What mistakes do first-time website owners make?
Running a website, while easier than ever to do, is harder than ever to perfect. What does that mean?
Well, in practice there are many templated options out there to serve you. But in reality, standing out from the crowd, trying to do your thing, and also avoiding all the meaningless upselling strategies such platforms try to impose on us can be difficult.
This is especially true for someone coming into the space and intending to make the most of their online presence. Perhaps you’ve managed a website before, perhaps you haven’t, but the true test comes when you’re responsible for all of it.
As ever, there are many mistakes and first-time errors to fall into. Don’t worry, almost everyone makes at least one, especially because some lessons can only be learned through experience. However, in order to assist you in this process, we hope to outline some of the most common mistakes individuals make, to help you pre-empt them and potentially enjoy further success.
Avoiding design simplicity
Simplicity doesn’t mean you’re unrefined, it means you’re disciplined. A website should be easy to use more than anything else, because with so many options out there, it takes little for a visitor to become frustrated and look to other services.
Smetimes, in an effort to make their online platform more impressive, business owners add too much, such as too many widgets, unnecessary animations, or long paragraphs of text that no one reads. We’d recommend focusing on clear, simple layout that focuses on what visitors actually need, as this will always be more effective than something overloaded with features.
Ignoring mobile users
A lot of first-time website owners forget to check how their site looks on a phone, because let’s face it, all websites look more impressive on desktop. It might look fine on a your laptop screen, but if visitors have to pinch and zoom, deal with broken layouts, or struggle to read small text, they won’t stay long and feel as though your business is lacking refinement.
Most people browse the web on their phones now, so making sure your site works well on all screen sizes is crucial, adjusting for tablets too. You may have an app in the future, but for now, use platforms that offer mobile-friendly templates, but always test it yourself to be sure.
Slow loading speeds
Nobody likes a slow website and unfortunately, index scores suggest that many firms never get over this hump. If it takes too long to load, visitors will leave before they even see what you have to offer.
The most common issues here will include oversized images, too many plugins, or unnecessary code slowing things down, especially if you’ve added any custom pages outside of the templated features on offer. Running a speed test can show where the problem is, and simple fixes as we’ve discussed, like compressing images, reducing animations, or using a faster hosting provider can help you. Sometimes it’s worth paying for a site audit to help you, because this can also impact your organic traffic and SEO.
Neglecting security
We tend to think that first-time website owners are too small to be a target, but even basic sites can get hacked if they aren’t protected. In fact, nefarious online hackers can sometimes target you simply because they know you don’t have a perfect security team or plan.
Use a reliable host with round the clock support to avoid this, and simple steps like using strong passwords, keeping software updated, and enabling an SSL certificate (so your site runs on HTTPS) without browser warnings can protect your site for the most part. Many hosting providers include security tools, so it’s worth checking what’s available.
Bad navigation and structure
A bad sitemap really can harm a website. Visitors shouldn’t have to guess where things are. If your menu is confusing, then links don’t make sense, or important pages are hard to find, and from that point people will give up and leave. Should they really have to worry about a product library resetting all their filters simply because they chose to click on a product page of yours? As you can see fixing issues like this is paramount. A universal indexed search option can be a good start.
Ignoring SEO
Even in the world of AI, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) really does matter, and helps people find your site through Google and other search engines.
It can seem technical to the point of frustration but even small improvements will help you as we mentioned when discussing audits above, as using clear page titles, writing simple descriptions, and including keywords naturally can help your site show up in searches. Using a reliable platform such as SEOSpace SEO agency can be perfect, especially for specific use-cases like if your website is hosted with SquareSpace.
Keep in mind that common mistakes include not setting up basic SEO tools, like meta descriptions or alt text for images. These small details might not seem like much, but they help search engines understand your content and rank it higher, and it’s what many SEO writers learn to begin with.
No call to action
It’s all well and good to be there, but what are you directing your visitors to do? If someone visits Should they contact you? Buy a product? Sign up for a newsletter? If you don’t have prices, is that because you’re not selling, or because each commission is bespoke? You should be able to inform your visitors of that and not have them figure it out alone.
Even if you’re ready to go, if there’s no clear call to action, visitors might leave without taking the next step, even if they’re interested in what you offer.
With this advice, we hope you can more easily avoid some of the most common mistakes that first-time web owners make. Notice that most of them are quite simple, but in that simplicity they can easily be overlooked. Don’t let the last dash to the finish line limit all the hard work you’ve put in!
