When Running Business Website What Are The Biggest Problems You Can Encounter Today?
It is easy to think that big businesses like Amazon or Alphabet (Google’s parent company) are the only ones that hackers target.
The truth is that it is often easier to go after smaller companies than larger ones because they’re less likely to have the necessary infrastructure to stop potential threats. [1]
Some websites are also more at risk than others because of plugins, web applications, or the preferred CMS. [2
You have a beautiful business website. It consistently drives traffic to your brand while creating an adequate revenue stream that boosts profits.
Even when everything seems to be clicking in all the right ways, your website can also become a liability. If it doesn’t have safeguards in place against today’s most serious problems, your brand and business could experience significant damage.
What would you do if someone breached your site and released sensitive information from your customers?
Although our website design in Glasgow and Edinburgh processes and people get that security and protection aren’t always exciting conversations, it is essential to limit liabilities in this area. Businesses of all sizes are at risk of seeing the top serious website problems develop.
1. General Performance Issues
Performance problems are among the most prevalent reasons customers decide to leave a website when they intend to purchase something. This category also includes most of the acute issues that web admins face when maintaining a site.
Poor performance can impact multiple website areas simultaneously. When usability becomes affected by these problems, the outcome is typically a higher bounce rate. Although countless items fall into the general performance issue category when dealing with serious website issues, three groupings are responsible for most of them.
Speed Issues:
Websites that take at least three seconds to load are significantly less likely to generate transactions than ones that take between 1-2 seconds. The most common reasons that cause this issue are unoptimised images, render-blocking concerns, and too many HTTP requests.
Not Mobile Optimised or Compatible:
With mobile devices responsible for a majority of Internet traffic today, websites must be optimised to accommodate this activity. Despite this fact only 35% are using a mobile-friendly design today. That means the average page loads in about 15 seconds on tablets and phones.
Various Errors and Bugs:
This problem comes in all different shapes and sizes. It might happen because of an update, theme change, plugin issues, database error, and much more. The most common bug is a link or button not working, but there could be conflicts or compatibility issues that develop.
Our website design in Edinburgh and Glasgow can help you resolve these issues and more quickly with a prompt and accurate evaluation.
2. Security Threats
Google uses SSL certificates as a ranking factor for search results. Even with that fact in mind, about half of all websites don’t use this asset.
SSL stands for “Secure Sockets Layer.” It creates a secure connection between your web server and the visitor’s browser. All the data sent through it stays protected to avoid having a third-party peek at the information. [3]
That data might include login passwords, email addresses, usernames, or personalised cookies.
Not only does SSL impact your SEO, but it also improves sales and conversions when it is present.
Our website design team in Glasgow and Edinburgh can help you create an effective design that stops the following.
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Brute force attacks.
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File inclusion exploits.
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Cross-site scripting.
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SQL injections.
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Malware.
Whether the hackers are using a specific tool or have found a backdoor, it is essential to remember that most vulnerabilities come from within the site. That’s why frequent reviews are often necessary.
3. SEO Problems
If you have a search engine optimisation (SEO) problem, the website might not function as expected. Many people believe they can follow today’s best practices to achieve results without paying a provider to complete the work, but it doesn’t always come out as expected.
Most people who do DIY SEO typically use plugins or software tools that check for specific issues. Here are the most common problems that can result in less traffic coming to the site.
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Meta tag issues. Search engines read the title tags on posts and pages to understand the information it contains. About 35% of them have duplication, while 8% have no tags at all. [4]
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H1 tag problems. The H1 tag is useful for hierarchy to Internet users and search engines. About 1 in 5 sites have multiple ones on some pages, with a similar number not including them at all. Another 15% have duplicate content in the title and top tag. [5]
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Image SEO exclusion. Do you upload images or graphics to your website and call it a day? If so, you could be dealing with an optimisation problem. 45% of photos today don’t have alt attributes.
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Broken links. When broken links come with a proper 404 page, the issue isn’t that big of a problem. If too many of them develop, it can hurt your optimisation.
Working with our website design team in Glasgow and Edinburgh lets your brand find and remove these issues quickly. When you want to take care of the work yourself, you’ll want to review the four crucial areas outlined above first.
4. Low Text-to-HTML
You need text to convey information to readers about what you offer. If you have too much back-end HTML code, your website can develop problems.
Not only does it create potential ranking issues, but it can also develop user problems that make the UX nearly impossible to manage.
When you have a low text-to-HTML ratio, it often serves as a warning sign that something worse is happening with a website. If you have this problem to correct, these three issues are the first= things to review to ensure they’re not present.
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Slow Loading Speeds. When you have more script pages and code, your website becomes slower to load.
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Hidden Spam Tex. Some search engines consider the hidden text to be spam. This interpretation often hurts your current SEO campaign because it’s interpreted as a black-hat methodology.
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Poor Coding. If you have excessive inline styling, JavaScript, or additional elements, you can develop serious website problems.
