We live in a very DIY-happy world these days, and while it might be easy enough to do some minor repairs around your home, there are still some things that are best left to the professionals – like building a website.
While there are many DIY-friendly services you can utilize to build a site, there is a lot more to making it user-friendly and professional than simply picking a layout and typing in some text. We understand how appealing these inexpensive options can be, but the fact remains that, if you aren’t sure what you’re doing, your website is going to reflect that.
Here are some of the most common mistakes we see when people decide to DIY their website.
Trying to Add Too Much Information
We get it – websites exist to help provide your audience with the information they need to decide whether or not they want to do business with you. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t such a thing as giving them too much information.
These days, users are absolutely bombarded with information every single time they go online. And their ability to retain this information is pretty minimal – in fact, studies have shown that it takes showing the average user an ad seven times before they will remember it. When it comes to information on your website, you have just 7 seconds or less to grab a user’s attention before they leave your site.
This means that your content needs to be easy-to-read, informative, and engaging to catch a user’s attention as quickly as possible. It also needs to be short enough that they can learn what they want to know without risking them getting bored and moving on. This can be achieved by breaking long sections of text up with pictures, titles, headings, and bullet points.
Writing in the Wrong Tone
If you aren’t the type who keeps on top of content writing best practices, you probably don’t really think much about the tone of the content on a website. And when it comes to good copywriting, your attention shouldn’t be drawn to the tone because it suits the business.
When it comes to your content, the tone really needs to suit the type of industry you’re in. If you’re in B2B, your content should be professional and to-the-point. But if you’re a B2C targeting Gen Z’ers, your content needs to be more informal and entertaining to catch their attention.
What’s most important is designing a specific brand voice that is appropriate for your needs. This doesn’t just help with writing your site content, it also helps with designing marketing and social media campaigns.
Using Inconsistent Design Elements
It might be a bit difficult to narrow down certain design elements like font size and style when there are so many different options to choose from, but if you want a professional-looking site, you need to do it.
It is hard to think of anything more annoying to users than web pages that use multiple styles of font, especially if they also don’t have consistent size across the same types of content. Headings should be the largest, with subheadings a size down, and regular text a size down from that. It can be okay to pick one font for headings and one for text, but they should be similar and easy-to-read – cursive is often a no-no as it might not be legible to certain users or when sized down to display on mobile devices.
Not Using Call-to-Actions (CTAs) on Every Page
One of the most important aspects of building an effective website is having a CTA on each page. CTAs help encourage users to turn into leads or paying customers by doing things like signing up for newsletters or completing a purchase.
In general, people have short attention spans when it comes to consuming online content. In order to be successful, you need to help guide them on their buying journey as much as possible, so that it is easy for them to become customers.
Does Your Business Need a New Website?
While one of the most appealing things about trying to DIY your website is that it saves you money up front, in the long run, it is likely to cost you money in lost sales. Believe it or not, having an agency build your website for you isn’t as expensive as you may think, especially if you need a website with less than 10 pages.
At Gulf Coast Web, we have over 25 years of experience in managing all types of digital design and marketing campaigns – even for companies outside of our immediate area. Our staff consists of highly-trained digital design advertising professionals who are both passionate about their jobs and excel at what they do. Contact us today to book a consultation with our team. We look forward to outlining exactly how we can help you grow your business with our digital media agency services.