When a business has had a website up and running successfully for a year or so, it’s easy to get complacent about the web design and its content. Many business managers and website owners think “If it ain’t broke – don’t fix it!” is a good adage in these situations. Well, that’s not such a great idea any more!
Read on to learn why and how to support your website in a cost efficient and time efficient manner. You’ll also learn more about common issues you might be facing with your website, and how to fix them.
Frequent Website Problems and Their Solutions
Here are some challenges that you should be prepared to discuss with your web designer, and expect them to offer you some solutions that are time efficient and budget efficient:
Website Problem No.1: -- You have an old website, and every time you need content added, you have to call your web developer and pay them to do it. Why can’t you manage your web content yourself?
Fix: -- The problem is that your old website does not have a “control panel” (aka Content Management System) that enables you to add, modify, change, delete or archive content and web pages independently of your web designers. You need to upgrade to a site that supports an easy to use Content Management System (CMS) – one that is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) friendly too and smart phone friendly. That will leave you free to manage your website's page content independent of a web developer. Good web design companies will also provide your with Content Management System training so that you and your staff/colleagues will quickly get up to speed on managing your own website information.
Website Problem No.2: -- Your customers say that they can’t access your site on their smart phones and tablet PCs – of when they can, they can't do so with ease and they can't use all the functionality on the website. When on the road, many of them have had to shop elsewhere as a result! Try this for yourself – use your own smart phone and that of a few friends or colleagues and go through your website on those devices and see if it is easy to do. If not you need to take a closer look at this wit ha professional web design team – you have a website access problem which is loosing sales revenue for you.
Fix: -- Web designing isn’t a one-time effort – it needs constant review and upgrading. Your current website isn’t mobile enabled, while most of your customers, and even your competitors, have mobile enabled websites. You need to contact a professional website design company that can make your website mobile friendly ASAP! You may be happy with the overall design of your website, so say that to your web developers and tell them it's just the mobile friendly part that you are concerned about right now.
Website Problem No.3: -- Do you feel the content, images, design and look-and-feel of your website is stuck in the 90’s, compared to the modern looking sites your competitors have? That’s because much has changed in website design technology since your site first went live. Keep in mind too that your customers also know that you have an old website – they're quite internet savvy and will spot an old dew design as quick as you in a lot of cases. The problem lies in their impression of your when your website hasn't been updated much in a long time. They don't really need to read an 'old website' too when you have competitors that have fresher websites which invariably will have more up to date product/service information too.
Fix: -- Tech-savvy customers today like to associate with businesses that have bold appearances, fresh and relevant content and new design. They also don't want to waste their time reading a website that looks old as it is more likely that the content hasn't been updated on all pages in a while or possibly years. You need to speak with a professional web designer and talk about how you can bring your site into the 20th century – before new sales leads and possibly existing customers leave for good.
Website Problem No.4: -- Your clients and website visitors keep mentioning “http 404 not found” errors on your website. What’s that all about?
Fix: -- This a very serious issue indeed as you don't know how widespread it is! It means you have links to content (or pages) on your website that don’t work any more. Not only will this turn away prospective new sales leads and current clients and business partners; it could also impact your website rankings in the eyes of search engines like Google and Bing.
A seasoned web designing company can either just find and fix those broken links or, for some additional work, they could inspect your website fully, find any other issues and improve the content on a few pages and make sure the website properly represents you on the internet. Once the site is back up and running you could then discuss making your site 100% mobile friendly, modern in it's overall design and easy to use for your website visitors.
Website Problem No.5: -- Your clients complain that you have lots of great information about your products and services – but they can’t shop and place orders online. You are losing clients and revenue as a result because some of your competitors have a nice easy to use web shop on their website.
Fix: -- There are several fixes to this issue. You could either get a professional to “install” a shop into your current site, or have a new web shop designed and developed for you. Experienced website consulting firms can discuss your options with you and provide you with the most cost-effective resolution. If you were thinking of getting a redesign at some point then perhaps looking at a new shop now will actually tick those 2 boxes in one and save you money. If you just want a shop asap and are not too pushed about the web design (the look of your website) for now then a web shop system can be inserted into your existing website and that will give you an easy to use, smart phone friendly web shop in a shorter time frame.
Website Problem No.6: -- Your website seems to attract lots of visitors – but you get few sales online!
Fix: -- Any, or all of the above, issues might be contributing to this. There may even be a host of other issues that are causing low online sales. A thorough analysis should be done of your site to determine the root cause of the issues, including what the website visitors are doing and what they're not doing. What pages are they viewing or are they just going to the homepage? Perhaps your website should be tested on a number of browsers and devices to make sure the menu bar and links are working correctly on all devices. It could also be the case that your site doesn't 'urge' the website visitor to click on other pages so that your business starts to interest them. Systems like this are often referred to as “call to action boxes” and they encourage web visitors to click on other pages and submit an enquiry to you etc – sometimes they need a little push and encouragement/direction in order to make contact with you.
Following a good website review, your webs site consulting team could advise you on appropriate strategies to turn casual visitors into paying customers. There are a range of different options here from fresh design, compelling new content, extensive use of high quality photos, large use of testimonials and cases studies for example, so it is really worth speaking with your web team to decide what will work for you.
Time Is Of Essence
The longer that these and other website issues linger, the more challenging and costly they get to fix. In the meanwhile, not only are you losing clients and prospective customers, but your competition is “stealing” revenue from you!
Contacting an experienced web design firm for assistance – quickly – is the best way to address all of these challenges now and effectively. Feel free to contact us on +353-(0)1-6216866 or info@myit.ie if you have any questions on the above – we'll be glad to chat out those issues with you and prepare a plan for a cost-efficient and time-efficient solution that will have your business on a better footing without delay.
