Is your website secretly sabotaging your business?
If you have a business but you don’t have a website, it’s almost like you don’t exist. But, if you have a website, then business must be pouring in, right?
On paper, that’s how it SHOULD work, but unfortunately, it doesn’t. Just because you’re online doesn’t necessarily mean people will notice you or that you’ll build a successful brand because the way your website is designed and the way it works matters more than you think.
Say you click on a site, excited to browse and possibly buy something. But the site lags, it takes forever to load, and once it does, the layout is all over the place. What do you do? Leave, of course, and that’s exactly what your potential customers would do if your site was not up to today’s standards.
The truth is, a website that looks okay might be doing more harm than good, and in this article, we’ll show you some common problems that might be causing trouble for your business.
Common problems that might hurt your online presence
Even the websites that look stunning might struggle with growth because they have hidden issues that silently sabotage them. And once you understand what those problems are, you’re one step closer to solving them, so let’s take a look. As Ink Digital puts it, “Our SEO services don’t just make your website visible – they make it work smarter, helping you identify and eliminate the obstacles holding you back from achieving your goals.”
1) Technical Flaws
The technical side of your website has a direct impact on how well it does in search engines and how users perceive it. For instance, if the loading time is slow, the visitor gets annoyed and leaves before the site has even had the time to load. The result? Higher bounce rates and lower rankings.
Another important factor is mobile-friendliness; if your site doesn’t adapt to different screen sizes, you risk losing a big chunk of potential customers. Broken links and 404 errors can do a lot of damage, too, because they indicate a lack of maintenance to both users and search engines.
2) Problems with Your Content
Content is the voice of your brand and it’s one of the most powerful tools you have to build credibility and trust. So, it makes sense that, if the content on your site is irrelevant or outdated, your business will seem inactive or unreliable.
Keyword stuffing is another problematic factor, as is low-quality content. All of this can prompt search engines to penalize your site and push it even lower in search results.
3) Design and Issues with Usability
A nice-looking site works only if it’s easy to get around and if it’s enjoyable to use. If your layout is cluttered and there are too many design elements, the visitors will be overwhelmed and leave.
Pop-ups are not ideal, either, especially if they’re popping up all the time or at the wrong time because they’re very disruptive. Poor contrast and readability is also something to think about; if the text is hard to read, nobody is going to bother staying at your site.
What to do to fix your website
The easiest way to go about solving the issues would be to invest in SEO audit services because you (likely) can’t do this as well as professionals do; unless you’re one of those professionals, anyway. Plus, you might not even know what exactly is causing the issues you’re having and you need to have them diagnosed first.
But yeah, it’s one thing to know what’s causing the issue. But understanding it and knowing exactly what to do and doing it well, that’s a different story.
But if you still want to give it a try, here’s what to do.
1) Technical Solutions
First, see what the performance is like with Google PageSpeed Insights, which can show you issues with loading and suggest what can be improved. Next, you’ll want to check mobile responsiveness and you can use BrowserStack to do this.
If you have broken links or 404 errors, run a crawl with Screaming Frog. It’s a great tool that can spot broken URLs and help you fix them.
2) Revamp Your Content
The content on your website needs to be dynamic, relevant, and easy to understand. Try to update your content regularly to keep it fresh and on-trend. Grammarly and Hemingway Editor can help make your content more readable and clear, and don’t forget to optimize your CTAs.
3) Design Improvements
Once you have a website that looks good, that’s only half the work; you also need to make it accessible and easy to navigate. Create intuitive menus and add search bars so your visitors can quickly find what they want. Hotjar can help you test how usable your site is and show you where your visitors might have problems.
You can also follow WCAG guidelines to make sure your site is inclusive and accessible, regardless of what device your users have or what their abilities are.
A few website updates can turn your business around
Your website is one of your best assets and it should help your business, not slow it down. If your expectations and what the site is delivering don’t match, it might be time to get a professional to help you. You can do some things on your own, of course, but it’s highly unlikely you’ll do what pros can.
Don’t wait until problems get too big to ignore and remember that a few updates can turn your business around.
