5 Biggest Small Business Website Mistakes

1. Cluttered Pages
One of the biggest problems of small business websites is creating pages overloaded with content. The point of a webpage is to provide information to your visitors, but when every inch of your page is covered in links, pictures, or texts it can be overwhelming.
When a visitor comes to your site you have a limited amount of time to capture their attention. As a result it's easy to overload your pages with info you think people will want to see.
With a large amount of content crammed on a page and all contending for your attention, it's hard for visitors to find a focal point or flow in your design. When this happens people rarely continue to read down the page get annoyed and confused, driving them away from your site.
A lengthy web page can also mean you have way too much on one page. This is commonly due to poor design, or the inability to decide what should go where.
An example of this is Yahoo. Yahoo's main page takes up about 89% of the space on the page, and it's hard to find a logical flow from one space to the next.

2. Flash
Adobe Flash is a powerful tool than can help the design of any site, but too much of anything is not always a good thing.
We've all been to a page that has a boring soundless 30 second flash video. We are typically greeted by this before we even enter the site, and worst of all it can't be skipped. Flash is a tool that can easily hurt or help your site, it just depends on how it's used and who's using it.
Unfortunately, the scenario mentioned above is the case all too often.
An over use of flash can cause a slew of problems. Sites covered in flash are harder for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) purposes. The Google spider crawling your page sees the content on your page. Not the awesome eagle flying across the screen every time the page changes.
But one of the main problems of flash heavy sites is their slow load times. There is a nice 3-5 second pause on every navigation button or screen change. And in a time centric society visitors are quick to leave and find information or a service elsewhere.
When it comes to flash the results can be powerful, but small touches can go a long way.


3. Little/No SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
One thing that is always amazing is talking to site owners about SEO and the efforts they've made. Often times they have no idea what it is, or they have paid someone to "Slap some key words in the descriptions and meta tags".
Not realizing the power of SEO can be a monumental misstep. The reality of search engines is that we all search based on keywords. However, content that isn't on the web using the right key words and phrases will be hidden. No one is going to the 99th page of results to find anything.
Another stumbling block for companies are images and indexing. Some sites shoot themselves in the foot by not having search engines index their page and follow their links. Images plague several sites as well. Google or Bing can't tell what your picture looks like. So you have to tell the search engines with descriptions. Otherwise they have no idea if the pictures are relevant content.
SEO is a much larger task than throwing around a few key words. If you're completely lost in this area, find yourself a good SEO copywriter.

4. Lack of content
Many companies pay web developers to put together a website and let it go to waste.
Websites are not the field of dreams. Just because you built it doesn't mean anyone will come. Company websites often go the way of the do-do because they stop updating their content. To have higher rankings on search engines sites need new, dynamic, and original content.
There are over 200 billion pages listed with Google alone. As a result getting listed in a relevant spot will be hard enough. Meaning, for your site to rank at a reasonable position your site has to offer something different from your competition. To do this you need new information, products, articles, blogs, or something that sets you apart.
Having a number of posts, videos, and FAQ's on your page are a good way to keep new content on your site. But remember that the content should be relevant, and always be moving visitors to the next step in the sales process.

5. Spelling/Grammar
We have all misspelled a word or two and it may seem like a minor mistake. But grammatical errors can have a large impact on your webpage.
Spelling and grammar are one of the Achilles heels of many small business websites. Using the wrong spelling or tense can make your site look unprofessional and drive customers away. Many people who see a website littered with errors will leave and never visit again. Misspelled words written into JavaScript or a URL may result in a broken link as well.
Always check your spelling and grammar. And you can't always rely on spell-check, because spell check can't always tell the difference between it's and its or your and you're.

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