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The most common mistakes in Institutional Sites and Online Stores

The most common mistakes in Institutional Sites and Online Stores

15/11/2018 iFlexi.com Comments Off

Many companies, and well, delegate in professionals the creation of your Website or Online Store. Unfortunately, many of these professionals are limited to do the design of the site, not worrying about the marketing of the client, that is, if the Site or Online Store is fulfilling its business objectives.

This leads to terms with glaring problems that often make sites absolutely useless on commercial terms. Let's look at the most common mistakes and, for God's sake, if your site suffers from these problems, speak to a professional right away who should put the site to work for you.

 

1. Not having a Website

We have to start with the most common mistake: we do not even have a Website. There are companies that have not yet grasped the commercial importance of the Internet and make their business rely on phone calls, business visits, or simply having an open door store. All businesses benefit from having a Website. Even typical open door businesses are increasingly only visited by customers after an online survey. It's 2018. Why is your business still in 1999?

 

2. Only having Facebook

This is a specific type of companies that realize the importance of being on the Internet, but who think that just having Facebook page. My friends, it's not the same. For many reasons. First, the Website is yours and it is under your control. The Facebook page is not yours, it is the company Facebook, which means that it can be deleted at any time for any reason and suddenly your company is no longer on the Internet. Second, a Website has an organized structure, with menu, internal links, etc. Facebook is a running list of publications. A well done Website allows a customer to find any information in just seconds, for example, in a restaurant, which is the dish of the day. In Facebook, to find the "dish of the day", you have to run the publications until you find the one where the information you are looking for is available. And, after finding, how do you reserve the table? This publication does not have any booking form, unlike the "Dish of the Day" page of the Website. Will the customer have to call to book? Have we forced the client back in 1999? I assure you that customers do not have this work, your company is not the only one in the market, but it may be the only one without Website and pay the price for it.

 

3. Not having the Website accessible with and without www

This is one of the problems of using a company or webdesigner to make the Website and have the Website hosted with another company. Because of lack of communication, lack of professional privacy or simple incompetence, they configured the Website poorly and when a person enters the Website by placing the www the Website does not open because it is only configured with the domain (without the www), or vice-versa, it only appears if you put www. However, customers do not know if your Website has www or not and how 99% of Internet Website are equally accessible with or without the www, if your Website does not open in the way that the client put it, it will presume that the Website does not exist or is down and will give up.

 

4. Not having digital certificate (https)

Until recently this was not critical (commercially speaking), but now it is. That is, your Website must have (and properly configured) a digital certificate (which makes your Website address change from http to https). If you do not have it, users will see a security warning in their Internet browser and, for fear, they may stop using the Website. Also, Google penalizes your Website in search results if you do not have a digital certificate. Finally, and ethically speaking, having a digital certificate brings an extra layer of security to your customers, namely when they have to provide you with personal data (for example, in an online storesorder) and you will be responsible on your part to have this concern.

 

5. Having Website Errors

This is a very common and revealing problem of how "off" companies look at their own Internet Website. Full Websites that do not load due to hosting server errors (errors in the database, traffic limits reached, etc.), nonexistent pages, links that go nowhere, spelling mistakes, outdated content (do not imagine how common Websites are of companies with outdated emails and phones). An avalanche of errors that, at best, make a bad impression on clients and, at worst, prevent the Website from being queried and lead the customer to give up. And this is all because business owners are able to visit Facebook 50 times a day, but visit their own Website 1 time a year, so this type of error goes online stores for months until it is detected.

 

6. Depending on Flash or Java for parts or the entire Website

Until recently this was still acceptable. It is no longer. Today, most Internet browsers , and almost all Smartphones, do not show websites built (or with parts) in Flash or Java. If you want your Website to be accessible to all users on all devices and browsers, move your Website to standard HTML, eventually with a platform like WordPress. For more details on this subject, read this article: https://www.iflexi.pt/blog/8-razoes-para-passar-de-sites-em-flash-para-sites-em-html/

 

, move your Website to standard HTML, eventually with a platform like WordPress. For more details on this subject, read this article: online stores sem o testar em vários computadores e browsers

This is both the fault of the business owners and the designers / programmers of the Websites. When you put up a Website online stores it is essential to test it on multiple computers with various operating systems, various browsers, and also tablets and Smartphones, the more different the better. Is that we can be putting online stores a Website that works poorly for 30% or 40% of customers and we do not realize it because in our computer works well, but in others not.

