Running a successful website is not an easy task. Most webmasters will confirm that there is always plenty to do. Establishing a blog or website is not an one day job. You will have to develop the website each and everyday. The creation of new and interesting content (10 Interesting Facts about Content Writing) just being a small part of the workload, with other elements like social media taking on extended roles.
With more and more sites opening up literally by the hour, it is important to try to stay at least one step ahead of the competition. Sadly there seems to be lots of things that can prevent this from happening, things that can easily screw up your website; if you are not careful. The old adage of it only takes a “few seconds to make a first impression” is never truer here.
This blog post will aim to take a look at 3 simple things that can have a huge negative effect on your site. Perhaps more importantly though, just what you can do to prevent them from happening in the first place.
1. Your Headlines Don’t Match the Delivered Content
As any good blogger will tell you, the headline sells the blog post or article. However, many writers get a little carried away with their headline writing. When this happens the headline promises much more than the content can actually deliver.
This method of writing might well help to attract additional visitors to your site. However, once they establish that your content isn’t all that great they will probably leave. Not great for building an audience of loyal readers or visitors. To avoid the above it is essential that you spend enough time creating a catchy headline.
Remember if you are offering something in your headline then you had pretty well better make sure it is followed up in the content. 10 Tips for Writing a Viral Content for Your Blog is a helpful article to write some good content.
2. Your Website or Blog is Down!
A snappy title and some great content isn’t worth too much if your visitors don’t get to see it. The reality is that from time to time your website will go off-line.
There are of course many factors that can cause a website to crash of go off-line. However, two of the more common ones are:
- Web hosting issues (I always recommend Hostgator webhosting for reliable up time).
- Problem with a Plug-In, another problem if you web hosting provider is not good.
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know how bad it can be for your business when your site is unavailable, especially if this happens regularly or over a longer period of time.
Imagine the following scenario; a customer visits their local supermarket only to find the door locked when it was meant to be open. As a one off situation it might not be too much of a disaster, after all the customer might come back another time. But, when this happens on a regular basis the customer is sure to find somewhere else to shop. This analogy is exactly the same when your site or blog goes down.
Sadly, even the most devoted webmaster will be unable to check website status every hour of the day. This just isn’t practical. The thought of randomly logging in to test if a website is down will fill most site owners with dread. The reality is that they are often too busy to perform this mundane function.
The best way to perform a website availability check is to utilize a software program to do so. At least if you do find your site is off-line on a frequent basis then you will have some ammunition to take your hosting company to task. Equally when you update your site with a new plug-in you will benefit from a safety net that can inform you at a later stage of any issues.
3. No Calls to Action
Benefiting from a well written title that sells your content along with a site that remains on-line is fantastic. But there, is still something that many site owners have problems with.
Put simply, a large proportion of sites that have great content will effectively “leave their visitor hanging”.
What we are getting at here is complicit instructions on what the reader should do next; in other words a “call to action”. Without telling your visitor what they should do there is a good chance that they will wander of and do something completely different. Remember, most people who visit your site won’t have the luxury of time. They need to be directed to the information or services that you can provide.
It could be that they simply don’t know what to do next. This is why you need to ensure that your site has these relevant calls to action posted at convenient points. Done well you will be helping your visitor along a path.
One great way of doing this is to get your readers to “opt-in” if they would like to read a free report or download some additional content.
