This document outlines 10 common website mistakes and provides solutions to fix them. It recommends defining clear objectives and priorities before building a website. Additionally, it suggests keeping home pages clean and uncluttered, using intuitive navigation with traditional terms, ensuring mobile compatibility, answering all visitor questions, positioning the company story, improving graphics and copy, providing educational content, calls to action for email signups, consistent page design, and integrating social media. The overall message is that websites should be optimized for usability and meeting visitor needs to improve conversions.

1. Ten Website Mistakes and How to Fix Them
Michael Newman Consulting

2. In this Session We Will Look at…
 10 Website issues that cause problems
 Solutions to the problems
 Industry examples of techniques that work
 No examples of bad websites will be shown – we’re keeping this
session focused on the positive…
 …But we will explain the problems and demonstrate solutions
 Presentation available on my site and NAMM U

3. Define Your Objectives Before Anything Else
 Put serious effort into documenting your site objectives
 Start with your overall business goals and work out the site details
with your developer (unless you are the developer)
 No details are too minor – last minute site changes that appear
minor can cause huge delays

4. Define Your Objectives
 Sequentially prioritize your objectives – You may want to introduce
site components in phases
 Make a list of websites you like and specifically why
 Review your current site before you start on the new one: will you
need new product images and revised copy? Images of staff and
store? New logo? Need a new hosting service?
 Have your developer create a site spec document so everyone is on
the same page!

5. Website User Behavior – Quick Review
 Jakob Nielsen research provides important guidelines
 The two second window of opportunity
 People don’t read – they scan and look for familiar triggers, if they
don’t find them… goodbye!
 If someone gets confused, they leave
 If something is hard to find, they leave
 If you don’t answer their questions, they leave

6. Purpose of a Home Page (Jakob Nielsen definition)
 A homepage has two main goals:
 deliver users information about your business
 provide top-level navigation to additional information inside
the site
 “A third important homepage goal is to tell users the site's
purpose and where they are relative to the Web as a whole.
Sites typically accomplish this using a logo and a tagline.”

7. #1 – Clutter on the Home Page
 Your home page
concept that
you start with

8. #1 – Clutter on the Home Page
 Your home page
when you launch!

9. The Home Page Yard Sale Phenomenum
 You feel obligated to make changes because you can
 You use phrases that provide little or no direction: “it needs more
pop”, “it should be more elegant”.
 You try to put everything on the home page
 You go down the rabbit hole – you get microscopic about the
design and forget the priorities
 You bring in others who have no training in website usability and
now you have multiple distinct opinions

10. The Clutter Solution
 Your plan is your roadmap – use your prioritized list!
 Easy to use (self evident) is MUCH better than fewer clicks
(Nielsen studies have verified this)
 Keep it simple & use destination pages for the details
 Guide the eye with visual cues
 Use space to simplify, think of your oldest demographic
 Loose the happy talk and get to the point – too much copy to read
= people bouncing

11. #2 – Confusing Navigation Means Lost Revenue
“What does
this mean?”
“Where am I?”
“Is this clickable?

12. #2 – Confusing Navigation Means Lost Revenue
 People expect instant cues to guide them through your site –
they use visual and word triggers they are familiar with (Jakob
Nielsen research)
 Use terms and navigation styles people expect – don’t get cute
or use personal favorites people don’t understand
 If it looks “clickable” make it clickable (images, product
references, support, email addresses)

13.  Create a site map before
work begins
 Review navigation in the
site map
 Is it intuitive?
 Are categories
grouped logically

14.  Conduct usability testing
BEFORE you spend
money and resources on
site coding
 Review:
“Is Your Website Leaving
Money on the Table” –
NAMM U or my site

15.  Clean
navigation
provides
intuitive
cues that
keep
people
exploring

16.  Self-evident
structure
makes
navigation
and
discovery
easy

17. Clean layout guides the eye to clickable content

18.  Don’t try to cram too many navigation headers into your
navigation banner (your main links in the banner)
 This causes site confusion and mobile clutter
 Think of logical groups – review your goals
 Leave room for new headers if you can – saves you lots of
work in the future
Improving Your Site Navigation

19. Minimalist design reduces clutter & enhances navigation

20. “Easy on the Eye” Invites Exploration

21. Use Staging Pages for Product Categories
 Allows category and/or brand
positioning
 Create compelling “why
should I care” messages for
site visitors

22.  Tabs & breadcrumbs provide
instant access and page
location information – user
knows where they are
FXPedal.com
Strymon

24. #3 – Your Site is Not Mobile Friendly
 At least 25-30% of your traffic RIGHT
NOW is coming from phone or tablet
 If your site doesn’t display correctly
someone may never visit again!
 Tablet sales to outpace all desktop and
mobile computers in 20141
1http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/27/idc-tablet-growth-2012-2017/

25. #3 – Your Site is Not Mobile Compatible
 Difference in mobile responsive versus
mobile compatible functionality
 Services like Duda Mobile make mobile
compatibility much easier if you want to
make your current site mobile compatible
 Service is $10 per month

26. Desktop version of site – lots of display space

27. Mobile phone version of site
 Small screen - Most important information
is displayed for improved navigation
 Work with your developer to define your
mobile navigation BEFORE site work is
started!
 (Review your business objectives!)

