Website Not Aligned with Target Audience

Every business should know their target audience, and if you think your target audience is “everyone”, you are not targeting anyone. Who wants, needs and is willing to buy your product or service? Only when you understand your customer and how they make their buying decisions, can you effectively build a website that will align with your audience and convert browsers to buyers.

Overly Complex Websites

Once you know your customers, you should be designing a website with them in mind. What kind of information are they looking for, and in what form? Do they want text, video, audio, animation or all of the above? When designing a website, especially for new businesses where you are learning about your customers, less is more. Start with the basics, knowing you can always add features in the future.

SEO and Keyword Focus

While it is true that a well designed website should incorporate SEO, many entrepreneurs start with SEO and create content loaded with keywords, but providing no real value to the site’s visitors. Focus on creating the content your customers want and need, and remember, if you are too keyword rich, you may be penalized by the search engines.

Contact Information is Hard to Find

When your customer is ready to interact with you or has a question, they do not want to spend time searching your website for contact information. Customers with short attention spans will go to another site if they find yours is too troublesome. Make your contact information, including phone number, email and physical address, easily and readily available.

Good Looks, Difficult Navigation

Another common startup website mistake is to develop an visually pleasing site, which is difficult to navigate. A well designed website should look good but also be easy to get around. Breadcrumb navigation allows users to see where they are and can easily backtrack when needed. You want a site that both looks good and is simple to use.

Lack of Social Proof

The common adage today is that people do business with someone they know, like and trust. But how do you develop trust when you are a new company? One way is through testimonials, or social proof. When someone sees that people have already done business with you and have had a good result, it helps them make a buying decision. Include written testimonials, or even better – pull out your smart phone the next time someone compliments your business and get it on video, which you can then upload to your website.

Non Responsive Designs

Is your customer browsing your website on a computer, laptop, smart phone or tablet? These days, chances are the answer is all of the above. They may be looking on a laptop in the morning, smart phone during lunch and tablet in the evening when laying in bed. Will they have the same website experience regardless of device? If not, you need to consider updating your site so it is fully responsive and looks the same on all devices.

For any entrepreneur, there are some hard and fast rules to follow. Understand your audience, design and develop a product or service that meets a need and show through your actions that you are someone people can know, like and trust. Applying these same rules to your website will go a long way in helping connect with your clients, and grow your business.

Often new businesses take on too many goals. They want to be the best at everything and realistically for a startup this usually is just not feasible. When you’re starting your business decide what your sole purpose and goal is. Once you have this decided create a cohesive business plan around that one goal. As your business grows you can then decide whether you want to take on different business opportunities, but definitely wait until you are an established company to do so. Taking on too much at once is a recipe for disaster.

The key to a successful startup is surrounding yourself with the best, brightest, and most passionate employees. Today’s marketplace is incredibly competitive so finding ideal candidates should not be too difficult. A tip we find helpful when searching for the best future employees is to look for those who truly share your passion. They may not have an MBA but that’s perfectly okay if they have the drive to do well and passion for the given industry. Most candidates are capable of learning about a given trade, and are more likely to do so if they find it interesting.

Share your goals, your strengths, and your weaknesses with your employees. Have weekly team meetings and address any ongoing issues or recent successes. Clear, honest communication with employees will help to better your startup as it will allow them to better understand what is being done right, and conversely, what potentially needs to be worked on. Withholding the truth from employees will only hurt your business and hinder your relationship with them.