6 common mistakes people make when DIY-ing their website
Does your website look professional and legit? Does it guide your visitors to book in with you or make a sale? If the answer to these questions is “No!” then read on! DIY-ing your website is no easy feat. There’s so much that goes into a good, functional, clear and high converting site. I’d say around 80% of that stuff should take place BEFORE you even set foot on your website builder platform. Yep, you heard that right! Keep reading to learn more on this later in the post!
Today, you’re going to learn 6 common mistakes I see countless people make when DIY-ing their websites and the action steps you can take to fix these things today. Right, let’s get right down to it!
1 | Cramming too much information in
This is probably the one thing I see most of all. I totally get it - you’re paying all this money each month to host your website, you want to get your money’s worth. This is your prime opportunity to provide your audience and potential customers with as much information as possible, right?! WRONG!!
We live in a time where society is constantly bombarded with so much choice and information everywhere we turn. Whether that’s when we’re choosing what washing powder to buy in the supermarket, what phone to buy, what pair of trainers to buy...you get the idea! The average person’s attention span when browsing a website is around 7 seconds. That means when someone lands on your site to find out more about you, you have 7 seconds to grab their attention. Let me repeat that - when someone lands on your website to find out more about you, you have 7 seconds to grab their attention. They wanna know exactly what you do and who you serve, right away! They want everything to be simple, easy and convenient to understand. If they land on your about page faced with a short essay all about the history of your life (unless it’s your Mum), they’re guaranteed to lose attention and head off somewhere else pretty darn quick.
When you’re writing your website copy (aka the words on your website):
Keep things short, sweet and to the point
Break up information with enticing titles, headlines, bullet-pointed lists, and engaging images related to your product or service
Avoid using long lines of text that span the full width of the page. If a potential customer lands on your page and sees wall to wall text, they’re going to feel instantly overwhelmed
Try shortening your lines of text down to make it easier to digest, that way your visitors are much more likely to stick around and read what you have to say
At the end of the day, you could have the world's most compelling copy, but if there’s way too much information crammed onto a page with nothing to break it up, people just aren’t going to read it. FACT.
ACTION STEP:
Hop on over to your website and do a mini audit:
Skim through each page - is it fairly easy to get an idea of what the content of each page is about?
Are there images, headings, bullet points and other elements breaking up the text?
Is the text spanning the full width of the page? If yes, try and make the text boxes less wide so they’re easier for readers to digest.
2 | Not planning out your pages, layout and content first
Now this one is a biggie. If you’re short on time and skimming this post, stop right here and just read this one point. I see so many small business owners make this mistake. When you create your website, it’s oh so easy to just jump right in so you can launch the thing as quickly as possible.
In your head, the process might go a little like this:
sign up to your website platform
buy your domain
pick a template
create website asap
launch within a matter of days
watch the customers roll in
**REALITY CHECK ALERT**
Let’s be real here, the process actually looks like this:
sign up to your website platform
buy your domain
pick a template
stare blankly at your computer screen for hours wondering what the eff to put on each page
distract yourself with dog videos on Youtube
put off creating your new site for months (maybe even years)
eventually launch a site that doesn’t really feel like you
spend endless hours re-doing your homepage
yell at the Internet
Unfortunately, the reality is you get to the part where you’ve picked your template, then you’re faced with an empty website and you’re sat there scratching your head, wondering what the hell to do next! You have no idea what information should go where. What images to use. What pages to include. You start sifting through a sea of images on your computer, flicking through documents trying to figure it all out. Then, you get hugely frustrated with it all and start crying into your 125th cup of coffee. Ugh.
Does this sound familiar? If this sounds like you - then I’m here to tell you you’re not alone in feeling like this! It’s such a common mistake that so many business owners make. And I totally get it. We have all this passion, drive and motivation to get our websites up and running asap so we can get on and serve as many people as possible and grow our business.
NEED HELP FIGURING OUT EXACTLY WHAT TO PUT ON YOUR HOMEPAGE?
