Look, I don't need to tell you that having a website is crucial for businesses in today's digital age. You already know that. Your website is the face of your company and most likely, the first point of contact for potential customers.

However, EVEN WITH THAT KNOWLEDGE, many business owners make mistakes with their websites that can harm their online presence and negatively impact their bottom line. In this article, I'm going to tell it to you straight... I'll lay out five common mistakes and provide solutions to help you avoid them.

Problem 1: Your layout/design is not in line with your story or goals.

A website's design is the first thing a visitor sees and it could very well be the last. A poorly designed website will harm your business's reputation and drive visitors away. To avoid this, it's important to invest in a professional design that is aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate. An enjoyable website design should have a clear layout with an intuitive navigation structure.

The graphics should be up-to-date and relevant to the business or the emotions that your service provides. Additionally, it's important to keep the website design consistent across all pages to ensure a seamless experience for visitors. After all, a well designed home page will have a lower bounce rate and therefore encourage visitors to explore around your site; you wouldn't want them to think less of your brand because the experience is inconsistent.

Problem 2: It looks like a dingy, rotten potato on the phone.

The majority of your web traffic will most likely come from mobile devices. This means that a website that isn't optimized for small screens can result in a poor user experience and lost customers. Forget calling it essential, it's ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL to have a responsive design that adjusts to different screen sizes - (even larger break points such as an iMac display!)A mobile-optimized website should have a clear and concise layout with easy-to-tap buttons or target areas.

The font size should also be large enough to be easily read on a small screen, and the images should be optimized to load quickly on mobile devices.

You'll often find that your website's mobile experience borrows from the desktop version but can actually look dramatically different. In fact, users may be more inclined to take action if the experience matches that of mobile applications that they're so used to.

Problem 3: Even a gaming PC struggles to load the page.

A website that takes too long to load can result in visitors quickly losing interest and leaving the site. It started with Vine, and now it's TikTok - people's attention spans are becoming more and more expensive. Longer than normal load times can lead to a high bounce rate and a decrease in conversions.

If you want to avoid this, it's important to optimize the website for speed.This includes using a fast and reliable hosting provider, compressing images, and simplifying code. Additionally, it's imperative that you avoid using large and complex scripts that can slow down the website.

You'll often see this problem in a lot of Shopify ran stores because owners get easily caught up in adding this store app, then that store app, then this other store app - and you get the gist - while this all sounds good on paper, you could very well be dramatizing load times and therefore user experience.

Problem 4: Your Call-to-Action is more like a Plea-for-Inaction

A website that doesn't have clear and prominent calls-to-action can result in lost leads and sales opportunities - period. For those that are unaware, a call-to-action (CTA) is a button or link (usually the former) that encourages visitors to take a specific action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.

Your should have clear and prominent calls-to-action on every page of the website. The language used in the call-to-action should be compelling and actually encourage visitors to take action - not scare them off. Additionally, it's essential to A/B test different call-to-actions to determine which ones result in the highest conversions.

So many business owners and agencies will run with one sample and never even bother to explore other avenues of copy/design. Also, your CTA needs to be supported by, or in line with the story of your brand. So many businesses forego the opportunity to get creative with their CTAs in favor of boring, thoughtless action copy that struggles to convert.

Problem 5: You treat SEO like a mythical needle in the haystack.

To put it simply, not optimizing a website for search engines can make it difficult for potential customers to find the business online. This includes (but is certainly not limited to) not having unique and well-written page titles or meta descriptions, missing header tags, not having relevant keyword-rich content, and often times content that is just keyword-vomit and actually ranks your website even lower on Google Search.

You need to make it a foremost interest to conduct keyword research and optimize the website for search engines.

This can be as simple as including keywords in the aforementioned places. Additionally, it's soooo valuable to have relevant and unique content on the website that is SEO conscious and derived to GENUINELY add value to your customer-base.

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To conclude, these are five common pitfalls that business owners fall victim to with their websites. Simply correcting these mistakes and investing in a professional design will improve your online presence and attract more customers. If you want to find out more about how to implement these solutions and increase your revenues/traffic today, shoot me a DM and let's get your brand on track!