Website Problems You May Be Facing

Whether you are an individual with a side hustle or the next groundbreaking software company, you need a website to succeed in the current market. Now, website-building services make hosting and creating your site so easy, many young children have sites they host and manage independently!

However, just because anyone can create a website in an afternoon does not mean they all rival Apple's and Tesla's site quality, smoothness, and user experience. Many of them are such pains to interact with, load so slowly, or are infuriatingly inconvenient to use on your smartphone that the world may be better off without them.
 
Moreover, without guidance, small businesses and creators may have good intentions, an excellent product, and an S-tier brand personality. However, they may fail because they struggle with a website. Here are some common website problems you may face and how to easily trump them.

What do I put on my website?

The most critical question you may have is, "What in the world do I put on my website?"
 
For those selling only a few products, offering a handful of services, or simply beginning your journey, you may feel like you are wasting precious, custom-built website real estate by leaving it without content. Moreover, here are some essentials you must have before pondering that golden question again:
 

• A clear, lively description of you, your brand, what you do and why, and how you stand out against the competition. If users find out about your brand through word of mouth or a brief advertisement, they want an opportunity to get to know you. This is twice as important if you are starting. Connecting with customers is often the difference-maker in generating a lead.
  

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• Easy-to-find, use, and accessible contact forms.  Imagine a client spends over 50 minutes on your website. Your analytics say they are clicking through pages, scrolling through every sub-page and menu, viewing much of your content, but never bought anything. They may have been looking for your contact information so they could buy your products in bulk for their business. You cannot afford to lose potential users off something as simple as a contact form. Of all the things on a website content checklist, bold contact forms are non-negotiable items to check off.
  

• Calls to action. Tell users what to do and what they will get out of it. Do not expect customers to figure it out for themselves automatically. Some may need a push in the right direction to become your next lead.
  
  
• Customer testimonials or case studies. Sometimes, selling your product/brand to prospective clients can be tricky. So, have them sell it to each other! Users love to see that users like them are paying, using, and getting value from your services.
  
  
• FAQ page. Someone is looking for the last bit of clarifying information before becoming your customer. Users flood your contact forms with basic, repetitive questions. What are you going to do? FAQs or frequently-asked-questions pages are accessible, lifesaving solutions.
  
  
• Terms and conditions, privacy policies, and error 404 pages. Often overlooked, error and legal pages should fit in with your brand's aesthetic and have a home somewhere on your page. Do not leave these pages out when creating your outline for website content.

How do I design my website?

For many people, their website's personality is the most critical aspect of the entire design process. You cannot blame them!
 
Many studies find that most users are gone in 10-15 seconds if a website does not capture their attention, give them a reason to stay and interact, or look modern and align with the brand's marketing principles. So, it can feel daunting that most potential clients may never even see your product page if they do not like your site's design. 
 
Here is a website design checklist that you should triple-check before posting your site:

• Create a website goal
• Choose a website builder and hosting service
• Conceptualize the website's layout
• Purchase a concise, descriptive domain name
• Create/gather a backlog of content
• Create KPIs for your content, website, and lead-generation pages
• Build your website (through code or a drag-and-drop website builder)
• Increase your website's accessibility
• Optimize your website for mobile devices (super important! Over 60% of all website traffic comes from mobile users)!
• Optimize your pages for SEO
• Post content, publish content forms, informational pages, and more
• Analyze your website metrics
• Engage with users (ask for feedback, have friends and family navigate the site, and test out all your site functions)
• Publish and continually update
  

 
​This topic alone can be highly detailed. Stay tuned for more articles breaking down aspects of your website design process!

I do not understand my analytical and SEO metrics

For inexperienced users, web analytics dashboards can be disorienting to use and navigate. However, analytics integration allows you to dive deep into the metrics of every page on your website. Most analytical services also analyze user behavior and trends, allowing you to make confident, informed decisions to improve your website's quality.
 
The two main categories of web analytics are off-site and on-site web analytics. Off-site analytics allow you to monitor visitor activity external to your website, and you can access industry-wide information, even your competitors! On-site analytics, as you may expect, revolves around the visitor data collected from your website.
 
You can hire consultants, subject matter experts, or, for more robust solutions, partner with specialized SEO companies. They have access to dozens of SEO tools and services to analyze and improve your website's SEO on the most granular level.
 
Alternatively, you may choose to learn the nuances of modern SEO for yourself and work with a team to draw analytical conclusions and propose solutions from your website's data. SEO-specialized businesses can streamline this process and make it easier for you to focus on other tasks.

My website is not getting enough traffic or generating enough leads

A frequent problem many users face after following all the proper steps to launch their website is not seeing the desired results. You put so much demanding work into your website; you deserve results!
 
Here are ten marketing techniques that industry professionals stand by to help generate leads, secure traffic, and create a newly organized website:

1. Optimize your landing pages
2. Add call-to-action forms to the pages that get the most traffic
3. ​Measure lead generator performance with KPIs to determine which strategies are working
4. Publish case studies, reviews, anecdotes, and success stories
5. Create specialty landing pages
6. Use interactive content at every stage of the buyer's journey
7. Use live chat and connection forms
8. Use Facebook leads
9. Make visitors feel a sense of urgency
10. Nurture and cultivate leads

Read our other article, "Best ways to capture leads on your website," to dive into more detail.

My website lacks content

Lackluster or minimal website content is far more common than you may think. If your site does not have enough content, or you think it is not adding enough value to your clientele's lives, here are some solutions you can try:
 

• Contract blog content writing
  
• Incorporate social media content
  
• Use discussion boards
  
• Interview potential customers and identify what they would like to see, read, and use on your website
  
•  Post status updates, journal entries, and team anecdotes. People love to connect with brands
  
• Sometimes less is more. Interview visitors to see if you lack content or if you unfairly evaluate your website content

My website does not rank well on major search engines

The beautiful thing about search engine optimization is that every aspect of it is interconnected. Your site's SEO is guaranteed to improve if you follow the steps in this article, analyze your site's KPIs for improvement, and invest quality time into your website. Treat it with love!
 
If, after all your effort, for some reason, your website still ranks poorly with popular search engines, consult an SEO professional or company. You will be amazed at the technology they have to dissect every inch of your website to pinpoint its exact problem areas.