What if I were to tell you that the key to a stress-free and effective, high converting website is to plan the thing before you even get started on the design?! Think about it this way. You’ve booked an amazing holiday somewhere and are planning a few day trips. You get on the plane, reach your destination, then it’s time for your day trip, yay!
Now, let me ask you this. In this situation would you:
Research the destination online or in a travel/guide book. Look up the destination and Google what the best route would be to get there. Save the directions on your phone. Maybe have a quick check of prices, opening times for some of the places you want to visit and check whether you need to book ahead for anything.
Or would you…
Not do any of this, head right out the door of your hotel into a city where you’ve never been in your life before and blindly try to wing it and reach your destination.
Well, I know which one I would choose! Yeah sure, you could try and wing it, ask a few of the locals for directions and hope they know the way. But, I’m willing to bet it would take you a whole lot more time, effort and energy to get to your destination via option b rather than just doing a bit of pre-planning via option a.
The same goes for your website! If you take some time to plan out each page, what key information to include, what items you want in your top menu, what images you want to include, then you’re going to make your life a whole lot easier.
ACTION STEP:
Write out a list of all the pages you want to include on your website (hint - the fewer the better!)
Plan out the most important pages you want to include in your main menu
Plan out what pages/links you want to include in your footer
Write out the key sections & content you need to include on each page. Then write out the copy for each page (remember to keep it short, sweet and break it up with titles, bullet points and images!)
Select what images & graphics you want to include on each page (make sure they’re good quality and reflect your brand, services and offerings. See point 4 for more info on this!)
3 | Sounding too formal
This point ties in a little bit with point number 1. It can be challenging to translate all your passion, expertise and amazing stuff in your head into engaging copy on your website - trust me, I know these struggles first hand! It’s so easy to get caught up in the details and just list all of the essential info you need on your site. Unfortunately, that can sometimes mean what you’re left with is stagnant, corporate sounding copy that has zero personality and doesn’t reflect who you are as a business or a brand.
A lot of people seem to think they have to put on their fancy CEO hats and act like a big professional company to sound more legit. So often I see solopreneurs and small business owners website’s that just list out all the facts, deliverables, and try to appear bigger than they are by using ‘us’ and ‘we’ rather than ‘I’ and ‘my’. Let me tell you now - this simply isn’t the case! If you’re a one (wo)man show, embrace this! See this as a huge positive rather than trying to hide behind stuffy overly formal and professional words that cover up who you truly are and reflect 0% of your personality. At the end of the day, if someone’s looking to partner with you or buy your products, more likely than not, they’ll be 1000% more likely to buy from you if they like your vibe and what you’re all about! It’s all about building the know, like and trust factor!
Now, I’m not saying you should be using text slang and emoji’s left right and centre or not bother to check for typo’s. I’m just saying there ain’t nothing wrong with reflecting your personality and being a bit more casual and friendly in the words on your website. Essentially, this all comes down to the kind of people your dream customers are and the type of industry you’re in. If your dream clients are quite corporate, then perhaps slightly more formal copy will be best suited to them. If they’re more quirky, fun creative types in their mid-30’s then a more friendly, casual tone will be much more relatable! In short, don’t be afraid to reflect who you are and write like you talk, your copy will naturally sound more organic if you take this approach.
ACTION STEP:
Write down who your dream customer is. What kind of tone of voice do you think they would relate to the most?
Read through the words on your website and ask yourself - does the tone fit in with who my dream clients are and reflect what my business is all about?
Remove any overly formal wording, add in a few ‘!’ if you want to lighten the tone and make things a bit more friendly.
Re-write any sentences that don’t reflect your brand, it could be as simple as changing ‘want to’ to ‘wanna’ or ‘us’ to ‘me’.
4 | Inconsistent design
Right, so being a brand and web designer, I couldn’t write this post without including at least one point about the visual brand and design elements of a website, could I?! If you want your website to look legit and professional, you need to make sure you have good quality images and a consistent set of fonts and colours throughout your website. Period. If you visit a website full of poor quality images, illegible cursive fonts, and a million different clashing colours on each page, it just gives a bad impression right from the start.
