Your website can fail even before you start writing a single line of code - in fact 95% of websites will never achieve a page 1 or page 2 listing in search engines for their desired terms. Planning your website correctly is actually more important that writing it. Here are the top 10 planning mistakes to avoid:
(Please see: Top 60 Web Design Mistakes of 2009 for further information & resources)
1 - Lack of Keyword Research - This is a cardinal sin - how can you attempt to write a website without knowing what your visitor's search for? Getting this wrong will mean that you will not rank well for the best terms, hence you will loose out on valuable organic traffic. There are many free keyword research tools at your disposal - use them!
2 - No Competitor Research - by not doing competitor research you won't know how firmly rooted your page 1/2 competitors are - this is simple & can be done by using one of many free backlink checkers available on the net - as a general rule the more backlinks your competitor has the harder your job will be to compete for position. For example sites like moneysupermarket.com have 100s of thousands of backlinks - so that is a task you would want to avoid unless you can pay for an army of SEMs. It is also important to check how many pages your competitor's websites have indexed as building a site with say 5 pages to your competitor's hundreds would be equally pointless. Google will disclose this information - type site:yourdomain.com without the www. in the search bar.
3 - Nothing Special or Unique - Considering that only 1 out of 20 websites written will ever offer a good return on investment - offering something different to your competition is vital to your long term website success. These could include: a special offer for a limited period, better content, easier navigation - sometimes it's the little things like not forcing users to signup to view content that could tip the scales in your favour.
4 - Poor Content Quality - if you have done your competitor research then you will know how much quality content you have to write to match your competitors. Both quality & quantity of text content is important - paragraphs should be no more than a few lines long, headings should contain your researched keywords. Planning this in advance will help improve your website ranking & conversion rates.
5 - No Page Planning - lack of page planning will inevitably result in lower search engine ranking. Insure that you use well researched keywords in: page names, directory names, titles, descriptions, headings, footers, menu text, link text & your paragraphs. Your menus should be easy to follow and your important headings should be high up the page. Keep your page layouts consistent and if you are writing a large website use scripting language such as ASP or PHP. Wherever possible build CMS so pages can be added or removed easily.
6 - No Plan for Marketing - if your aim is to write a website which will drive business through web traffic and you haven't considered how this traffic will magically appear then you haven't made a marketing plan. Depending how competitive your industry is - you may need to build 10s, 100s or 1000s of backlinks using web partners, directories & blogs. This may take hours/week/years hence you will need a plan with timescales.
7 - Hosting Overseas - planning to host your website overseas is also a big mistake as many search engines use 'Geo Targeting' in their ranking algorithms - worse still - your website will almost certainly load slower than if hosted with a reputable host in your home country. So savings here are not worth making. Always check your hosts IP address to insure the servers really are based where the host claims they are - yes there are hosts that tell big fat lies.
8 - Poor use of Colours - you have approximately 3 seconds to make your first impression hence insure your colour scheme is perfect for your website & is unlikely to offend your visitors. Avoid luminous colour schemes & take care when designing websites geared for other countries as certain colours have major cultural significance. Avoid using any more than 3 colours in your scheme & insure these are web safe & matched well. Poor planning in this area is likely to make your website look amateur.
9 - Poor Choice of Fonts - choosing fonts that are tough to read makes it hard work for your visitors and even worse for anyone with visual impairment. Use basic fonts such as Arial & Helvetica wherever possible, else use fonts that are clear & match your website theme well.
10 - Website Name & Suffix - choose a domain that contains your keywords & select the correct domain suffix (top level domain) - whilst using your keywords in your domain is not essential, it helps with towards your page ranking. Choosing the wrong suffix will not help you achieve listings in the right territory. Common UK TLD's:
.com - ecommerce website
.co.uk - corporate website
.net - large network website - often used by hosting companies.
