10 Mistakes Websites Still Make in 2019 – You Need To Fix These Now!

It’s 2019 and many websites are still making the kinds of mistakes that have had a huge negative impact on internet presence, search results, authority, brand image, and the bottom line.

These mistakes directly lead to lost business opportunities and money.

Thankfully, these are all things that can be fixed. Some take more time than others, but if your website has any of these mistakes, you should hire someone to fix these as soon as possible.

Mistake #1: Your Website Isn’t Mobile Friendly

If your website isn’t optimized for mobile, this results in a horrible user experience. You’ve probably experienced this yourself – having to do pinch and zoom to read text or trying to tap on tiny links. Usually this just annoys visitors – and almost always ends in someone leaving a website unsatisfied.

If your website is frustrating to use on mobile phones, people will leave your site and you will lose business.

In 2015 Google announced that websites that aren’t mobile friendly would be penalized in the search results. If you website isn’t mobile friendly you need to speak to a web designer about responsive design. With responsive design, your website will resize and adjust to whatever screen size it’s being viewed on. Responsive design offers the visitor the best possible user experience on both desktops and mobile devices.

Mistake #2: Your Website Takes Too Long to Load

The speed at which your website loads is incredibly important.

It’s important for both user experience as well as SEO.

According to Kissmetrics:

• 47% of consumers expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less
• 40% abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load
• A one second delay decreases customer satisfaction by about 16%

A slow website is frustrating for users and Google has also said load speed is a factor in website ranking.

Fortunately there are many ways we can help you improve your website loading time.

Mistake #3: Your Website is not user friendly

Too many websites in 2019 are still confusing to use. Take a look at your website now and ask the following questions:

• Can people easily find what you want them to look for?
• Do your visitors know what to do after visiting your home page?
• Is it easy for people to find your contact information?

Each page of your website should be as simple to use as possible. There should be clear calls-to-action explaining exactly what you want your visitors to do.

Mistake #4: You still use pop-ups

Pop-ups are annoying – always.

A much better option is to use a slide-in that appears only when a user scrolls to the bottom of the page.

If a pop-up is absolutely critical, make sure that it:

• is relevant and you don’t use the same message for every visitor
• only appears once and not immediately
• uses pleasant language
• is easy to close
• you can track them to see that they work and who uses them

Mistake #5: Audio that plays automatically

It’s hard to believe there are still websites that play music automatically. If someone visits a website and audio starts playing immediately they’ll leave. If you have to have some sort of media that plays automatically, make sure that the audio is muted and it’s obvious how to turn the sound on if you want it.

Mistake #6: Plastering Keywords All Over Your Website

Stuffing your website with keywords may have been something that worked 20 years ago but Google is far more sophisticated now. It’s critical that your website text be written for humans. Keywords within copy are still important, but writing a paragraph about how you serve a city and throwing in keywords for every single community in that city is something that actually hurts your SEO now.

Mistake #7: Not including social sharing buttons

If you have a blog, it’s critical that you make it easy for your visitors to easily share that content. Getting shares means more people will see your content, visit your site, hire you, buy your product, etc. Make sure that when someone reads your blog, the buttons are there at the bottom so they can easily share it while it’s still top of mind.

Mistake #8: Not making your website the central hub of your marketing strategy

Your website is the most important part of your marketing strategy. All of your advertising, social media work, networking, lead generation is designed to get people to come back to your website where they will see what it is you do.

Mistake #9: No SSL Certificate

Not having an SSL Certificate wasn’t a big problem a few years ago, but today, it is like telling search engines “just go ahead and ignore me”. It does not matter if you are asking for personal information, or selling products on your website. Google and several other search engines rank you lower if you do not use an SSL Certificate. Even worse, they may pop-up the dreaded “The site you are to trying reach is not secure” message. Using an SSL Certificate is essential.

Mistake #10: Your website doesn’t have contact information that is easy to find or access

Once on a company’s homepage, 64 percent of visitors want to see the company’s contact information, and 44 percent of visitors will leave if there’s no contact information or phone number available. The end goal of the user experience on your website should be to create a conversion by having a user get in touch with you. If they cannot find your phone number, address, contact form, contact page, email or other forms of contact, they will become frustrated and a lost opportunity.

When choosing your web design partner, be sure it’s someone with a proven track record of success in your industry or for your size of company. Look for case studies that document the success. Read testimonials of past clients. And above all, choose a partner that bases all creatives they do on hard data.