Most all Phoenix web design companies have experienced websites that have been messed up by the small business owner and their staff. That is why it is important before you even start building a website for a client to let them know things they shouldn't do if they want their website to be successful and help them take their business to the next level. Now many times it isn't 100% the website owners fault it is also the web design companies fault as well. We want to go over a few examples of how our Phoenix web design team has noticed websites being ruined by simple yet critical mistakes. Make sure you don't fall victim one of these critical mistakes as it could be the difference between you having a successful online business or your business struggling to gain any traction online. As you know, in today's world it is almost a necessity for your business to be successful online if you want to stay in business. So what are some of these mistakes you should be avoiding?
- No Direction – We see so many websites that don't appear to have a clear sense of what they are wanting the website visitor to accomplish. Before you begin the web design process or even look for a web design company make sure that you ask yourself this question. What do I want my website to accomplish? If you can't answer this with certainty and with great detail then you probably should hold off on your new website. It is critical that during both the design and development stages you understand what the goal of your website is and develop a clear direction you are taking your website because if you don't it could end up costing you a bunch of money to add in features or change sections later.
- Inadequate Budget – If you are redesigning your website or getting a website for the first time you need to make sure that you have a proper budget set aside for the design and development of your new website. If you don't one of two things usually ends up happening, either you cut out some key components of your website and your website is not as user friendly as it should be for your visitors or you attempt to save money by going with somebody inexperienced or from another country and your website turns out to be a mess. In either case you need to make sure that you set aside an adequate budget for your website.
- No Wire Frames – Make sure your web design team supplies you with wire frames before any development work is performed. You don't want to get a website and realize there are things missing that you need on the website. Wire Frames allows you to go through it and tell the web designer what is missing and what changes you would like completed prior to the development stage.
- Nobody to Keep it Up To Date – It is critical that you have somebody managing your website. Visitors don't want to go to your website just to find out that the content is from a year ago and nothing is current on your website. Getting your website up and running is just the beginning. Running a successful online business is a job that never quits but if you do it properly it can be very beneficial in the long run.
- Horrific Hosting – Website load time is not only critical to SEO but also if you want your customers to convert. The one thing that will kill the load time of your website is bad hosting. We are living in the age of high speed internet and nobody wants to take a trip down memory lane and recall what it is like to use dial up. Make sure you use a good hosting company that offers 99.9% up time as well as fast load times.
These are 5 ways you can doom your website. It won't matter how much money you spend your website or how great you think your website is, if you make one of these mistakes it will be hard overcome them until you fix the issues. The good news is most issues can be fixed.