Three Basic Website Stuff-ups
With business cards dying out and most of us relying on our ventures being found online, it’s a good reminder to get the basics right. Here are three common stuff-ups we’re seeing, so read up, tidy up and pass it on ….
About Us
Make sure you tell visitors about you. Actually have this on your site with real content. We know consumers are more aware, discerning and have more choice than ever before. Help them choose you! Yes it can feel a bit weird putting yourself out there, sharing your vision and values but that friends, is how you connect authentically with your customers, suppliers and future team, so suck it up buttercup and share your story!
Also, it’s nice to know if you’re dealing with a venture in Helsinki, Halifax or Hamilton – tell us!
consumers are more conscious than ever
People vote with their time, resources and money for the kind of world they want and support ventures that align. If you don’t clearly articulate who you are and what you stand for, you might miss out.
It’s no good having a sexy vision, ethical and empowering values and a great culture if your customers, investors, supporters and community don’t know about them!
Navigation that Requires a SCUBA certificate
In 2014 Ed Sheeran had four songs in the top selling singles list in Aotearoa, and around the world HTML5 was introduced. HTML “or HyperText Markup Language, is the most important element of the World Wide Web. It’s the language used to describe what a webpage should look like”. It was the first major change in 15 years and this coincided with us all being multi-device people. Engaging web on mobile is very different to a desktop or laptop and so that kicked off a whole new way of designing websites where users prefer long scrolling content as opposed to the left brain, ‘click and find’ approach previously.
In 2022 you can easily see in Google Analytics where your users come from, what they look at and what device they’re on. If they’re on mobile, ipads, etc then providing a search function on your site, or nice scrollable and clickable content is best.
Hiding content under top-level navigation and click and click and click to drill down to hopefully find what you’re looking for is for a user, like a treasure hunt where the treasure isn’t worth the hassle. Onto another site, your competitors may be, with a better user interface and experience.
Breaking the Rules
We’re all for a shakeup and some rule breaking, but there are some basics you need to get right. Like, complying with the legislation in the geographies your site is live and targeting is critical. That usually means for a standard brochure or eCommerce site, having a review of how you track and capture customer data and making sure it’s compliant with all privacy laws, GDPR requirements or commercial and tax laws. It also means having website Terms and Conditions accessible, visible and up to date. Yawn. But necessary.
All that hard work to design a wicked site, have the content looking fly and then boom, legal wrangles and data demands from a bureaucrat? Hard pass thanks!