About 30% of websites have a low text-to-HTML ratio on some or all pages. When you take the time to address and correct these key points, you’ll notice improvements that start developing right away.
5. Outdated Website Design
Modern websites must be aesthetically pleasing while serving in a functional role. People judge brands and businesses based on how a site performs.
Even if you’ve spent lots of time and money in the past to be on the cutting edge of web design, trends change in this industry relatively often. If it has been more than five years since your last update, it might be time to start making some changes.
When a website looks outdated, it appears to be unprofessional. Here are the issues that come up frequently in this category.
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Images that lack quality and resolution.
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Confusing user journeys where it feels like an impossible task to reach the checkout process.
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Difficult and obligatory forms that customers must fill out to receive the items they want.
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Instead of using a free marketplace theme, consider investing in a custom experience. You’ll find that the dividends that come from this effort are worthwhile to pursue.
6. Landing Page Problems
Landing pages are an essential component of your lead conversion process. They can also drive visitors away when they aren’t correctly structured to communicate valuable information.
A poorly designed landing page typically creates low conversion rates.
The biggest mistake in this category is a catch-all design. People click to visit brands for multiple reasons. When the data tries to capture every possible potential problem, it either stays too generic or has too much length.
Try to be as specific and straight-to-the-point as possible.
When creating a landing page, it also helps to have a call-to-action, set a thank you page, and express general gratitude or appreciation.
7. Massive Clutter
If you step into a home that looks neat and organised, it’s usually relatively easy to find what you need. When you’re unsure where to locate something, a simple question is often all it takes to reach a positive result.
When a home is messy, disorganised, and filled with clutter, you could spend days trying to find what you need. The same issue happens with websites and home-pages. When a visitor visits this page, it becomes their introduction to the brand and business.
Instead of presenting every possible data point that proves your brand is the best, it is better to keep things simple and straightforward. Look for ways to make site navigation easy to manage.
If you have duplicate home pages published, it helps to remove them or add canonical tags to your primary URL.
It even helps to include contact information to ensure someone can ask questions or leave comments if they encounter potential issues on your site.
8. Tracking Codes
How do websites get monitored to ensure that they are performing to the best of their ability? The easiest way to solve this problem is to implement tracking code use.
Tracking codes let you see what visitors come to your site, collecting data on how they got there, why they came, and how long they stayed.
This information lets a business see what pages get viewed the most. You’ll also spot trends or patterns when people come from the same or similar locations or search terms.
9. Not Having a Backup
What would happen tomorrow if a business website went down today? If there isn’t a backup in place, everything would need to start from scratch.
That means a business could be offline for weeks or months. It would be a tremendously negative result for the financial bottom line.
It can take 14 weeks or more to start from scratch. Although drag-and-drop builders are helpful for quick outcomes, they don’t necessarily deliver the results a business wants to see.
Two backup methods are predominantly used when saving this information. Businesses keep a local drive, server, or storage method that receives periodic updates, or a cloud-based provider delivers the same service for a competitive fee.
When a business can retrieve a recent version of their website, it’s much easier to restore the damage that hackers or destruction might cause.
10. No Social Media Integration
Social media is an essential component of all inbound marketing campaigns. With about half the global population using the various platforms out there today, a brand that doesn’t make this effort is missing out on a massive potential audience.
Our web design Edinburgh and Glasgow can incorporate share buttons for key pages, find broken social media links, or help create new ones.
Integrating social profiles with business website pages makes it much easier to establish trust with potential customers. When a brand offers something valuable, the share buttons make it easier to distribute company information to numerous personal networks.
When a brand can indulge buyers by providing value-based interactions frequently, the investment in social media can turn into a massive conversion rate that pushes revenues higher. A happy visitor is a person that creates a positive impact on multiple metrics.
Do You Need Help or Advice to Solve Some Website Problems?
Is your website not performing as you’d expect it to be?
When reviewing your infrastructure for these potential issues periodically, you’ll be on the fast track toward providing consistently positive experiences.
Whether you have a significant problem that could put you on the verge of a search penalty or a UX puzzle to solve, we can help your site get back on its feet.
Our services for website design Glasgow and Edinburgh can help you find the site problems that hold your brand back from achieving its full potential.
[1] https://www.cdnetworks.com/cloud-security-blog/the-5-industries-most-vulnerable-to-cyber-attacks/
[2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/18-security-precautions-and-plugins-for-your-wordpress-site/
[3] https://www.verisign.com/en_US/website-presence/online/ssl-certificates/index.xhtml
[4] https://neilpatel.com/blog/h1-tag/
[5] https://www.semrush.com/blog/semrush-study-on-site-seo-issues/
[6] https://neilpatel.com/blog/landing-pages-are-overrated/
[7] https://themeisle.com/blog/remove-clutter-from-website/
[8] https://www.billerickson.net/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-website/
