6 Big Website Related Faux Pas

Unsurprisingly we look at a lot of websites. Not only do we need to do this as part of running our business but someone’s website is our go to place, over and above social media, to find out more about a person or a business. So, we do spot a lot of website related faux pas while we are on our web travels.

To ensure you aren’t making these mistakes too we thought we would share them with you and if you do realise you are guilty of them then you can go away and do something about it quickly!

Website Related Faux Pas 1 – Launching a website when it isn’t ready.

We don’t understand why we are seeing this so much recently, but we are seeing a lot of people launching their websites with Lorem Ipsum (or filler text) still on some pages, with links to pages that just aren’t there yet and just generally still looking like a mess.

We think the rationale behind this is the website owner thinking that if they put their website live then it’ll make them get it sorted out, but it just looks messy and unprofessional if someone comes to it and it’s still in that state. So, find another way to make yourself accountable to get your website finished before you put it live!

Website Related Faux Pas 2 – Auto playing videos with sound.

Aaahhhhhh! This is one of our biggest website bugbears and one that we thought people had realised wasn’t a good idea because we thought it had gone away but it’s back! Over the last couple of weeks this has been happening again. You’ve probably experienced it yourself, you go to a website, it loads and then you can hear music or talking and you’re scrolling down the screen to work out where it’s coming from to stop it. Your family are looking at you annoyed because they’re trying to watch TV and they’re turning the volume up. You can’t find the video the sound is coming from so leaving the website is the easiest option to stop the noise.

Do not have auto playing videos with sound on your website. You will lose website visitors because of it especially if three videos start playing at the same time which genuinely happened to us this week on a sales page.

Website Related Faux Pas 3 – Pop-ups coming up straight away.

Some people love a pop up and they can convert really well on some websites. Some people hate any pop up. Regardless of this, nobody wants a pop up to come up before they have even had a chance to see any of the website to see what it is that you do. Also, pop ups coming up this quickly have a detrimental effect on SEO (search engine optimisation).

If you feel pop ups do work for your business it’s great to use ones that wait a certain amount of time after someone hits a website or even better that wait until the person has scrolled a certain distance down the page, because that shows they are actually getting interested in what you do. You can also use pop ups that come up at the side, which are less intrusive and don’t spoil the website visitor’s flow around the website. However you decide to use them, don’t shout in your website visitor’s face straight away because that’s essentially what you are doing with an instant pop up and that really is a social faux pas!

Website Related Faux Pas 4 – It doesn’t work on mobile… still.

We really thought people had got to grips with the fact that most people browse the web on their mobile phones these days. But still we are seeing websites that don’t work on mobile devices. This is a big mistake because not everyone will give you a second chance and check out your website on a computer and so you are losing potential leads very quickly.

If you have a website, pick up your mobile phone now and check every page, every link and every form to make sure it looks good and works well. If it doesn’t then we suggest you get it sorted soon.

Website Related Faux Pas 5 – Giving out the wrong domain name.

Normally when we see this someone has put .com instead of .co.uk in the footer of their email and it’s easy to work out what they have done and help them out by pointing out the mistake. Last week we read an article in a well known, high distribution magazine and the business website address of the woman being featured was mentioned in the magazine. So, I decided to take a look at her website, but when I got there it wasn’t her website. So I searched her name on Google, tracked down her actual website and the web address that was printed was missing the city that she was based in.

This may have been an editorial error, rather than hers but it’s a big error to make on such a great PR opportunity. Her website also had errors on mobile so even if people did track her down like I did, the whole experience didn’t give a good first impression.

Website Related Faux Pas 6 – Being negative about another business to promote your own.

We see this a lot in all areas of business. Fitness instructors criticising other instructor’s methods of losing weight or getting fit; coaches slamming another coaches methods of working with people; and recently this advertising method hit the web world with Wix taking a massive swipe and WordPress in a very emotive and negative way in one of their adverts. Wix are now getting quite a lot of backlash for it.

We personally think this is a poor publicity practice and not a tactic that’s great to use on your website. Use your website to show your ideal client that you understand their needs, that you have a solution to their problems and some evidence that your solution really works. If you do that well then you will get sales, you will get return custom, you will get referrals and you maintain your dignity.

It’s worth double checking

So, now you’ve heard about some common mistakes people are making with their websites, maybe you know you aren’t making any of them and you are sitting happily, but if you aren’t sure how good your website looks on mobile because you haven’t checked it since you made some changes the other day or you aren’t sure how quickly your pops ups are appearing, then it might be worth double checking your website now.

If you’d like more discussion around this topic, then we did cover these points with a bit more chat, in our Facebook Live last week, which you can watch here.