Rookie Digital Marketing Mistakes You Can Prevent

Recently I had the opportunity to visit a number of local business websites to prepare posts for a client. Visiting these websites I noticed a number of problems that are easy to fix, yet were there. Digital marketing is about making information available to your customers. Let’s not forget, a website exists to help your potential client find the information they are looking for. If they can’t find it on your site, they’ll move on to someone else’s.

So, please, take a few minutes to check these things on your own website and ensure they’re all working properly. If not, for the sake of your website visitors, get them fixed ASAP!

Broken Menus

If your menu choices don’t go anywhere, or go to the wrong places, how do you expect customers to navigate your website? Check all your menu options. Yes, all of them.

Broken Links

Similar to broken menu choices, broken links from page to page, or to specific products frustrates customers trying to find things. There are plugins available for most website systems to tell you when links are broken. Install one!

Social Media Icons

If you’ve got the Facebook, Twitter or other social network icons on your website, visitors expect that clicking on those icons will take them to YOUR profile on those networks. If clicking on them goes nowhere, or takes you to a Wix or Weebly Twitter profile, you’re losing customers. If you don’t have a presence on those networks, remove the icons. Trust me, Wix and Weebly don’t need you to send them traffic!

Outdated Copyright

An outdated copyright mark on your website smacks of a stale website, not to mention any legal ramifications. Some systems will auto-update the copyright date each year, but if yours doesn’t, ensure you manually update the copyright to the current year.

Broken Images

Broken images… if you see this symbol, or something similar to it, there is something wrong with your image. Most likely it has been deleted or the link structure of your website has changed. No, it’s not supposed to be this way and it doesn’t matter if it’s “always” been this way…it’s BROKEN! If you have to click on it to open up the real image, it’s still broken! Your customer isn’t going to take the time to figure out where else to go see that original image, they’re going to assume your website isn’t working properly.

Grammar

Not everyone is a great writer. Some people simply can’t spell. If writing is something that doesn’t come easily to you either hire a copywriter or at least a proofreader to catch the typos and common grammar mistakes. Customers will excuse a single typo, but  if your writing is chock full of them, they’ll feel like you have no attention to detail.

Password Protected Video

If you’re embedding a YouTube or Vimeo video on your website as a promotional piece (ad), make sure you turn the password protection off! The chances of your customer calling you up to find out the password is VERY slim. I’m sure this was an honest mistake. Something simply overlooked. However, it serves as a great reminder that you need to have other people look at your website with outsider’s eyes!

These were just a few of the things I noticed on my rounds of local small business websites. These are all simple things to fix and they will make your customers much, much happier.