 

8. Not having the Website accessible by Smartphone

At a time when more than 50% of users are already accessing the Websites via Smartphones, it is essential to have a Website that not only opens but is also easily navigable on a Smartphone. There are several ways to do this. There are Websites that have their own version for mobile phone. There are others who only make small adjustments automatically according to the size of the screen (the so-called Responsive Websites). There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. Personally, we prefer to opt for the responsive approach, because what really interests us in most of the Websites is the space that the user has to navigate, not the equipment he or she is using.

 

9. Ignoring SEOSearch Engine Optimization)

There are people who come to your Website because someone has sent you a direct link to their address, there are others who write the address directly in the address bar, and there are others who never remember or do not know the address of your Website and why go to Google search, or by the company name, or by keywords related to your business. The last ones are the lastest visitors. So when you create a new Website (or online storesstore) you can not neglect optimization for search engines where, in addition to technical aspects such as the loading speed of your Website, the relevance of the content, which includes comprehensive and descriptive texts on its properly formatted pages, and where the keywords likely to be searched by users are used in a way that of course in the texts of your Website. So, spend some time thinking about how people search and incorporate these search terms into their content. Do not overlook the importance of SEO!

 

10. Not disclosing the e-mail address

Since the birth of the Internet, we all suffer from the plague of spam (unsolicited emails). This causes many companies to stop disclosing your email on your Website as a way to, they think, stop receiving spam in your email. But not only does this not happen (because e-mail addresses sooner or later end up in the same way to spammers), as they are withdrawing from their customers what it is today day the preferred means of contact between customers and companies. It is true that it is annoying to receive and spend the day deleting junk e-mails, but is not it much worse having the inbox completely empty without emails from customers? Is that no customer nowadays will pick up the phone to call the company to ask what your email (as many of these companies suggest on their contacts page). It's easier for the customer to do a Google search and choose another company.

 

11. Not having a contact form

Whether or not the e-mail is already disclosed on the Website's contact page, it is essential to always have a contact form in it. For many reasons. First, it is "required" if you do not disclose the email. Second, not everyone has the possibility to send emails at the tip of the finger. They may not be on your usual computer, they may be with an "old" phone and not with a Smartphone, they may not want to provide you with their email but only their phone, etc. Therefore, always have a contact form and consider carefully what fields are even indispensable to return the customer contact (email, phone?).

 

12. Not having a Google Maps location map (or other of the sort)

If your business has a physical location (either an office or a store) with customer service, do not make life difficult for your customers. In addition to the address, place a Google map (or another one of the type) embedded on the page so that the person can see the location and even navigate the map to guide you. Do not force the client to have to copy the address to go to Sites or external map applications on demand, when you can see this without leaving your Website.

 

13. Not disclosing the prices of the products or services

This "commercial" strategy of companies is something that we sincerely fail to understand. Many companies advertise their services or products without indication of their price, forcing the customer to have to contact them to ask the price when, in 99% of cases, they are services or products with a fixed price, that is, they do not need of any specific customer information to be able to budget the service or the product. Companies do this to "hide" the prices of their competitors. However, competitors simply pick up an email or phone and ask them the price and they say, of course, because they do not know if they are talking to a potential customer or a competitor. So why all this mystery are going to prove the same prices? These companies are not even aware of the error they are making since 90% of customers today quit one company sooner if they do not immediately see the prices on the Website and go to another. The problem is that, as companies do not get the contact of these customers, they have no idea that they are losing them. Stop it, it's just silly!

 

14. Not promoting the Website

Finally, some people think that as soon as you put your Website online stores , it will soon reach the users. Not really. You need to make your Website known to search engines, you need to advertise your Website on social networks, you must publicize your Website in the signatures of your emails, you must advertise your Website in your business cards, it is I need to advertise your Website on all the ads you're doing (online stores and offline). You have invested in your Website and now do not divulge it to monetize your investment? How ridiculous is that?

 

Tip: Are you sure that your Website does not fall under any of these errors? Count on the professionalism and experience of the iFlexi team to properly create your new Website. More information here: http://www.iflexiopensite.com