Out there on the vast World-Wide-Web, your business website or blog represents your business, your brand, and it also represents the person behind it, which is you. Your website is the face of your business, brand and reputation.
Your website is the middle person whom you use to convey
whatever it is you want to convey to your fellow visitors or readers. You have
total control and creative freedom on how you design your site and thus affect
how people view your business, brand and you.
However, with such control and the freedom to choose how we
want to convey ourselves and our business to the world, the power of choice
unfortunately includes the power to make the wrong ones.
There are millions of online businesses on the World Wide
Web and many of them simply don't pay attention to the minute details which can
amount to a big problem in the end.
You should not make the same mistake as you always are on
the lookout for even the minute of errors or mistakes because your reputation
and the reputation of your online business are at stake here. A website can
tell a lot about the person behind the business and brand.
Reputation is nearly everything when it comes to businesses,
and your website can either make or break your reputation. Nevertheless, you
have the power to control which path your website takes.
So here's what you can do to start improving your website
(even starting today):
Cast A Spell (Check)
When your website is filled with constant grammatical and
spelling errors, it's going to show that you don't really care much about your
business. And when customers perceive that you don't care about your business,
they are going to think that you will not care much about them as well.
When that happens, nobody is going to be interested in doing
business with you.
Having an occasional spelling or grammatical error once in a
while is perfectly fine. We are only human after all and as humans we do make
mistakes. People can respect that.
However, making the same mistakes on nearly every single
line of text or to the point people can't make sense of what you are trying to
say anymore, then that is definitely negligence.
With the ease of use and availability of spell-checking tools
now, it's simply no excuse to keep making spelling errors anymore. For many
people, spelling errors are a pet peeve for them.
Sure, you're not breaking any laws, but many people will be
turned off by it and this reason is enough for them to stop coming back to your
website.
Encyclopedia? No thanks.
So you want
to deliver valuable information to your fellow readers. If every single part of
your website looks longer than a page from Wikipedia, then you are definitely
going scare visitors away.
People
are busy, but they love convenience. They are looking thirsting for knowledge,
but at the same time they want a quick fix or a shortcut to learn it. They only
want to know the important stuff and cut out the fluff.
If
there is simply too much information they will eventually skim on it and then
stop at only the parts which they find interesting.
If
they are going to skim it, then we might as well do it for them. When you can
present information in an easy and digestible form and just include all the juicy
or important bits, people are going to love you for it.
That
is what people seek, and that is enough reason for them to keep flocking back
to your site. It may require some effort on your part, but that is part of the
process of delivering value to your fellow readers.
Copy
Paste
Never ever directly copy contents from another site and go pasting
it on yours. That is downright plagiarism. In other words, you are stealing. If
you want to quote a certain article or text, do it the proper way. Be sure to
credit the source where due. Don't just copy any content and have the audacity
to call it your own.
Another type of copying activity that is even worse than the one
mentioned above is one where you have multiple copies of the same contents
spread out through different areas of your website. Many people do this because
they want to "fatten-up" up their site. They do this by using
multiple copies of the same contents over and over again throughout the site.
This kind of duplicate content is very frowned upon by the search
engines, and you definitely will get penalized as search engines will
eventually find out. I don't even want to know what your visitors are thinking
if they browse through such a site.
If you need content, come up with content yourself, hire writers,
have people guest blogging, or buy articles.
Hey!
Over Here!!!!
Wasn't that distracting?
You have to learn how to use your attention grabbing
elements more wisely. Many people bold or highlight unnecessary words or
objects. At the end of the day, your visitors won't even know which one they
should be paying attention to anymore. As there are so many things going on, it
will look like a mess, and it will only leave your visitors confused.
It's perfectly fine to use colors, but do use it smartly.
Every design element must have at least a purpose behind it. When it comes to
creative design, the choice of colors must match the overall theme or the
“feel” of your site. Let your site's theme define the choices of color choice
and not the other way round.
The act of tweaking your website can be a never-ending task
but if you think certain areas of your website can be improved, then by all
means go for it. Any improvement, no matter how small or how insignificant it
can be, is still an improvement and it can certainly add up in the end.
You can always get more ideas on which areas of your website
could be improved from none other than ...your visitors. Sometimes they can
have great ideas and suggestions which we can never think of alone. When you do
implement the changes based on their suggestions, it will be for the benefit of
the visitors plus, your visitors will also feel that you really care because
you showed that you listened.