5 Mistakes to Avoid for a New Website

If you’re ready to take the plunge and launch your first website, congratulations! Whether you’re an entrepreneur starting a business or an artist looking to share their work online, having a website can open up new opportunities.

But before taking the final step and officially releasing your site onto the internet, you must be aware of some common mistakes that novice webmasters make when creating their first page. In this blog post, we will walk through five key errors in website design that every beginner should look out for, so get ready for a crash course in all things digital – let’s go!

Having a Badly Designed Site

One of the biggest mistakes that you should avoid before your new website, which should go without saying, is having a badly designed site. While it is obvious that most people who create a website want it to look the best they can sometimes, it doesn’t always go to plan.

In addition to the aesthetics of the site, there are also a few other considerations to keep in mind. For example, your site needs proper maintenance; this is why you should enlist the help of the experts from Figment Agency, who offer some of the best site maintenance services.

Next, does your site have a search function that allows visitors to find what they are looking for easily? How long does it take for your website to load? Is each page optimised effectively? Can visitors find what they are looking for within three or four clicks? All of these considerations are very important for the overall design of this site.

Ignoring Content

Another mistake that you should avoid if you have a new website would be ignoring content. Many people make a mistake when they have a new website by assuming the most important thing they should be doing is linking and the keywords. While, of course, these two aspects of search engine optimisation are important, content seems to be overtaking them.

When it comes to content on your website, you need to consider very carefully what it is that you’ll be posting. Are you answering the search queries of your target audience? This is a question that Google has been asking since the most recent updates and rewards sites that do so.

Not Understanding Who to Link

The next mistake you should avoid with your new website would be not understanding who to link to or how exactly linking works. In all honesty, this is quite an easy mistake that many people make, and it’s also one that can be easily avoided.

In terms of linking, you should find sites with a higher authority or domain rating than yours. Linking to sites with a much lower authority or domain rating than yours is not beneficial. You should also avoid link farms as much as possible since Google does penalise these; rather focus on high-quality links; even though it might take longer, it is certainly much more beneficial.

Not Being Mobile Compatible

Another thing you should definitely be focusing on, and a mistake you should avoid when creating a website, especially in 2022, would be it not being mobile-compatible. Did you know that there are 4.3 billion Internet users worldwide who use mobile devices? Aside from the fact that this means you’ll be missing out on a massive portion of your target audience, it’s also not good for growth.

Google is actually rewarding websites with a mobile version, which is evident from the fact that these websites are crawled first. More importantly, and this happened a while ago, although many people don’t know this, friendly usability factors were included in Google’s algorithm in 2015.

Not Targeting Keywords

Finally, the last mistake you should avoid with your new website on this list would be not targeting keywords or, at the very least, not targeting the correct keywords. If you’re not entirely sure what a keyword does, it tells search engines what content should be expected to be found on your website.

This, in turn, is obviously good for discoverability since it helps you get your website or content shown to the correct people. That said, some keywords are better to target than others. For example, with your new website, you shouldn’t be looking to target the most popular keywords within your industry or niche since the top-performing websites are already doing this and will beat you.