Now, I know design doesn’t come naturally to a lot of people, but at the very least, try to stick to these key things to give your website a professional, cohesive look and feel:
Pick 2-3 fonts max and use them across your whole website - 1 font for headings, 1 font for buttons and subheadings, 1 font for paragraph text. Make sure all of the fonts are legible and easy to read. If you pick a script font, make sure you use it minimally for a few accent words here and there. Any more than that and things can start to look a bit too busy and hard to read.
Pick around 3 colours to use throughout your website. 1 for buttons and links, and 2 for backgrounds and other details. These colours should be from your main brand colour palette if you have one.
Make sure all of the images you use are good quality and aren’t fuzzy, pixelated or wonky. Try and pick images that give off the right mood and vibe that reflects your brand. If you’re struggling to source your own images - check out my blog post all about how to source stock images for your website. Oh and whilst we’re on the topic of images, always make sure you include a picture of your beautiful face on your homepage and about page. This will immediately help you build connection and trust with your audience.
NEED A HAND WITH CREATING ON-BRAND DIY DESIGNS?
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5 | No Call to Actions (CTA’s) on each page telling people what do next
It’s really important to ask your audience to take at least one action on each page of your website. This is known as a ‘call to action’ or CTA in website design terms! Including a call to action on each page of your site will encourage your visitors to stick around on your website for longer. You may be thinking, but Kate, won’t people just go to the menu at the top to go to the page they want to view next? Well yes, perhaps. But the truth is, people have short attention spans and just want to be told what to do, where to click and how to learn more. If you don’t give them the guidance they need and leave it up to them to make that decision, chances are they might get frustrated and leave your website.
I don’t know if you know this, but Google just loves websites where people hang around for as long as possible and view multiple pages. If people are clicking around and viewing different pages on your site - Google will read your website as having valuable and useful content so will bump you up the ranks and make sure your site is getting viewed by as many people as possible (this is also known as Search Engine Optimisation or SEO). At the end of the day, the more people that see your site, the more visitors you get and the more opportunities you have to convert them into customers, wahoo!
ACTION STEP:
Check that each page of your website has at least one CTA inviting visitors to click to another page on your website.
Ask yourself this question - if your dream client landed on your site today - what pages or information would you like them to view and in what order? List these out.
Add in CTAs to each page of your site that guides people down that path to visit all of the pages you listed out from point 2.
Not sure what order you want people to view things? Then think about what the no.1 action you want people to take on your site - is it to get in touch, book a call or buy a product? Then on each page, think about what they need to do next to get them closer to taking that action. What page do they need to view? Make sure this is the CTA you include on the page - simples! :)
Example:
You’re deciding what CTA to include on your about page on your photography website.
No.1 action you want your visitors to take on your website is: Fill out enquiry form
What’s the next step they need to take from your about page to get closer to enquiring with you? Find out more about your services.
CTA on about page: View packages and pricing (linking to your packages page on your website)
6 | Confusing menus
I see a lot of websites with everything and the kitchen sink crammed into the top menu bar on their website. When you add too many items to your menu, things become super confusing and frustrating for customers to find what they’re looking for. It’s kinda like when you go to a restaurant with a 20 page menu with wayyyy too much choice. It just gets overwhelming!
When I work with my brand and web design clients, I always recommend including between 4-6 items max in their main menu. Think about those key pages and actions you want people to take from point no.5. Stick with the most important pages on your website and put anything else in the footer. Usually, the most important pages will be things like: about, services, book a call, portfolio, galleries, contact.
ACTION STEP:
Review your menu items - are there more than 7 things on it? If yes, then evaluate which items help guide visitors to take that main action on your site. Consider removing some of the other items to the footer, or linking to them on other relevant pages.
Are all of the things on your menu worded simply - is it instantly clear what kind of content will be on that page?
Et voila! There you have it! If you follow the action steps in this post and avoid these mistakes like the plague, then you’ll be well on your way to having a website that looks professional, attracts your dream clients and feels unique to you and your business!
Are you struggling to connect with your dream clients or looking for more guidance around what to put where on your website?
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