What are the biggest mistakes you can make on your website?
Is it that you don’t have a list capture mechanism?
Is it that you don’t have that magical sidebar widget?
Or that social sharing feature? Or the viral lock plug-in? Or that shopping cart or membership site function?
What about that carousel widget?
Only if it could be that simple. Only if we could solve all our website woes with a little plug-in.
The biggest mistakes most folks make are more fundamental than the bells and whistles, or templates and checklists.
If you don’t pay attention to them, you’re building your website on quicksand with no solid foundation.
1. Everything + the Kitchen Sink = No Cohesive Message
You’re multi-talented and multi-passionate, that’s fine. But it’s not an excuse for putting out a smorgasbord of information and hoping your visitors will figure it out themselves.
There should be one narrative, one golden thread, or one theme that ties everything together throughout your website.
And it needs to reflect your values, convictions, points-of-view and personality.
On the surface, it’s often challenging for those who have many skills and tools to avoid sounding like a Jack-of-all-Trades.
However, if you dig deeper, you’ll very likely discover that there’s ONE driver that ties together everything that you do.
This ONE cohesive message needs to transcend your discrete skills, tools, experiences, passions and talent, and speak about YOU from the belief and identity level.
This ONE cohesive message needs to reflect your values and convictions, so strongly that your visitors can feel the energy and authenticity on the page.
2. Regurgitating Canned Copy with No Personality
Admit it, we all have a dozen templates and checklists collecting dust on our hard drive.
Hate to break this to you, but sounding like everyone else will get you lost in a sea of sameness.
Boring doesn’t sell, and clone-drone communications with no personality or point-of-view will not create a connection and resonance so conversion becomes the natural next step.
When your readers resonate with your values, convictions and points-of-view, an emotional connection is established.
This emotional connection makes people buy from YOU.
Your POV and personality have to come through in all copy, graphic and user experience design.
A cohesive brand image is not only about pretty pictures or copy that “pops and sizzles.” It also encompasses how your visitors flow through your website and how they experience your content.
To make sure your website creates a deep resonance with your ideal clients, it’s imperative that you not only have a deep understanding of them but also map their needs to YOUR passions, experience, superpowers and offerings to communicate your relevance to them.
3. All Bells & Whistles with No Clear Goal
Getting the website to do back-flips while rubbing its tummy is not going to grow your business.
Every element on your website needs to work with each other to achieve your business goals.
The content strategy of your website has to fit in with your larger online presence, so your audience experiences a cohesive message when they interact with you from one platform to another.
That means getting clear on what you want your website to do FOR your business (and what you want your business to do FOR you.)
It doesn’t have to be doing everything to achieve your goals – in fact, that may be too much to ask for.
It may be better to use your website to focus on just one part of your marketing plan, and do it well, so it plays an integral part in your overall strategy.
Do you want your site to focus on list-building/lead-generation? Or to convert sales? Or to highlight your authority status so you can be sought after as a speaker?
With a clear intention in mind, you can be selective about the kind of functionalities to include to yield the desired results, instead of throwing spaghetti on the wall and wasting precious time, money and energy.
Of course, it all ties back to having a holistic plan that reflects where you want to take your business – so you can cut the busywork and do what matters.
In this era of Plug-In Overload, we need to exercise DISCERNMENT and DISCIPLINE if we want a website that is more than a pretty picture.
Over to You
What can you to today to refine your message and show up fully so you can get the most out of your website? Leave a comment below and share your insights!