 the advertising youve done the marketing budget youve spent the countless planning meetings your team has attended all that time and money youve invested has driven a potential customer to your website after months maybe years of effort your potential customer will make their decision in seconds they may love what they see and continue to be interested or they may leave with their memory of you going up in smoke and your investment with it framing a website to contain everything you need is challenging some websites become too word heavy while others lack structure and narrative getting your website right from the beginning can save you a lot of pain in the long run here are our tips for tackling website mistakes there are only two options either start with careful planning and consultation and spend a realistic budget or jump in with assumptions and experience scope creep frustration and the need to pour more money in later your time and money and sanity are too valuable to waste on option two so choose wisely its also important to understand the purpose of your website a website for a websites sake helps no one your business is unique so your website should be too make it crystal clear state who you are what you do and what you promise your customers set yourself up for success by providing your developer with a clear website purpose an informed plan and a predetermined budget what do you need your website to achieve this will depend on what kind of product or service you offer and the kind of experience you want to create for the user lay out your objectives and match them with kpis there are plenty of ways to get insight into your website consider bounce rates session duration or pages per session metrics or you could sharpen your content strategy by watching goal conversion rates of passive to active website users understanding your metrics and the goals you want to achieve will also help you to understand how your website interacts with its digital ecosystem optimising your website starts with learning what your users are responding well to how are they getting to your website what kind of content are they reading when do they read it how long are they staying by understanding your metrics you can shape a truly effective website experience for your customers its all in the detail from content creation to search engine optimisation credibility is about trust one way to build trust is to position yourself and your organisation as experts however credibility isnt just about what you know its about who you are include stories and testimonials about you and your organisation to avoid information overload then potential customers will leave your website satisfied that you can be trusted and theyre one step closer to doing business with you the customer journey should be clear if the information on your website is simple and structured you can guide visitors on the path youd like them to take use tabs and sub pages for different categories and make it logical for best results spend time studying user movements and running trials and tests over time your predictions will become more accurate as you get to know your audience there are some hallmarks we use when writing web copy here are a few of them short effective sentences say the same information with less sub headings and headings containing keywords everyday words the average reader can easily understand plain english direct language consistent logical structuring of information the majority of the time someone will be visiting your website on their phone 68 1% in 2020 to be exact that means when it comes to your website design its not enough that your website simply works on mobile it needs to be designed with mobile in mind first if your website doesnt look amazing and function seamlessly on mobile your customers wont go looking for their nearest desktop computer theyll look for another website what kind of service do you give your customers in person ensure they experience the same quality on your website and more importantly on their phone 