Top 7 DIY Website Mistakes

I get it. Designing your own website seems like a great idea when you are first starting a business and/or are low on funds. However, these common DIY website mistakes could hurt your business in the long run.

1. HEADING TAGS

Typography is about so much more than aesthetics. The way your fonts are tagged & coded makes a big difference to the Google bots that are crawling your site and indexing your content. When heading tags are used incorrectly and only for aesthetics it can hurt your SEO (search engine optimization) and how high your site ranks on Google.

2. IMAGE NAMES

Leaving an image named IMG_3045 or download 1 is a huge missed opportunity for Google to identify the content on your site. In addition to having a file name that accurately describes the photo, you should also utilize your alt tags to describe your images, which can greatly boost your site’s ranking.

3. KEYWORDS & DESCRIPTIONS

It’s imperative to identify the keywords that will attract visitors to your site but those keywords also need to be placed correctly with appropriate header tags. In addition, keywords should appear in your page description and in blog posts to further reinforce your niche an brand authority of your website.

4. ANALYTICS

Having analytics built into your site can be so helpful in identifying where web traffic is coming and what information your site visitors are engaging with. Squarespace is my preferred platform because this is one of their automatically included features. Here are 7 additional Squarespace features that will enhance your website.

5. APPEARANCE

The beauty of a website is that you can customize it to match the look and feel of your brand. A lot of DIYers will use a standard template, which doesn’t set them apart from the competition. That cookie-cutter site is fine but it looks amateur rather than professional. Another common mistake is using outdated design styles or not keeping your site updated to match modern design trends.

6. MOBILE OPTIMIZATION

This one is a biggie! You finally get your website looking the way you like. It looks great on your laptop but you didn’t test it out on mobile. Over 60% of websites are first accessed by a mobile device and a large majority of users will leave the site if it’s not mobile friendly.

7. FAILURE TO LAUNCH

This is probably the biggest DIY mistake I see. The appeal of saving money gets you off to a great start but in the end many DIYers get overwhelmed with the design process and can’t get the site to look the way they want so they ultimately never finish and launch their site.

SOLUTION

This is where I come in! Website design is my speciality. I can typically get a site designed and launched in 3-4 weeks. I also offer payment plans because I know how tough it can be when you are first starting a business. Here are a few other reasons to work with a Squarespace Website Designer.