Is Your Small Business Website or Blog Not Working | 3 Ideas To Make It Better

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There are hundreds of mistakes you can make with your small business website or blog. There are very few professionals focused on the basics of website design that are able to make a great blog or site that converts well and offers the correct search engine optimization opportunities for your business. Many times small business owners are designing their blog or website personally and are not aware of all things that can trip them up.

Here are our top three things to watch out for when designing your small business blog or website:

Thinking fancy blog or website design is good for your company

When most entrepreneurs start building their website or blog, the first thing they do is pick a special layout or choose their colors. They make sure they know what kind of fancy flash header they are going to use or which animated gif will work best.

That is NOT the most important thing about website or blog design! The single most important thing is to know what the goal is for your small business blog or website. Are you trying to get web hits or are you looking to collect email addresses. Are you getting people to purchase something online or are you trying to get them to visit your online store?

When someone visits your website or blog, they should know IMMEDIATELY what you want them to do. There should be an obvious button that directs them to your target or there could be a popup box that offers something for free in exchange for their contact information. If you look at most sites, there is so much going on there that no one knows what to do!

Not having the right SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for your blog or website

There are tons of companies out there who say they will get your blog or website to the top of the search engines for a specific search string. That may be true but it will not get you regular, interested visitors. Ranking well for one or two terms is not going to make the difference – ranking well for lots of terms is possible now with careful setup.

Have a qualified keyword company do a keyword research analysis report for you and then use those keywords throughout your pages and posts. Be mindful that your first paragraph, description and title all match. Use a free keyword research tool to make sure that your site is about what you intend.

A big red flag about those fun flash websites that every small business owner thinks they need. When you have a click through page in front of your website, google does not know anything about your business. When you have a gorgeous site with all kinds of pictures, the search engines do not have any words to index. Please make sure to focus functionality, having lots of keyword rich content on your blog or website!

Trying to do it by themselves

This is not a plea for your website or blog design business. There are many great web design companies out there who spend a lot of time and money keeping up with the latest search engine information and who do great work. Your Uncle Steve who knows how to make a website with Frontpage is not spending all of his time researching the current internet info. Your pal Dave would be great for building a personal page but we are talking about your business, you need a professional blog or website.

You may be surprised at how the cost of website and blog design has gone down in recent years. What used to cost thousands of dollars now costs significantly less and most small business owners can afford to hire a professional!

If you cannot the cost of a professional, make sure that you take some training on how to do SEO correctly. There are great classes {both in person and online} {online and in person}, just know that your time to market will be longer than if you have a professional do it for you.

Well there you have it, our top three mistakes that we see entrepreneurs make with their website or blog design efforts. Some of these probably make sense to you and some probably make you uncomfortable, but they are all true. We work with many different kinds of companies and see everyone making these mistakes.

If you would like to get 10 More Mistakes Small Business Websites and Blogs make, please visit our site!