28. #4 –Business Questions You Don’t Answer
 Unanswered questions sends people packing
 Anticipate all those ecommerce and shipping questions and
answer them online
 Think of all your business components: store hours, repair hours,
clinics, lessons, in store music events
 Keep a log of support/buyer/store questions that employees
contribute to and add them to your site

29.  FAQ section has:
guitar care,
insurance,
international
shipments,
payment
options, return
policy, etc.

30. #5 – New Site Visitors Don’t Know Who You Are
 Positioning is as important for a reseller as a brand
 What is your company story, passions, commitments?
 Answer the “Why Should I Care?” question your site visitors will
always ask themselves
 Make it personal – include employee images and stories

31.  Fun images
emphasize the
personal touch
 When people
come to the store
they recognize you
or your employees
from the site
images

32. Multi-media helps tell the story
 Create a video
tour of your store,
lesson rooms,
repair shop
 Include customer
testimonials from
social posts

33.  Artisan Guitars
360 degree tour of
all the rooms
 Interactive with
user controls

34.  Create an inviting
atmosphere so
people will visit

35. #6 – Your Site Graphics & Copy Need Improving
 People use their eyes to make credibility decisions
 Going simple with graphics looks great and costs less to develop
 Create the look before you develop the site (start with logo changes
if needed – this is your graphic centerpiece)
 Insure your store photos & videos are high quality with good
lighting (cameras provide great quality these days)

37. Simple graphics and use of colors provides elegance

38. #6 – Your Site Graphics & Copy Need Improving
 Write professionally and answer those musician questions
 Find good industry copy writers if you need them – there are many
looking for work
 Make detailed notes about what you DO NOT want on the new site
that is on your current site!
 Don’t wait until you launch your new site or your will be paying
to remove and change content

39. #7 – No Educational Content
 Don’t think of it as a blog or you’ll get hung up on that term – it’s
the company voice (different than social posting)
 Create educational documents that are interesting to musicians
 Millions of hits and views on educational content
 Drive people to content with newsletters and social posts
 Educational content shows up in search, YOU keep showing up for
musicians on the internet

40. People Search Looking for Answers
 Search term: “how to buy a PA” MF #1 in Google results

41. Musicians Friend Buying Guide: PA Systems
 Article provides links to product categories

42. How to Choose a Personal Monitoring System

43.  Google
Search on
“How to
Tune a
Guitar”
 Basic tuning
video has the
#3 search
spot

45. #8 – No Call to Action for Newsletter Sign Up
 A simple field to enter an email address does not work
 Provide a call to action and an image that motivates
 Give them a reason to sign up!
 Mention sweeps and sale announcements, educational content
they can consume from your newsletter

46. #8 – No Call to Action for Newsletter Sign Up

47. Use Pages Tested for Conversions (Leadpages.net)

48. #9 – Your Website Pages Are Inconsistent
 People may enter your site from any publicly viewable page
 Design every page with the basics: consistent navigation,
breadcrumbs, visual cues to continue navigating
 Answer the question “where am I?” for every page (except final
purchase or lead capture pages)
 If using Wordpress off of your site, include navigation to your
website in your blog

49. #10 – No Social Site Integration
 Include your social feeds on a community website page
 Use Facebook comments plug-in for instant FB sharing
 Use app services to integrate your site content onto Facebook
including ecommerce
 Document positive social comments for use on your site
 Motivate people to come to your site from social
 Allow sharing after a purchase: “I just bought this amazing bass
from ……..”

50.  Add social
sharing
buttons to
your
ecommerce
thank you
page

51.  Sample
Facebook post
after purchase

52. Summary
 Document your objectives first and prioritize them
 Keep your home page clean and uncluttered
 Self evident is more important than fewer clicks
 Make your navigation clean and use traditional terms
 Insure you site is mobile friendly right now!
 Anticipate questions visitors have and answer them

53. Summary
 Position your company and discuss your story and passions
 Insure graphics and copy reflect a professional environment
 Create educational content that drives musicians to your website
 Insure you have a call to action for your email sign up area
 Create website pages that are consistent and self evident
 Integrate your social sites into your website

54. Have a successful NAMM Show!

55. Thank You!
www.michaelnewmanconsulting.com