8 Common Mistakes in Corporate Websites

In recent times I have come across a bunch of corporate sites that have a set common mistakes between them. The sites are of Small to Medium range business organizations, and they are of IT services companies and many other versatile business organizations as well. This kind of mistakes may also be in websites of larger organizations.

1. Site with no Crisp Content

A site without crisp content in it or atleast in “About Us” page obviously loses everything. There’s no value in running such a website. I have seen many web pages with lots of information in it, but who read that. A current or future customer of yours will never go through the entire article you have written.

Solution

• First and foremost, you must understand that the content a site has should be published in a much organized manner, with some bullets, numbers, with right text formatting.
• Good thing is to use optimized images.  A single image will say a lot than a page-full of texts do.
• Saying the same stuff all along your web page/site will make you lose your credibility.Surely. So give important to quality content.

2. No Proper / Periodic Maintenance

Sites without much updates lose its search engine ranking periodically. It doesn’t mean you should fill the void in the pages with your ‘GREAT’ thoughts. This is actually not associated with contents. Checking for dead links and updating them are coming in here.

Solution

• Have a dedicated team of at least two to maintain your website.
• Update your company’s portfolio /product showcase if any.
• Answer to comments if necessary in your blog.

3. Not Making site as dynamic

A lot of companies that make huge profits still keep their web pages in plain html. A team needs to spend twice or thrice the time in maintaining the html pages. If you want to change one menu item in your header, then you need to edit all the html pages. Think of it.

Solution

• Make an effort to make your website with any server side language or simply save those html files as php. Fine if you make at least header, footer and sidebar dynamic with any server side language. Then include them in your site.

4. Not having Contact Addresses

I see a bundle of sites have only a contact form (that too without client side validation) in “Contact Us” page. Contact page should show the exact contact address with PIN. Nowadays companies have started making use of Google Maps/ street view in  their contact pages.

5. Usage of non-pleasant Flash Shows

Flash shows are being replaced by Javascript, CSS based shows nowadays. No issue if you have a pleasant, simple, elegant flash shows. Avoid flash shows with heavy weight and that too in your home page.

6. Not eying on Periodic Redesigns

This one is pretty straight forward, and in fact a bit associated  with point 2.

So you should consider updating your designs periodically.  Your page should evolve with trends with easier accessibility in mind.

7. No custom 404 pages/ Redirection notifications

Show the users a custom “Page not found” page with your styled theme. Have the clients notified about the page redirection.

8. Not making Web Standard, SEO’d, Image and Code optimized web pages.

A company website should not take more than 10 seconds to load even in slow internet connections. So follow Web Standard, Image optimization, Code Optimization. To reach out large customer base, do SEO.

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