Five Prominent Website Mistakes

This article discusses five prominent website mistakes and how to avoid them. I am continually amazed at how many small business websites fall victim to these five areas.

Of course, knowing what the mistakes are is half the battle.

Read carefully and make sure you avoid the following website pitfalls.

Prominent Website Mistake #1: Not Building Trust

Probably the largest mistake I see is the lack of trust-building content. If your website is filled with sales pressure tactics or doesn't offer any helpful and informative content, people will simply move on to something else. Remember, when people come to your site, they are in complete control. Give them just one reason to leave and they will.

You must earn your visitor's confidence before they feel comfortable enough to:

Sign up for your free newsletter
Return to your site for additional information
Click through to your product recommendations
Tell other people about your site
Make a purchase

The technique of building confidence in your web visitors is called Preselling. Preselling simply means warming up your visitors so that they start to soften and warm up to your message. What's the best way to Presell on your website? I'm so glad you asked!

Presell Tip #1 - Build trust through your content
People will start judging you the moment they land on one of your website pages. Make sure you content is accurate, authentic, organized and up-to-date.

Presell Tip #2 - Provide Valuable Information
Focus your website on content that helps solve the problems and needs of your target market. Focus on over delivering free quality information on every single page.

Presell Tip #3 - Include an About Us page
Make sure to include a navigation link for your "About Us" page and include a compelling story about why you started your business.

Presell Tip #4 - Include Testimonials
Sprinkle testimonials throughout your website. They can really help garner the trust and confidence of your web visitors.

Presell Tip #5 - Avoid Flash
I mean this both literally and figuratively. First, avoid all the fancy Flash animation and setting off content in frames. The search engines can't see any content that within a frame anyway and content that is displayed with Flash is as good as invisible. Avoid all the flash and pizzazz and concentrate instead on quality content that is delivered the old fashioned way - with text.

Secondly, it's fine to advertise on your site but make sure you only advertise products you have used yourself or are intimately familiar with. Even then, be sure the ads are not flashy or distracting to the page content. Your number one goal is not to sell ads,, it's to provide quality information to your visitor so you start to build trust and confidence.

Prominent Website Mistake #2: Improper On-Page Criteria

This can happen if you outsource your website content or are not intimately involved with your page creation. The search engines look for certain elements contained within your page. There are proactive ways you can help ensure your pages get ranked favorably. These include making sure all your META Tags are correct, your keywords are sprinkled throughout your text, and that you include a text link with your main page keyword.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, subscribe to my newsletter by filling out your name and email at the top right of this page. When you do, you'll be able to instantly download a PDF report that will teach you how to ensure all your on-page criteria is correct and maximized for the search engines.

Prominent Website Mistake #3: Not Building Link Popularity

Did you know the search engines look at how many external websites have links that point to your site? If there are a lot of websites that point back to your site, the search engines see that as a vote of confidence and they will give your site more weight in the search engine rankings.

If you are constantly adding quality content to your site, it's just a matter of time before other sites start linking to yours. However, don't wait for other people to discover you - be proactive. If you haven't yet subscribed to my newsletter, do so now and you will be able to instantly download a report giving you the necessary resources to start your own in-bound link program.

Prominent Website Mistake #4: Poor Website Structure/Navigation

Search engines will come to your website and try to collect as much information as they can for their index. Some small business owners have such haphazard website structure that it's a wonder the search engines come visiting at all. It would be sad to see all that good content go to waste because the search engines couldn't find your pages.

And yes, as you've probably guessed by now, all you need to do to find out about proper website navigation is to subscribe to my newsletter.

Prominent Website Mistake #5: Lack of Monetization Models

Having a compelling website that drives over 1,000 unique visitors a day is something to be proud of. But what is it worth if you are not able to capitalize on that traffic? You need to ensure you have several monetization models in place on your website so that you have multiple sources of revenue. In addition, if you have several income streams developed, you'll be in a better position if one of them dries up for some reason. Your parents were right when they said not to put all your eggs in one basket.

Here are some good monetization suggestions for your business website:

Sell an information product (e.g., ebook)
Sell your hard goods
Sell other people's products for a commission (Affiliate Marketing)
Sell services that can be executed remotely (phone consultations, building websites, etc.)

That's it folks! Five prominent website mistakes and how to avoid them. Avoid these mistakes and you will be able to build a thriving website that generates all the free traffic you will ever need for your business!