Managing a website is, truly, a full-time job. It takes so much time and effort to continuously keep a site up and running, not to mention keeping up with competitors. It takes plenty of skill, knowledge, and practice. Still, there are a lot of misconceptions about what goes into managing a website.
That’s what we’re going to be focusing on in today’s article. We’re going to be diving into a few of the most common mistakes people make when deciding to manage a website so that you can avoid making those same mistakes moving forward.
1. Managing a Website Without Experience
Some people assume that running a full business website doesn’t take experience. The fact of the matter is, even if you are experienced, trying to run a website on your own (making updates, filling it with content, paying attention to SEO, and more) will take up the time that you should be spending running your business.
Still, a website takes extensive knowledge in several different fields: platforms and systems, programming, design, user experience, hosting, and content development, to name a few.
You’re much better off relying on professionals or a third-party company to help you; they can take care of any tech concerns you might have in order to take one more thing off your plate.
2. Copying Others
Following best practices is important when dealing with the digital world, but there’s a huge difference between following what experts recommend when managing a website and completely copying someone else.
Intentionally copying brand elements like colors and images is not only illegal, it also makes the copier’s brand look bad. Customers want to see what makes you unique over the competition. Copying someone else will damage that credibility.
For more information about copying a website and the law, Thomas Digital has a great article.
3. Focusing on Traffic over Value
It can be tempting at first to employ tactics that will get as many people as possible onto your website. This can be great for brand exposure and furthering knowledge about your business, but if what you’re doing isn’t converting people into customers, then it simply isn’t worth it in the long run.
You have to find a balance between driving traffic and conversions. Ultimately, you want to build up loyalty to your brand and create a sense of trust. Find ways to add value. Here are a few suggestions to achieve that:
- Provide plenty of resources for customers to find out more about you. Make sure these resources include calls to action.
- Be honest and transparent. People won’t trust you if they feel like you might be hiding something.
- Allow audience members to send feedback or otherwise share their thoughts. They want to feel like they’re part of a community.
- Find ways to improve over time based on the feedback you receive.
4. Chasing Clicks
Much like chasing traffic over adding value, clicks are great, but they don’t necessarily provide your customers with what you’re looking for.
As an extreme example, if you’re relying on click-bait titles in order to trick people into coming onto the site, there probably won’t be a lot of trust between you and your audience. So, while you may have hundreds of clicks, you’ll probably also find that you’re not getting many customers or recommendations.
Again, it’s important to be authentic when managing a website, particularly when it comes to content. Clicks are great, but they won’t necessarily bring you a loyal community of customers.
5. Not Regularly Updating Content
Speaking of content, it’s important to be consistently providing your audience with evergreen blog posts, photos, and other information on a regular basis.
Marketing Insider Group recommends posting blogs two to four times per week in order to see increased traffic and conversions. This can be tricky depending on your resources.
Again, it may be more useful for you to hire a third party who can regularly create and post different types of content in order to engage your audience.
Finding ways to update and repurpose older content is an excellent strategy for avoiding burnout and keeping your audience interested. It can’t, of course, take the place of newer content in the long run.
Putting It All Together
Managing a website takes a lot of time and a lot of knowledge. It can be extremely rewarding, but you have to make sure that you’re constantly vigilant of best practices and avoiding the many pitfalls it presents.
Vervology takes all of the strongest characteristics needed in a professional website manager and puts them to work for you. Our expert team can handle every aspect of your website, from hosting to design to content creation. If you could use some help in any of these areas, get in touch with us; we’d love to help out.
And, if you found this article interesting or useful, be sure to share it with a colleague.