THE TOP 5 REASONS YOUR WEBSITE IS USELESS

1. You used a site builder tool such as weebly, wix, website tonight.

Some people think that it's great, it is so easy to build a site that way, it takes about 15 minutes and you have a fully functional site, right? Wrong. The reason why you shouldn't use those tools is because there are millions of other people with your same basic layout. I was just looking at a few sites with people I have spoke with in the last 3-4 months who didn't decide to use us to build their website and that is the solution they came up with. Using a website builder, building a very very basic website that looks like it was built in the late 90's early 2000's. Do a search, find your competitors and look at their websites. Chances are they have a lot better site than you! Many of you have your own business. Is starting a business and making it successful easy, is there a quickstart program to start making money overnight? No... Many of you should know better than to expect the quick and easy ways to actually work! You take your business seriously right? Your website is a virtual business card, that can change and update, it is an extension of your business and probably the most serious thing and way to generate more income!

2. Expecting that once your site is built, people will come!

Here is the next major issue. Just because you have a website now, doesn't mean that it is worth anything, it doesn't mean people are coming. So of you think of a website as something you can send your clients to, developing trust. Sure, that is an additional bonus of a website, but that is not what the purpose of a website is! You have to build up your traffic, whether it is through SEO or adwords or some kind of advertisement. Having the best product in the world, or offering the best service there is, doesn't mean people are going to buy it. You ave to get it out there, push it, advertise, generate traffic!

3. Having a website that is not going to make you money.

Why would you even want a website unless you are going to make more money with it? This doesn't mean you need to be selling products or services through your website, but it does mean that you should be getting leads with your website that will convert to sales! A simple home page, about us page, and contact page hardly is a website. The key here is to make money, right? If you aren't generating a certain amount of leads or income through your website, you're doing something wrong!

4. No meta tags, or on site optimization.

If you go to a site, look in the top of your browser. What is the title? If you see it say "Home" then they are not getting great results with their site. You need to optimize your site for search engines. That means having proper keywords, descriptions, titles, and alt tags for your website. Why is this important? Your onsite optimization plays a huge role in getting your site found by targeted buyers. Some of you don't even have meta tags. No keywords, no keywords in the title, no description. So even if for some very strange reason you do get ranked in google, yahoo, or bing, nobody is going to click on your site if you don't even have a description! Now this isn't going to give you massive amounts of traffic, but it is a necessity to do!

5. BECAUSE IT LOOKS HORRIBLE

Your website isn't a place to test out new photoshop ideas that you are attempting to learn. It isn't a place to try out all these different weird things that no one else will think is cool except you. I know it is fun learning new things, but this is your business! I absolutely go insane if there is a problem with my server and it's down for 15 minutes, in those 15 minutes I could have a very high profile website being sold, I take it very seriously. You should too! Swallow your pride, and brush up on your photoshop skills on a personal site or test site!

BONUS REASON: FLASH!!!

Never use flash, I know it looks cool and clean and it is really fun. Okay, so you might be thinking, why not use flash then? Because you won't get the results you want in the search engines. It isn't easy for a search engine to crawl through a flash site. AND, it is just too expensive to make changes. If someone asks for even a flash banner, the price will typically be $1,000 minimum for the site with a flash banner. So you pay more, to have a site that won't do well in search engines no matter what! Not only that, but how many times do YOU get a pop up that says your flash is outdated? How many people are out there that won't even be able to VIEW your site? You're just losing out on business!