Having a look through my archives, I’ve found that I have been reviewing people’s websites as a service, for over 4 years now. Given that I started off reviewing websites on a forum back in 2004, I can safely say I have reviewed websites for more than 20 years.

Some of my reviews have resulted in lasting client relationships, some have fizzled out to nothing and some people just ghosted me as they didn’t like the sound of someone criticising their beloved website. And one woman just snapped her fingers and said “Oh send the report to my VA so she can make the changes” I did not because that was just rude.

But I do not criticise: all I do is look into your website, see how old it is, how Google see it and how the general public see it. Then then make recommendations of how it can be improved.

In the 4 years, there are some common mistakes that the average web builder overlooks. I have picked 7 of the most common and what you can do to fix it.

1. A Tiny Logo

First things first, your company logo is the identity of your website. I get that you want to save space and have it inline with your toggle menu, but does it have to be that small? Twin this with a logo that includes a strapline and you are onto a losing streak before your page has even loaded.

I recommend: Make the logo larger. Look at it and ask yourself honestly “can I read this?”

Another good tip is to keep the logo separate from the strapline. This will save vital space in your logo plus the strapline can be emphasised more in a larger format still in a prominent position.

Social Media Links at the Top

I do cringe inwardly whenever I see this. Here’s why. Someone has taken the trouble to come and visit your website, so why would you have your social media links up the top of your page?

If they click these, they will be diverted away from your website and now they cannot take the desired action on your website to buy from you, enquire about your services and so on. Done enough times, Google will also get suspicious as to why people are clicking off your website so quickly.

I recommend: Add the social media links at the bottom of each page. Then your client can look once they have read your page and can simply visit your channels if they want to know more or view your content.

No Call to Action / Contact Details

The internet is a very impatient place. If you are not making it as easy as possible for people to take action on your website then they will click back and try another company. Maybe your competitor.

I also include contact details in this section because sometimes even a location seems to be a big ask. If for example you are based in Rural Essex but want to appeal to people in London. This does not contribute to know like and trust. Instead it just comes across as really suspicious.

I recommend: Make your buttons eye catching and prominent on each page. Did you know, you can also link phone numbers?  So all the user has to do is press the button to get a direct line to you.

With location, if you really must appeal to a specific area, then get a virtual or mailbox address. It will cost you anything from £30 a month onwards.

Unoptimised / Massive images

Cover images are very popular. They are also the bane of a slow loading web page. If I ever find a page is slow to load, this is the first thing I check out.

An image that spans the entire screen on say a 23″ monitor would need to span 1920 pixels. You could get away with a 1200 pixel wide image. But when you see the image is 4000 pixels wide and the filesize is about 1Mb.

That image hasn’t been optimised at all, its just been swipted form a phone, and directly added to your page.

But this isn’t exclusive to cover images.  Any image slows down your website if you haven’t taken the time to resize it. This reduces the filesize and should help to improve the download time for your page. Also Google loves quick loading pages.

I recommend: Resize your images. This is easy to do on both Mac and Windows PC’s using their default image editors. For cover images use 1200 pixels wide (but test the quality). For other images, aim to resize a maximum of 800-1000 pixels on the longest side. And optimise your images in .webp format as this is also a game changer.

No Back to Top Link

Have you ever seen it when someone on a mobile is looking through a web page that they get to the bottom of and have to manually scroll up again? No one is going to thank you for making it look like they are spinning the wheel of fortune. So a dynamic button on your website make for a better user experience.

I recommend: Add a back to top/scroll button.  These are easy to add to your website, with just a couple of lines of code or a free plugin. I use WPFront Scroll Top https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/wpfront-scroll-top/ which literally takes 2 minutes to configure.

Optimising just the Home page.

I am of course talking about search engine optimisation. Many times I have had to utter the words, “Google ranks web pages, not websites.”

Therefore, every page on your website is a potential opportunity. Yes your home page is the most visited page on your website, but just adding a concise page title, description and content to just your home page is a wasted opportunity.

I recommend: Optimise your home page for your main keyphrases (what your company is about) and optimise your more niche keyphrases for your other pages (Your services/product).

Rewrite the page title, wite an off page (meta description) and either write your text to reflect your niche keyphrases. Or hire a copywriter that specialises in web content.

No Privacy Policy/GDPR

The final most common issue is the one that can land you in the most trouble. You will have cookies on your website for things like Google Analytics, if you use a page builder or CMS/Ecommerce platform to run your website.

These need to be declared when someone calls up your website and you need to ask for consent from the user to visit your site).

More so, if users are volunteering their personal information to you (via a form or email), you need to include a privacy policy on your website. Outline what information you collect, how long you keep it stored for and what you intend to use it for. These seldom get read but they serve as peace of mind to your user.  Mainly that you are not going to exploit there details and sell it to every spammer in the world.

I recommend: Two things: Have a good read of https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/advice-for-small-organisations/ which outlines everything you need to include and comes up with a few good tips and resources. CookieYes provide a plugin that can generate a privacy and cookie policy. https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/cookie-law-info/

Conclusion

I could write about 10, maybe 20 more common website errors, but these 7 cover the basics.

Basically, if you keep your website efficient, simple, easy to use and make everything blatantly obvious, your website will be your greatest asset for years to come.

If you are struggling with your website and would like a reality check covering everything from SEO to pagespeed, Google Business pages to general layout, contact us for a free no-obligation website review.