Thursday, January 28, 2010

Unsuccessful websites: the common pitfalls

Websites are created to boost a company’s online visibility and take advantage of one of the biggest marketplace around: the Internet. However, many websites flop and fizzle with no one even noticing except the owners. With nary a visit from its targeted users, a website is deemed useless and thus a failure, even if its owner spent thousand of dollars and wasted valuable time in building the sites. Unsuccessful websites abound in the World Wide Web. In fact, more than 55 ½ million sites on the Internet are complete failures, unable to meet their goal which is to attract visitors, motivate them to avail of their offerings and gain profits.


Below are the some reasons why websites fail to meet their goal:


Lack of strategic planning. Building an effective website starts with great planning. In this stage, potential customers are determined, as well as the strategies on how to reach them, convert them into buyers and turn them into loyal clients. If you plan to just put pictures and text together and just wait for people to come, your website will be one expensive joke!


Poor content or lack of real content. This is probably the biggest mistakes why most websites are unsuccessful in the Internet. Good content, or the information that target visitors are interested with, is key in ranking high with the major search engines. People use search engines to look for information and they normally click on sites that are at the top of the results. Content must be keyword laden so that search engines can pick them up, rank the site and ultimately draw more traffic. Remember that search engines only rank high if the site offers relevant content that their searches are looking for.

However, time must be spent in researching keywords. There are a variety of web-based tools available in the market to help website owners find what people are actually searching for when using the Internet. It makes creating pages much easier if you know what people are searching for and what keywords they are using.


Looks great, but where’s the money? You can spend a lot of money on expensive graphic design but what would you do with a website that is visually stunning but doesn’t earn you bucks? It is, thus, essential to find a web designer/developer that knows everything from design to marketing, conversion, usability and compatibility.


Mediocre HTML development. At this day and age, anyone can build a website from scratch using website building tools available online, sometimes at no cost at all. But the question is, do such websites work? If the web designer/developer knows how to work HTML, then good. If not, you can end up with a website that does not work on some browsers or platforms. A good website must work on all browsers and platforms. It’s graphics and other visual elements must look great whether you are using a netbook or a 22” LCD monitor. It must perform well on both MAC and PC. It must operate in different browsers such as IE, Opera or Firefox. It must be properly optimized, ready for the search engine bots and prepared to accommodate visitors.


Poor editing, proofreading and updating. Don’t you just hate it when you encounter a website with terrible grammar, broken links and content that’s over five years old? And sites like those abound in the Internet! I just can’t understand why owners don’t update or proofread their content on a regular basis. These problems can turn visitors away; worse, it can ruin the reputation of a company.


If you are planning to build your first website or upgrade an existing one, it is best to get some help from the experts like New Harvest Design, a graphics and web design firm which can help you improve your internet presence by providing you with outstanding graphics and web designs at very reasonable rates. Click HERE to visit New Harvest Design’s website.

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