An excellent first impression of your website is critical for ensuring success online and creating the growth you’re looking for. You’ve taken the time to plan carefully, craft content, and build a beautiful and practical website. However, sometimes the tiny details can jeopardize the whole thing.
You could have the best-looking website in the world, but subtle mistakes can erode your credibility.
All organizations must build and maintain credibility (or trust) and thus should avoid putting a dent in it when possible.
So let’s look at some of the most common website mistakes that could jeopardize your credibility.
6 Common Mistakes That Can Hurt Credibility
1. Copyright Year
Many websites have a copyright notice in the footer, but what does this do, and what does it protect? It protects your rights as the owner of any content, logos, images, or anything else on your site.
Because content theft is widespread on the Internet, copywriting your property provides protection, especially if you must go the legal route to remove your stolen content from the web. Of course, you don’t have to have a separate page explaining your copyright, but many sites do if their site’s copyright is more complicated than usual. A typical example is joint copyrights for specific content on a website, such as when an author owns an article but grants common ownership to the website where it appears.
What year should be on the copyright line? The year the content was created, and we’ve seen it effectively done as a range. Meaning you might see Copyright © 2013 – 2023 Creative Nomads LLC if it’s been online since then.
2. Outdated Blogs
Blogging and content marketing are great ways of generating website traffic, but many businesses give up or take their eye off the ball.
If you’re starting a new business blog, you should understand that it will take time to work. Your blog content is unlikely to receive significant traffic for at least a year, even if you do everything correctly.
Numerous factors influence the amount of web traffic you receive, most of which affect content indiscriminately, regardless of how interesting or visually appealing your articles are.
3. Embedded Feeds
Embedding social media feeds into websites used to be popular, but it’s less popular now because it can slow down loading times. For example, suppose a business owner has an embedded feed but isn’t actively updating their social media channels. In that case, their website may appear outdated and, in some cases, as if the business is no longer open.
4. Unfinished Content
When we say ‘unfinished,’ we’re talking about those pages with just a paragraph of text. These were often pages made live when the site was created, intending to add to them in the future. However, time passed, and the page stayed the same.
If you don’t finish your website and choose to update it as you go, there’s a greater chance that you’ll make an error.
One advantage of creating your website content at once is the ability to review it after completion to ensure no errors and better searchability of search engines.
5. Ancient References
If you run a website that promotes the 2016 Olympics as an “exciting summer event this year,” this link is for them. Unfortunately, we saw this on a website not long ago…
Using ancient references can have a place on a website only if it’s appropriate, like if you are stating a fact, research, or a reference to illustrate best practices in a particular industry. So, for example, if you have a health research company as a client, it will be appropriate even if you add old pieces of information or past research.
Tip: Have your website checked semi-regularly to ensure they correctly reference times that have long passed with their content. It’s sometimes better to think evergreen to make it easier to manage content on an ongoing basis.
Inform your reader that they should check their website semi-regularly to ensure their reference times have been updated. It’s sometimes better to think evergreen to make it easier to manage content on an ongoing basis.
6. 404 Errors
A 404 error page, also known as a “404 Not Found” error, is an HTTP response status code indicating that the requested resource could not be found on the server. This error message is often displayed to users when they attempt to access a web page that doesn’t exist or has been moved, deleted, or otherwise made unavailable.
This website mistake can be a technical issue. If your audience encounters this error page, they will not recognize you as reliable. This creates a poor user experience. Get your developer involved to find ways to improve the page load time for an existing website.
Final Point
Website credibility and being responsive go hand in hand.
With this fact in mind, it’s clear that it’s critical for your organization or business that the website has to be fully functional and well-designed to attract visitors, establish credibility, and build long-lasting relationships with customers.
A compelling website can help your organization grab attention, engage customers, and establish online credibility.
So, instead of diving into the design and layout of your website first, take some time to write out a strategy. It’s not only about the design. You want to revisit your brand foundation, determine your website purpose and goals, map out the behavior flow, and select the navigation and sitemap.
This article assumes you have already clarified your website’s goals and aims to help you formulate strategies for what to avoid.
Take immediate action when your website is at stake. It’s your online platform! Schedule a free discovery call with us so we can help you keep your website updated and your online credibility intact.
