will not be effective in the online market. The site will not assist you in accomplishing anything if the key information and call to action are not VISIBLE on the site in a way that invites the visitor to act. So, in a nutshell, it’s pointless.

Each page should have buttons, icons, and links that go to the contact forms or offer request sites. Each page of the website should move the user closer to the final stage: the purchase. Everything nowadays happens at the speed of light. Nobody has time to read your website’s nonsense. The entire globe is looking for quick, simple, and understandable information. If you take that away, you’ll lose your customers as well.

Let’s Wrap this Up

Despite your best efforts, you may be making mistakes on your website that are causing you to lose leads; however, this does not have to be the case. Now that you’re aware of the most common website development mistakes, try out these easy fixes to improve your site’s traffic and conversions. Examine this list of mistakes against your website to discover what improvements you may need to make for it to serve your company.