86% of consumers rely on the internet to find local businesses. That, is an undisputed fact. So, having a website is a no-brainer regardless of your business type.
“People do not search for businesses like mine online” Wrong. People search for everything online. Even after they meet you, they will search for you online. We live in a time where if you are not online, professionally, you may be seen as a hack in the “real” world.
So, building a website is great for your business. However, most of the time you, or whomever builds the site for you, are just not trained to do so professionally. You try to “wing it”, how hard can it be? Tell me, what happens (in the long run) when a client tries to “wing” what you do in order to save a few bucks in the short term?
There you go, you just had a “eureka” moment.
However, if you are reading this you probably already gave it a try and want to know if your online presence is, well, professional. And we think that is awesome. So, we´re going to help you out, using a handy online tool called Website Grader, made by our pals at HubSpot. Did we mention we are HubSpot certified partners?
So go ahead, get your site graded and then come back, because we have gone mad and are giving away, for free, fixes to the most common problems and we are certain a couple will come handy to you.
1. Lengthy Page Title
A page title, like the one in the Google search result below, tells visitors what a page is about.
Search engines and browsers may cut off your page title if it’s too long. From a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) perspective, a concise page title yields the best reader experience. If your page title is too long, it will dilute the importance of each term in the title. This might even prevent you from ranking well on the search engine results page (SERP).
It’s best practice to keep your page title under 70 characters so that the reader can see the entire title and make a decision to click through to the post. That means he/she has chosen your website.
Fix #1 Use a Headline Analyzer Tool
Use a tool like Coschedule’s Headline Analyzer to draft a concise and keyword-rich description of your page. It’s a great idea to test several variations of a headline before choosing the best one. What is a good score? Aim for 70 or above for most headlines. Or all of them, if possible.
2. Long Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are essential to draw in visitors from search engines. It is that text under a page title that show up in search results. Like page titles, meta descriptions will get cut off and replaced by “…” if they are too long.
Fix #2 Use a Word Counter to Check Your Characters
Tools like WordCounter and SERPsimulator count the number of characters in your meta description so you don’t go over the limit. You can even use the Word Count function on MS Word!
SERPsimulation is cool because it even shows you what your title tag and meta description will look like on the search engine result page.
3. Keyword Stuffing
We’ve seen so many sites make the mistake of stuffing their pages title with keywords or targeting unrealistic keywords. For example, in our arena, trying for a new site to rank for a keyword like “inbound marketing” is often a futile endeavor. It’s just not going to happen.
Sometimes websites target keywords that would attract a ton of traffic but fail to convert.
From a user’s standpoint, using too many keywords in your content creates a bad user experience. Plus it makes it hard for the search engines to “read” your website. But don’t take our word for it, Google Search Central literally mentions that keyword stuffing can harm your site’s rankings.
Put in other terms: If you overstuff your turkey, it spills and the turkey is ruined. Why do it to your website?
Fix #3 Conduct porper keyword research
What terms describe your business? What problems do you solve? What do you bring to the table? What is your “secret sauce”? Write all of these terms down. Then, break these terms up into “topic buckets”. For example, here at Digital Friks we have topic buckets like “social network management”, “sales engagement” and “online advertising”, among many others. When we started though, we started with three.
Now fill these broad topic buckets with keyword phrases your potential customers might use when searching for that type of content. Not when searching for you, when searching for content that will solve their problem.
Already get a bit of traffic from Google (sorry, search engines)? Dig into your Analytics to find the keywords people use to get to your website.
You can also use SEO/SEM keyword research tools like Google’s Keyword Planner, Ahrefs and SEMrush for more keyword ideas.
4. Your Images are Probably Puppies or Kittens
Search engines do not “see” images. Instead, they scan primarily for text. Which is unfortunate for probably 90% of websites out there. Why? Because pictures have poor names and even worse, no alt text. What? Say again? Yes, names that actually let the search engine know what they are looking at. Otherwise, you might as well be showing puppies or kittens, and while cute, they will end up hurting your website’s rankings.
We also mentioned alt texts. ‘Alt text’ is a contraction of ‘alternative text’. It’s a short written description of an image, which makes sense of that image when it can’t be viewed for some reason. Well-written alt text is important to your website’s accessibility, and its search engine optimization (SEO).
Bear in mind that around 33% of Google’s search results now show an image pack — a snippet display of horizontal rows of image links appearing in any organic position — you’d be losing out on a ton of traffic if you don’t add alt text to your website images because they will simply not show up.
Fix #4 Add proper names and at text to all your images
Let’s use the image on this post as an example.
If you right click on it, and then select on “Save image as…” you will see that the name of the picture is “top-website-mistakes-to-avoid-plus-their-fixes.png” which, as it turns out, is also the name of the article and the address on your address bar on the top of your browser. And to top that off, on the page’s code we added a line that reads:
alt=”Top Website Mistakes to Avoid Plus Their Fixes”
In case you’re wondering, the alt text of the example above is:
alt=”Correct use on Names and Alt Text on Images”
Alt text also helps you make your content accessible to users and improves the user experience, in addition to helping you gain more traffic.
5. Too Little (or Too Much) Text
Search engines read text better than anything else. So, it’s very important to have text on your web page. Graphic design is cool, nice, mind blowing, but… not particularly relevant to rank a website. And ranking is synonym to traffic. Having said this, some people cram as much text as possible into a page. The problem the is search engines then struggle to extract the relevant text in regards to the searches people are using to find a solution to their problem.
