The success or failure of your website is not determined by how good your web designer is or how skilled you are at website marketing – it is in fact determined well before your website is written. Only 5% of websites will ever appear on page 1 or page 2 of search engines for their desired keywords hence try to avoid these mistakes before you begin writing your website:

(See Top 60 Web Design Mistakes of 2009)

1 – Poor Keyword Research – There are many tools available to web designers where keyword research is concerned – not using these is the single worst mistake a web designer can make. Other than confirming what you suspected, keyword research usually reveals many niche terms that visitors use when looking for your kind of business/service. The niche terms (long tail keywords) with less traffic may in fact be more desirable to you as visitors are usually much more specific just before they make a buying decision.

2 – Lack of Competitor Research – without competitor research you won’t know whether your page 1 competitors have 30 or 30,000 backlinks, and you won’t know if their websites have 3 or 300 pages. The term ‘mortgage’ has 189 million pages listed in Google – moneysupermarket.com who are usually number 1 has 306,000 backlinks – hence it would be unrealistic for anyone other than a team of professional SEMs to compete. Simple research takes minutes and could save months of wasted effort and wasted cash.

3 – Nothing Special to Offer – doing exactly the same thing as your competitors is likely to make you blend into the abyss of failed or failing websites. Quality web design is all about being different – hence unless you spend some time planning to be better than your competitors then you are likely to fail. Think about better content, better visitor experience, easier navigation, special offers – anything that distances you away from the average – If you make the effort so will your visitor

4 – Lack of Quality Content – many people believe that just writing a website with a dozen or so pages is the recipe for website success – this simply is not true for most websites. If you have done your competitor research then you will know how many pages containing keyword relevant content your competitor’s website has. Lack of planning for high quality keyword rich content will result in poor visitor experience, lower ranking & poor conversion rates.

5 – Inadequate Page Planning – it’s like the old saying: ‘fail to prepare – prepare to fail’ – inadequate page planning will inevitably result in lower rankings. Use well researched keywords in: titles, descriptions, headings, footers, menu text, link text, paragraphs, page names & directories. Keep your layouts consistent & your menus easy to follow. If you have the necessary skills prepare to write your website in scripting language such as ASP/PHP for greater control of layout & functionality & consider building in CMS so pages can be added or removed easily.

6 – No Marketing Plan – you can create the greatest website in the world & still fail through failing to plan your marketing – you must decide weather to do this yourself or pay for this be done. This decision should be based on the mountain or molehill of link building that you will have to do, your marketing skill level & the amount of time you have to spare – competitor research will give you all the information you need to make this decision. If you don’t plan for website marketing then it likely that you won’t do any and still fail

7 – Poor Choice of Hosting – cheap hosting deals overseas may not necessarily be good for your website as many search engines today use ‘Geo Targeting’ in some manner in their ranking algorithms and you visitors may find your website slower than your competitors. Where possible use host with servers located in your home country & look at live review sites before making a decision. If your site is geared for high traffic and/or overseas trade then use a dedicated server and insure you host has good peering agreements with the countries that you are likely to do business with. Always check your host’s IP address to insure the servers really are based where the host claims they are.

8 – Poor use of Colours – using drab or exotic colours could make your website look amateur – you have an average of 3 seconds to make your first impression hence spend time planning your colour scheme. Remember that its not your personal taste that counts – its your visitor’s. Take care though as certain colours have major significance in some countries. Insure your colours are well matched – you will find plenty of websafe colour match utilities in Google.

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 or commercial website (UK &/or International)

.co.uk – corporate website

.net – large network website – often used by hosting companies.

.biz – use for B2B business

.org.uk – group, charity or organisation

.info – informational site

.name – for an individual or organization

.ltd – requests only accepted from ltd companies

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