Having your own website is a must if you run a small business or a charity. It’s your shop window, the place you want people to come to learn more about you, buy your product or donate to your cause.

Building your own website instead of an agency or web builder is a natural way of saving costs but beware of some of the common pitfalls that come with managing your own website.

To help you out, I’ve picked out five website mistakes I’ve seen small businesses and charities make so you know how to avoid them.

So a visitor comes to your site, then what? Without any calls to action, that visitor will leave again without engaging with your organisation in any meaningful way. One of the most important things to think about is the user journey through your site. What page are they reaching first? What action do you want them to take there? What page are they visiting next? Are you directing them to the right information? You might be missing huge opportunities to reach people because you’re not leading them on a journey. Including calls to action helps to build that journey.

I’m sorry to say the opposite is also true. If you’re asking people visiting your site to do too much at the same time, it can be overwhelming and confusing. In the end, no engagement happens. Do you want them to share content? Donate? Purchase? Contact you? Sign up for a newsletter? Refine down exactly what you want website visitors to do on each page, and keep it simple. Remember, even after they’ve completed an action, such as a purchase, there’s an opportunity to continue that user journey with a new call to action.

If you don’t have the budget to have your own photos taken, stock photography is often the next best option. The problem with just using stock photography is that the images won’t be personal to your organisation, and your audience will know it. Stock photography can be quite obvious, especially if there are lots of cheesy smiles or awkward poses. It looks fake and doesn’t truly reflect your organisation. Instead, I do think it is worth investing in having professional photography done to build a solid collection of images specific to your business and use stock photography only if absolutely necessary. There are ways of building your image stocks without breaking the bank. Get in touch if you need help with that.

The attention span of website visitors is a lot shorter than you might think, and huge paragraphs of text can be pretty off-putting. If website visitors can’t find what information they’re looking for quickly, it’s highly likely they will leave and go to another website. To avoid this, keep your text short and snappy, using clear headings and bullet points and keep things to a few sentences rather than paragraphs. Use your analytics to understand what information your website visitors are most interested in and move that content higher up the page. You can also use images or icons to help direct people to what they’re looking for.

Many of your website visitors will now be viewing the site on their mobile or tablet. It’s not only important to make sure your website is easy to access on mobile but also to check that it’s easy to read and navigate. When creating new content for your website, always preview it on a mobile screen to see how the content is arranged. The most important information should be near the top so avoid people having to scroll down too far, and buttons should be easy to tap.

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Looking for some feedback or advice on your website? Get in touch with me for a site review.

Looking for more digital marketing advice for your business or charity? Get in touch using the contact form above to see how I can help you.