Fix #5 Focus the page on one topic
Make sure your page is readable and contains the keywords you are targeting. However, don’t add unimportant text just to hit a specific word count.
6. You’re not Using Analytics
You’ve created engaging content for your website, you otpimized both site and content and are ready to convert your traffic into leads, but… your work is not done yet! You still need to track your website’s analytics.
Analytics are essential because they help you better understand your visitors and how they interact with your site. Without proper tracking, you won’t be able to tell what pages on your website get the most/least traffic, which devices visitors are using to access your site, and so on.
Without access to these metrics, you’re pretty much inthe dark when you need to make decision about your website.
Fix #6 Track metrics that matter
You probably though the fix was going to be only “install analytics”. The truth is that it’s going to be a waste of time to track all the analytics on your website. Instead, focus on the metrics that align with your business objectives. For starters, you should track and analyze website metrics like unique page views, bounce rates, number of returning visitors, traffic sources and your most visited pages. This will give you great insight on why people are coming to your website. You might be surprised!
You can then analyze the data you collect to make informed business decisions that’d drive your business’ growth.
We use two different analytics tools. First, we use Google Analytics and secondly, we use HubSpot’s Marketing & Analytics Dashboard. As we told you we are HubSpot partners so we’ve learned to use, and love, their tools. They make our business grow stronger.
7. Poor Internal Linking
Links are essential for improving website authority on search engines. However, many website owners make the mistake of either using too many or too few links.
If there are too many links on a page, it can become distracting. And too few links could make the article or web page look less authoritative.
Another poor linking mistake is when you don’t use anchor text for internal links. You’ve likely come across websites with a “Click here” or some other generic text. Did you click it? Likely not.
Fix #7 Create an internal link structure
We periodically use SEMrush to run site audits for both our own and our client websites to identify internal linking opportunities across each website.
You could also create a link structure that helps you naturally include internal links to existing content whenever you’re creating new blog posts or web pages.
However, as much as you want to build internal links between your web pages, don’t go around linking to everything just for the sake of it. Instead, emphasize link quality over quantity. Finally, use relevant keywords in the anchor text for your internal links to help the search engine understand the relationship between your posts.
8. Poor Security
Would you sleep in a hotel with no front doors and no lock in your room? You probably won’t, and you certainly wouldn’t sleep well knowing you are so vulnerable to a break-in. Like you, website visitors (especially online shoppers) also feel edgy whenever they try to navigate or shop on an insecure website.
The recent rise in personal data breaches and website hacks also makes it necessary for your website to be secure.
Web browsers like Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox show a warning, as seen in the photo below, to alert users whenever they visit an insecure website. Even your antivirus (Norton, McAfee, etc.) software will alert you not to go into those sites.
Fix #8 Enable and SSL certificate
Protect your customers and gain their trust by installing a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate on your website. SSL is a security protocol that creates an encrypted link between your web server and your visitor’s browser.
Is your site protected? Check its URL to see if it starts with “HTTP” or “HTTPS.” If it’s “HTTPS,” your site is secure. If not, you need to purchase an SSL certificate from your domain provider or your hosting service. This is probably the easiest fix on this article!!!
9. Not Having Calls to Action
A Call to Action or CTA is asking someone to do whatever it is that you want them to do. Otherwise, they just won’t do it!!! Why spend so much time, effort and resources directing people to your website if you do not ask them to do something. What can they do? Buy something from you? Sign up for a newsletter? Share what they’ve read? Gove you their contact information? If you don’t ask, they won’t do.
Fix #9 Be specific on your calls to action
If you are selling a product, make purchase buttons stand out and guide visitors on the next step to take. If you want them to sign up for a newsletter or something similar, create a sign-up form available as soon as possible before they leave your website.
And, whatever you do, do not trick people. If they sign up for a newsletter, don’t send a sales email, send a newsletter. If they sign up for a consult, give a consult.
9. Contact Info is Hard to Find
This is a costly mistake. If a potential customer find it difficult to get in touch with you, ask for information or request something they will lose trust in your product or service and go elsewhere.
Fix #9 Make it easy for people to get in touch with you
Make it easy for visitors to reach out to you, include your contact information like an email or a phone number on different pages on your website. Better yet, display them on yourheader or footer, always there.
You can also link your social media accounts, give visitors more ways to engage with your business. If you get stuck here, pay a visit to our friends at Hubspot and get inspired using their guide to contact forms.
10. Call for Price
Few things are as frustrating like finding what you need and then have a sign telling you to call to get a price. This makes people wary, if you are a true expert in your field, you should let people know what to expect in terms of what your product or service can cost. And the thing is, over 80% of visitors will not call for price.
Fix #10 Provide pricing information, even if it’s not specific
We understand that may times prices cannot be fixed. For example, if you repair roofs, well… not all roofs are the same size nor have the same repair needs. Or, if you sell kitchens, not all kitchens are created equal. And not all needs and likes are similar, either.
But you can provide some base line prices. Let’s take the roofing example, and bear in mind we are making this numbers up, OK? You let your visitors know you are the best, not one of the best, the best. And you start with a basic consult to provide an accurate estimate of the work that needs to be done at the customer’s house. This cost is $100.
But, if the client decides to move forward with your recommendation, you will apply those $100 towards the estimate you make. See? Now you have a base price, a client visit, a quote and a reason for the client to choose you, they already made a $100 down payment
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Would you like a free consult where you will receive three tips on how to increase traffic to your webiste? Tips you can implement by yourself in under a week!!