.biz - almost purely for business-to-business sites
.org.uk - non-profit organisation or group / charity
.info - informational site
.name - for an individual or group
.ltd.uk - UK ltd company
(Please see: Top 60 Web Design Mistakes of 2009 for further information & resources)
1 - Lack of Keyword Research - This is a cardinal sin - how can you attempt to write a website without knowing what your visitor's search for? Getting this wrong will mean that you will not rank well for the best terms, hence you will loose out on valuable organic traffic. There are many free keyword research tools at your disposal - use them!
2 - No Competitor Research - by not doing competitor research you won't know how firmly rooted your page 1/2 competitors are - this is simple & can be done by using one of many free backlink checkers available on the net - as a general rule the more backlinks your competitor has the harder your job will be to compete for position. For example sites like moneysupermarket.com have 100s of thousands of backlinks - so that is a task you would want to avoid unless you can pay for an army of SEMs. It is also important to check how many pages your competitor's websites have indexed as building a site with say 5 pages to your competitor's hundreds would be equally pointless. Google will disclose this information - type site:yourdomain.com without the www. in the search bar.
3 - Nothing Special or Unique - Considering that only 1 out of 20 websites written will ever offer a good return on investment - offering something different to your competition is vital to your long term website success. These could include: a special offer for a limited period, better content, easier navigation - sometimes it's the little things like not forcing users to signup to view content that could tip the scales in your favour.
4 - Poor Content Quality - if you have done your competitor research then you will know how much quality content you have to write to match your competitors. Both quality & quantity of text content is important - paragraphs should be no more than a few lines long, headings should contain your researched keywords. Planning this in advance will help improve your website ranking & conversion rates.
5 - No Page Planning - lack of page planning will inevitably result in lower search engine ranking. Insure that you use well researched keywords in: page names, directory names, titles, descriptions, headings, footers, menu text, link text & your paragraphs. Your menus should be easy to follow and your important headings should be high up the page. Keep your page layouts consistent and if you are writing a large website use scripting language such as ASP or PHP. Wherever possible build CMS so pages can be added or removed easily.
6 - No Plan for Marketing - if your aim is to write a website which will drive business through web traffic and you haven't considered how this traffic will magically appear then you haven't made a marketing plan. Depending how competitive your industry is - you may need to build 10s, 100s or 1000s of backlinks using web partners, directories & blogs. This may take hours/week/years hence you will need a plan with timescales.
7 - Hosting Overseas - planning to host your website overseas is also a big mistake as many search engines use 'Geo Targeting' in their ranking algorithms - worse still - your website will almost certainly load slower than if hosted with a reputable host in your home country. So savings here are not worth making. Always check your hosts IP address to insure the servers really are based where the host claims they are - yes there are hosts that tell big fat lies.
8 - Poor use of Colours - you have approximately 3 seconds to make your first impression hence insure your colour scheme is perfect for your website & is unlikely to offend your visitors. Avoid luminous colour schemes & take care when designing websites geared for other countries as certain colours have major cultural significance. Avoid using any more than 3 colours in your scheme & insure these are web safe & matched well. Poor planning in this area is likely to make your website look amateur.
9 - Poor Choice of Fonts - choosing fonts that are tough to read makes it hard work for your visitors and even worse for anyone with visual impairment. Use basic fonts such as Arial & Helvetica wherever possible, else use fonts that are clear & match your website theme well.
10 - Website Name & Suffix - choose a domain that contains your keywords & select the correct domain suffix (top level domain) - whilst using your keywords in your domain is not essential, it helps with towards your page ranking. Choosing the wrong suffix will not help you achieve listings in the right territory. Common UK TLD's:
.com - ecommerce website
.co.uk - corporate website
.net - large network website - often used by hosting companies.
.biz - almost purely for business-to-business sites
.org.uk - non-profit organisation or group / charity
.info - informational site
.name - for an individual or group
.ltd.uk - UK ltd company
About the Author:
The author is a professional Ecommerce/Web Design Consultant who has 12 years experience in the IT Industry/Web Industries. He works with designers for many large corporations such as Npower, Vodafone & Coca Cola - see web design for more information.
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