5 Costly Website Mistakes to Avoid Part 2
Welcome back! This article is a continuation of Part 1 in this series we published last week. Hopefully, you did as I suggested and implemented the items outlined in Part 1. If so, your online visibility has most likely improved dramatically already.
COSTLY MISTAKE #3: Using a freebie email account. I cannot tell you how many business owners I run into who have standard freebie email addresses like crazydonuts@gmail.com. What does this tell me? They are not serious about their business, they are not professional, and they do not know what they are doing.
Further, you want me, your customer to come and spend money, my hard-earned money, with you. But you use a freebie email?
It is always important to remember that your online presence is an extension of you and your business. Your website is the first impressions your customers get of your business. Your professionalism will be judged by things as silly as your email address. And yes, it will also be judged by your responsiveness online, via queries entered on your website and social media (more about social media later).
Any good hosting company, and/or domain company (where you bought your domain, like godaddy.com as an example) should be able to provide you with email address(es) that match your domain name. These look like joe@crazydonuts.com or info@crazydonuts.com. Much more professional. And the cost is usually minimal - $1 per month or so.
COSTLY MISTAKE #4: Be sure you OWN your domain name. This is pretty important. Many business owners just let whoever developed/created their website “manage” their domain name. Do not do this! Your domain name, crazydonuts.com, should be registered to you individually as the owner, not some third party person or company.
I could say any company that does this to you is slimy and underhanded. I will instead refrain, and just say don’t ever let a development company or hosting company or a third-party individual tell you they need to have the domain registered to them or transferred to them.
I cannot stress enough that you need to own your own domain. This is equivalent to “owning” your own company name so that someone 2 stores over cannot name their business the exact same as yours is named.
COSTLY MISTAKE #5: Using Free Website Building Tools: There are a lot out there that offer “easy to use”, tempting, drag and drop design tools and/or templates. The reason to avoid these is simple; they are good if you want to be able to tell people you have a website, but if you actually want your website to be found by people searching for you online, don’t go here because no one will ever find your site. Why?
This is largely because the technology used to make the free designer easy to use essentially wraps your website in an outer “envelope” which makes it hard for Google to find, which might even mask your domain name and which will make it difficult for you to have the freedom to add the functionality you want to your website.
So, the take-away here is to be sure your own domain name is the one actually used and not just subdomain. And, pay to host your website and for the design technology - much safer solution.
So, now, your task this week is to implement the suggestions above, and hugely impact your online visibility. If you have any questions, or need any help, be sure to reach out to us at info@ampurbiz.com
Tags: Website, Online visibility
Filed Under: Online Visibility, Marketing Tips