National Media Opportunity - Website bloopers

My biggest bug bear is a heavy emphasis on the “about us” content. Some people go to town creating a fancy splash screen video that tells the tale of the business and its history on the homepage; one that replays every time you visit it. Seriously, no one cares that much. This is followed in a close second place by websites that don’t include links to their social media channels. We’re in 2023, people! Put those links in your header or your footer.

I have a special place in hell reserved for the web designers who use SEO tags to layout their styling. When they can literally use any tag in HTML lexicon, why do they always choose the ones that are important for SEO? Then complain when I ask them to change them.

It’s always the simple things:

Failing to say what they do and who they serve beneath their logo when you land on the website (don't make me guess).

Failing to tell what steps they should take next to progress the relationship, i.e “call us on…” (hyperlinked so the visitor can click to call), email or fill in a free online enquiry, plus live chat on 24/7 and downloadable 'items of value' if the service being sold is researched a lot before anyone buys it.

Failing to add 'proof of expertise' to each page to take the visitor from stranger to prospect, such as client reviews, case studies, but importantly also external proof of expertise, such as media coverage and memberships of any professional bodies.

Failing to add photos and some personality - people buy people!

Linking away from their website.

Go to any website on the internet and I can tell you whether it performs or not in less than a second and it's all down to the first line of text.

If you visit a website that starts by telling you how many years of experience they have or why they are the best at what they do, your brain recognises that the message isn't about you and you leave.

So the biggest blooper of websites I see is not putting the visitor first. This isn't opinion, this is science and is costing businesses dearly with every click.

If a company plasters "Industry-leading, award-winning" on their homepage, then I'm immediately clicking off it. It's arrogant, pathetic and desperate. Businesses need to do better.

Most business websites are bland, beige and boring - cookie-cutter, carbon copies of one another.

They use the same stock images, the same cliched superlatives, and the same lack of anything remotely unique or interesting.

You could swap the logos of most firms with any of their rivals, and no one would be any the wiser. Generic, monotonous and dull.

In a world of bland, boring, beige vanilla websites, it's easy to stand out. Why be vanilla, when you're a locally made raspberry ripple gelato (with real raspberries), served in an m&m’s crusted waffle cone, topped with the finest Devon clotted cream?

I’ve seen too many corporate sites that fall back to using generic or cliched images that just look posed or blatantly bought from a stock library. Images are one of the biggest assets of your site that help differentiate you from the competition. Without putting thought into the image selection then you run the risk of having an average site. Investing a small amount of money in professional photography will help elevate your corporate website from being just another generic also-ran to something which conveys the meaning and personality behind your business. The other blooper is ignoring site speed. If your site is slow, it will impact user experience and also your search rankings. Corporate sites with bloated code and unused plugins are prone to this.

I'm one for spotting spelling mistakes. I know I make them sometimes, and it's human, but if you have a website, at least proofread it before you release it to the world! I had one lender advertising a rate around 2% lower than what they currently had available. The client noticed it too and when I enquired, it disappeared and I was told there were technical difficulties. That rate was not available.

Have you ever noticed how most businesses forget what their website is actually for? The reality is that it SHOULD BE a tool designed to perform a specific role in their business model.

However, most businesses have not properly mapped out their business model or developed a sensible strategy to deliver their business objectives. How then, can they benefit from a website if they do not know what they're going to do with it in the first place?

Websites are too often built and then left to rot - with little investment or interest shown by businesses in leveraging the capabilities of their beautiful creation.

Corporations are often the worst offenders with proof of a team's work output (in the form of brand websites, or niche websites) being poorly used to satisfy arbitrary internal politics!