In 2019 the necessity of having a corporate website is a given and almost every business has its own. Everyone has figured out that if you don’t exist on the Internet, you simply don’t exist. The same goes for a social media presence (see: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Twitter, Pinterest especially).
Just because a business has a website on the Internet in 2019, it does not always mean that it has a website that is being used properly and therefore earns as much as it can from it.
So let’s look at the 7 major problems I recognize in many websites in 2019. There are many more problems and areas for improvement, but in order not to bore you and to be useful, I’ll limit myself to the 7 most important ones.
1. “Bored” websites
The “bored websites” are the ones that were built out of necessity with the least possible cost and without study. They were made because the competition has one.
Strange as it may seem, in the year 2019 there are a lot of them out there. Too many.
They are websites that give some information about the business and… no more!!!
Of course, such a website cannot stand up to the competition, nor can it convince a potential customer of the seriousness of the business.
And of course, the business is losing a lot without even realising it.
2. Old technology websites – Uninformed websites
There are too many corporate websites that were built 3, 5, 7, 10 years ago, with the technologies and tools of the time and have not been updated since then.
The owning company is not interested in informing them nor does it want to invest. The person who built them then, is not interested because the customer is not willing to finance the update and changes.
So they sit, silent witnesses to a once effort.
These websites are real mines and Trojan horses for cyber attacks as they can be easily hacked and used to send spam mails or hack entire servers.
The company may incur significant costs from the unavailability or malfunction of the corporate website. Unfortunately, in some cases one has to suffer to learn the value that the website has for the business.
And that leads us to the next issue. Security.
3. Lack of Safety
I am amazed every day at how many corporate websites out there have no concern for security and self-protection.
Taking protective measures, and implementing systems to do so, should be one of the first considerations for those planning websites.
And yet, too many websites do not incorporate any security techniques.
Obviously, this is not the direct responsibility of the business owner, but of the person who has built the website. But it becomes the indirect responsibility of the business owner if he chose the “cousin” to build the site or the lowest bidder.
You can’t imagine the cost that security issues can create for a business.
From sending spam mails with the business name, to the complete destruction of their online presence.
4. They don’t know what’s happening on their websites – No Tracking Code
One of the revolutions of the Internet is that we can always know who our prospective customers are and what they are doing on our business website. We can leverage this information to get more customers and profits.
In 2019 with the existence of solutions that are free like Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, it seems unthinkable to me that someone would not have them integrated into their website and not know what is happening, who is visiting and what they are doing.
And yet this happens.
Many corporate websites don’t have built-in tracking codes and so they don’t know if they have visitors, where they come from and what they do!
Without tracking, we can’t make the best use of Internet advertising, which is the next issue.
5. Internet Advertising VS Organic Results VS Site Design
“All things are,” said the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. That is, everything changes and nothing remains constant.
Not so long ago, SEO was the surefire technique to get a corporate website traffic. To appear as high as possible in the organic results (in search engine searches) thanks to the optimization of its content.
Unfortunately, due to the changing policies of the companies behind the search engines, the constant changes in the algorithms they use, the existence of many directories (see skroutz, bestprice, vrisko, xo, etc.), websites are starting to appear lower and lower in the organic results.
The only way to get them to appear first is to advertise on the Ineternet.
And if you think that the only parameter of success and performance of online advertising is money (whoever spends the most on advertising earns the most), you are wrong!
Suppose you are a lawyer and you want to advertise your divorce services, but on your website you have not provided a special section for divorce services. The question is, will the ad be as successful if:
- send the interested party to a general page of legal services where among dozens of others divorce is listed?
- you send him to look at a page specifically about divorce and what you can offer?
Imagine the same question for accountants, engineers, doctors, surveyors.
So the site must have provision for this kind of use. And this in many websites simply does not exist because it has not been provided for by their design.
6. Compatibility with mobile devices
When we say mobile device compatibility, we mean that the website should be displayed correctly on mobile devices.
Customize its appearance so that it appears fully, comfortably and functionally on a mobile device such as mobile phones and tablets. That is, to be responsive.
And this requirement is not only about respecting the customer and increasing the chances of finding new customers.
Since 2017, Google, the world’s largest search engine, has made it a requirement for a website to be responsive in order to rank well.
And yet there are thousands of corporate websites that are not responsive in 2019!
7. https VS http
Since 2016, Google has been penalising websites that do not use the secure https protocol by showing them in lower positions in the organic results.
The https protocol guarantees the encryption and security of the data exchanged between the website and the visitor.
Yet too many corporate websites do not use this protocol.
This could be an excuse until a year ago due to the relatively high cost of SSL certificates, but today this cost has been reduced to zero and is no longer an excuse for not implementing the secure protocol.
Causes and solutions
The cause of most of the above problems is that the business has not understood or does not give due importance to its online presence.
It can invest heavily in renovations, equipment, partners, brochures. But at the same time it has forgotten perhaps one of its most important assets.
Its website and online presence.
If you are in the mood, we can help. Feel free to contact us.
