8 B2B Website Optimization Mistakes You Are Probably Making

Over 2 million websites have been evaluated in Website Grader and over 2,300 companies use our inbound marketing software, so we think we know a few things about how to optimize a website - in fact, we're running a free website optimization webinar where we will review some websites live. From all of our experience, here are the mistakes people most commonly make in website optimization.

1. No Keywords in the Home Page Title - The page title is a phrase that appears in the top bar of your browser window, and is part of each page on the web. It is one of the first things that search engines look at to determine what your web page is about. Even though we have been offering website optimization webinars since 2007, some people still need a little help here. Your page title should contain some keywords that describe your business in a generic way. Some really common mistakes we see are homepage titles that are "Home" or "Welcome" or "Company Name" - make sure you are not making that mistake and use some keywords.
2. Optimizing for the Same Keywords on Many Pages - Each page of your website is a unique opportunity to optimize for a unique keyword phrase. So if your home page is optimized for "internet marketing" your product page should be optimized for "internet marketing software" and other pages for phrases like "marketing webinars". Many people reuse the same keyword phrase over and over on many pages of their site, which is usually a waste of effort.
3. No Social Media Links - The web is a social place, and people using the web want to be social, so website optimization now also means using social media. Your company should have a presence someplace in social media, and on some pages of your website you should have a way to connect with your company on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, SlideShare or more. Gathering social media friends and followers is similar to gathering email opt-ins, since you can contact these social media connections in the future. Adding to your social following also helps you rank higher in some search results and will help you be successful in spreading your content far and wide around the web.
4. No Call to Action on Homepage - Typically, the homepage of your website gets the most traffic out of all of your web pages. For this reason, it is critical to have a strong and compelling call to action on your website homepage that will attract the attention of your visitors and get them to convert into leads. Never have the opportunity to become a lead be more than one click away from your homepage.
5. No Compelling Offers - Not only do you need a strong call to action on your homepage, the offer (what you are offering people in exchange for their contact information) needs to be valuable. Your prospects will all ask "What's in it for me?" when they think about filling out your landing page, and the answer has to be "something valuable". A page that just says "Contact Us" begs the question "why?" so make sure your offers are compelling.
6. Cluttered and Confusing Landing Pages - A landing page has one goal, to get the person visiting it to fill out the form and hit the submit button to send their contact information to your database and your sales team. Many landing pages have distracting navigation, too much text, too many images, links to other offers, and are generally not focused on getting the visitor to just convert. Optimizing your landing pages helps drive conversion and increase the number of leads you get from your optimized website.
7. Poor Content Production - To be successful with inbound marketing, you need an ongoing content creation strategy. Search engines and social media communities love an ongoing stream of fresh and useful content. For most companies this means starting a blog, but there are other ways to create content on a regular basis. No matter what, you can't have a static brochure-ware website today and expect it to be successful at attracting leads to your business.
8. Too Few Inbound Links - Links coming from other websites to your website (inbound links) are the currency of the internet. They help more people find your website and inbound links help you rank higher in search results. Without a lot of links coming into your website, and a strategy for attracting more links over time, you just don't have a good chance of being really successful with inbound marketing. Develop a plan to create interesting content and promote that content so people will link to it, then repeat over and over. After a while you will start attracting more links and building a more powerful and better optimized website.
   

You probably are making at least some of these website optimization mistakes based on my experience. But there is hope, because you can get some free website optimization advice from the experts at HubSpot, and you can also use Website Grader to get a free report about your website. Finally, share this article with your friends to make sure they are not making the same mistakes. Onward to better optimized websites!

Live Website Optimization: Using Website Grader for Marketing Success

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Comments

Posted by Mike Volpe on Wed, Mar 24, 2010 @ 08:00 AM