“What does it take to make a new website? Just put a few photos and text.” There are too many people at different levels of responsibility who think this way. For sure, platforms such as WordPress have made wep developing much easier, and today a lot of cousins are able to create a new website. However, creating an effective and professional new website requires specific skills in different areas, from code to marketing, from graphics to copywriting.
Creating a new website requires professionalism. Often, an excess of amateurism and a lot of superficiality lead to serious mistakes that could be avoided. I have gathered the 10 most frequent mistakes in a list that represents the nightmare of every web professional and that, dear me, I have seen throughout my career.
What do we want to communicate? Dunno
Making a website without knowing what you want to communicate never works. Many websites are built superficially with standard content, copied without much care from other sites, or built on a standard template. It’s no good. The website must tell a specific reality that is unique in the world. As a result, the website must also be unique and have a clear strategy that leads towards a defined goal.
Offhand competitor analysis
“I’d like a website like Facebook, but also like Amazon.” This is the client with a lot of ambition but few ideas. “I want a website like my competitor across the street.” This is the customer with few ideas and little desire. Competitor analysis is very important, but it must be done in the right way, starting from positioning and communicating why our business is better. You don’t have to totally copy the website and the communication strategy, but understand why certain choices have been made and evaluate if they can be a valid source of inspiration for our reality.
Structure of the website? We’ll think about it later
The structure of a website has the same value as the foundation for a house. If it’s done wrong, the whole website collapses. Its design cannot be postponed, but must be carried out before placing the first brick on the ground. It can then be modified, but only if it is really necessary. A good structure speeds up the rest of the work and reduces the risk of making crucial mistakes.
The blog, that is a wasteland
Did you want the bike? Now ride. Did you want the blog? Now publish content. A company blog is almost always a valuable ally that helps to position a website on Google and increase brand awareness, but it is not always necessary. If we choose to have it, we need to plan an editorial calendar and produce content consistently. How sad is a website with only one article, written two years earlier, that is titled “Welcome to the new website”?
Who cares about the mobile version
A website is built on a PC or Mac, and sometimes the developer doesn’t pay due attention to how it works on mobile. As a result, smartphone loading can be slow, or some functions may not perform correctly. This is a serious mistake because today about 60% of web traffic is mobile and Google evaluates content according to a mobile-first logic. So, always test the website from your smartphone and analyze Core Web Vitals.
Headers on the page, these strangers
The structure of the webpage is very important to give Google and the reader the information in an orderly and easy-to-understand way. H1, H2 and h3 headers must respect a precise hierarchy, but in many cases they are used only for aesthetic reasons, maybe to emphasize a button. This is an unforgivable mistake. Try crawling a page with a tool like the META SEO Inspector Google Chrome extension: the clutter of information on many websites is scary!
Usually these errors are due to templates that are installed on platforms such as WordPress or Prestashop. All you need to do is make some edits from php or change templates to improve the structure of your pages. This is one of the reasons why some cousins can’t help.
Too many images, too heavy
Never neglect photos and images. The visual impact of the featured image is important to capture attention and lead to clicks. The images inside, on the other hand, should be explanatory and add information.
However, images can go from being allies to enemies because they have an impact on page load times. So, you have to find a compromise and add only the images you need. If you have a store, no visitor is interested in seeing photos of shelves full of products that you may no longer have in a week. Products can be uploaded, with detailed descriptions, in an e-commerce section or in a showcase, while on the “About us” page only photos should be added that give an idea of the type of store. In addition, each image must be lightweight.
Flash ain’t vintage, it’s obsolete
The web evolves and websites must move in the same direction. Some technologies are now obsolete and new ones are emerging. There was the short but intense period of Amp pages. Now there are webp images that allow you to reduce page load times.
One technology that was abandoned around 2020, but is still being asked for by some people today, is Flash. No doubt Flash websites were very nice and with crazy animations. But today, with the sharp increase in mobile traffic, this technology is useless because it is not supported by smartphones. Asking for a Flash website therefore means wasting time and money. Don’t ever do that, please.
I don’t care about Google Analytics, I don’t use it
A website without Google Analytics? This is the demand of those who evaluate marketing performance by feeling, without analyzing the data. Given the possibilities that exist today, that would simply be insane. And I add: don’t stop at Google Analytics. Add Google Search Console and advanced tools such as Yandex Metrica or Bing Webmaster Tools.
We don’t need maintenance
Do you think it’s smart to save money by forgoing website maintenance? Sooner or later the website will need an update (see two paragraphs above), or something will blow up and need to be fixed. An extraordinary intervention in an already compromised context could cost much more than ordinary maintenance that would have avoided all this.
The solution: rely on a professional!
If you just want to play games, try building a website and experiment as much as you can. If you want a professional website, don’t rely on a do-it-yourself solution, but contact a professional or an agency that can support you in every aspect. Write to me if you want to create a new website.
