Your website can fail even before you start writing a single line of code - in fact 95% of websites will never achieve a page 1 or page 2 listing in search engines for their desired terms. Planning your website correctly is actually more important that writing it. Here are the top 10 planning mistakes to avoid:
(For resources supporting this article please see my blog: Top 60 Web Design Mistakes of 2009)
1 - Lack of Keyword Research - This is a cardinal sin - how can you attempt to write a website without knowing what your visitor's search for? Getting this wrong will mean that you will not rank well for the best terms, hence you will loose out on valuable organic traffic. There are many free keyword research tools at your disposal - use them!
2 - Lack of Competitor Research - without competitor research you won't know whether your page 1 competitors have 30 or 30,000 backlinks, and you won't know if their websites have 3 or 300 pages. The term 'mortgage' has 189 million pages listed in Google - moneysupermarket.com who are usually number 1 has 306,000 backlinks - hence it would be unrealistic for anyone other than a team of professional SEMs to compete. Simple research takes minutes and could save months of wasted effort and wasted cash.
3 - Nothing Special or Unique - Considering that only 1 out of 20 websites written will ever offer a good return on investment - offering something different to your competition is vital to your long term website success. These could include: a special offer for a limited period, better content, easier navigation - sometimes it's the little things like not forcing users to signup to view content that could tip the scales in your favour.
4 - Poor Content Quality - if you have done your competitor research then you will know how much quality content you have to write to match your competitors. Both quality & quantity of text content is important - paragraphs should be no more than a few lines long, headings should contain your researched keywords. Planning this in advance will help improve your website ranking & conversion rates.
5 - Lack of Page Planning - failing to plan each of your pages correctly will cause you a problem with 'on page factors' - these affect your position in search engines. The following should contain your researched keywords: page names, directory names, titles, descriptions, headings, footers, menu text, link text & paragraphs. Your menus should be simple/ text selectable & your primary keyworded heading should be displayed high on page. Your contact details should always be found easily.
6 - No Plan for Marketing - if your aim is to write a website which will drive business through web traffic and you haven't considered how this traffic will magically appear then you haven't made a marketing plan. Depending how competitive your industry is - you may need to build 10s, 100s or 1000s of backlinks using web partners, directories & blogs. This may take hours/week/years hence you will need a plan with timescales.
7 - Hosting Overseas - planning to host your website overseas is also a big mistake as many search engines use 'Geo Targeting' in their ranking algorithms - worse still - your website will almost certainly load slower than if hosted with a reputable host in your home country. So savings here are not worth making. Always check your hosts IP address to insure the servers really are based where the host claims they are - yes there are hosts that tell big fat lies.
8 - Poor use of Colours - using drab or exotic colours could make your website look amateur - you have an average of 3 seconds to make your first impression hence spend time planning your colour scheme. Remember that its not your personal taste that counts - its your visitor's. Take care though as certain colours have major significance in some countries. Insure your colours are well matched - you will find plenty of websafe colour match utilities in Google.
9 - Poor Choice of Fonts - choosing fonts that are tough to read makes it hard work for your visitors and even worse for anyone with visual impairment. Use basic fonts such as Arial & Helvetica wherever possible, else use fonts that are clear & match your website theme well.
10 - Selecting your URL & TLD - wherever possible choose a domain that contains your researched keywords then select the correct domain suffix (TLD) - use .co.uk for a UK company .com for e-commerce - you will have trouble indexing an Indian domain (eg .co.in) in the UK . Here are come common UK domain suffixes:
.com - commercial/ecommerce website (UK &/or International)
.co.uk - corporate website
.net - larger network website - typically used by web hosts
.biz - almost purely for business-to-business sites
.org.uk - group, charity or organisation
.info - informational sites - non e-commerce
.name - for an individual or group
.ltd - requests only accepted from ltd companies - 15254
(For resources supporting this article please see my blog: Top 60 Web Design Mistakes of 2009)
1 - Lack of Keyword Research - This is a cardinal sin - how can you attempt to write a website without knowing what your visitor's search for? Getting this wrong will mean that you will not rank well for the best terms, hence you will loose out on valuable organic traffic. There are many free keyword research tools at your disposal - use them!
2 - Lack of Competitor Research - without competitor research you won't know whether your page 1 competitors have 30 or 30,000 backlinks, and you won't know if their websites have 3 or 300 pages. The term 'mortgage' has 189 million pages listed in Google - moneysupermarket.com who are usually number 1 has 306,000 backlinks - hence it would be unrealistic for anyone other than a team of professional SEMs to compete. Simple research takes minutes and could save months of wasted effort and wasted cash.
3 - Nothing Special or Unique - Considering that only 1 out of 20 websites written will ever offer a good return on investment - offering something different to your competition is vital to your long term website success. These could include: a special offer for a limited period, better content, easier navigation - sometimes it's the little things like not forcing users to signup to view content that could tip the scales in your favour.
4 - Poor Content Quality - if you have done your competitor research then you will know how much quality content you have to write to match your competitors. Both quality & quantity of text content is important - paragraphs should be no more than a few lines long, headings should contain your researched keywords. Planning this in advance will help improve your website ranking & conversion rates.
5 - Lack of Page Planning - failing to plan each of your pages correctly will cause you a problem with 'on page factors' - these affect your position in search engines. The following should contain your researched keywords: page names, directory names, titles, descriptions, headings, footers, menu text, link text & paragraphs. Your menus should be simple/ text selectable & your primary keyworded heading should be displayed high on page. Your contact details should always be found easily.
6 - No Plan for Marketing - if your aim is to write a website which will drive business through web traffic and you haven't considered how this traffic will magically appear then you haven't made a marketing plan. Depending how competitive your industry is - you may need to build 10s, 100s or 1000s of backlinks using web partners, directories & blogs. This may take hours/week/years hence you will need a plan with timescales.
7 - Hosting Overseas - planning to host your website overseas is also a big mistake as many search engines use 'Geo Targeting' in their ranking algorithms - worse still - your website will almost certainly load slower than if hosted with a reputable host in your home country. So savings here are not worth making. Always check your hosts IP address to insure the servers really are based where the host claims they are - yes there are hosts that tell big fat lies.
8 - Poor use of Colours - using drab or exotic colours could make your website look amateur - you have an average of 3 seconds to make your first impression hence spend time planning your colour scheme. Remember that its not your personal taste that counts - its your visitor's. Take care though as certain colours have major significance in some countries. Insure your colours are well matched - you will find plenty of websafe colour match utilities in Google.
9 - Poor Choice of Fonts - choosing fonts that are tough to read makes it hard work for your visitors and even worse for anyone with visual impairment. Use basic fonts such as Arial & Helvetica wherever possible, else use fonts that are clear & match your website theme well.
10 - Selecting your URL & TLD - wherever possible choose a domain that contains your researched keywords then select the correct domain suffix (TLD) - use .co.uk for a UK company .com for e-commerce - you will have trouble indexing an Indian domain (eg .co.in) in the UK . Here are come common UK domain suffixes:
.com - commercial/ecommerce website (UK &/or International)
.co.uk - corporate website
.net - larger network website - typically used by web hosts
.biz - almost purely for business-to-business sites
.org.uk - group, charity or organisation
.info - informational sites - non e-commerce
.name - for an individual or group
.ltd - requests only accepted from ltd companies - 15254
About the Author:
The author is an Ecommerce/Web Design Consultant with 12 years experience in the Web/IT Industries. He works with designers for many large PLC's such as: Vodafone, Coca Cola & Npower - see web design Cheltenham for more information.
