Learn the top 10 website mistakes so that YOU can avoid them and plan a website that is functional and interesting and captivates your target audience.

1. Poor Quality Website Design.

Don't make your business look like you are working from the back of a broken down truck or a home office. Customers will immediately feel nervous or unimpressed by your company if you look amateurish, disorganised or messy. Remember, this is the first impression they will have of your business. If your website is designed to find you new customers, then you want to give them the very best impression.
Whether your product costs $150 or $5,000, your prospective customer will be making judgments from the very beginning. It is human nature; we all make decisions on which company we want to deal with by what we see. If you provide an amateur impression, then be realistic ,you won't get many sales from your website until you promote a professional image and offer value to your potential customers.
While some designers charge ridiculous amounts for low quality work, there are good quality designers who can give you a good-looking presence. The best way to check out whom you are dealing with is to speak to previous customers. Did they get good service and most importantly did the website work for their business!

All of Aspedia's E-Business consultants will sit with you and complete a 'Project Design Form' which when complete will be the basis for your website 'look and feel' and will be based around your ideas and reflect YOUR business. Call Aspedia for your free on-site consultation now on 1800 677 656.

2. Over Bearing Designs

Don't make your design too overbearing; this will only take away from your message to your customers.
Graphic designers love to design, that is after all what they sell, their designs. In sharp contrast, you need to look professional, and the design needs to help you sell your product. Please, make sure your website is not the 'Product' of their personal talents and that it reflects YOUR business and its image NOT the graphic Designers!

Your website needs to be a 'work horse', not a 'show horse'. You need customers to enter your website and immediately see what you can do for them. Please carefully evaluate your website and make sure it is going to give a strong and positive representation of your business.
Aspedia's Graphic Designers are given your Project Design details that you worked on with your Aspedia E-Business Consultant, so they are working to achieve the design and layout that you have specified. Also, to get the look just right, your quote includes 3 alterations to graphic design prior to building the website.

3. Content

Long-winded Website welcome introductions give your customers the message that you don't have much to say but you are going to take a long time to say it.
They are a:

• Waste of valuable time when you could be selling to your customers
• Waste of valuable marketing dollars as they reduce your chances of sales to your customers, they will leave the site if they can't find what they are looking for FAST!

If you feel you need a small welcome introduction about your company, that's fine include it, but then get straight on to what it is you do and what you sell. If you are unsure of how to write or what to say, then look at others areas of your business for inspiration and ideas. This could include a recent successful marketing campaign, why did it work so well? Was the message clear and to the point and use some of the content or words to build on?
Another option could be to hire a content writer to do this job for you, they can offer a cost effective solution that will save you time and resources and they will give you a blueprint: to show you how to use your words to increase your rankings on the search engines and maximise you websites potential.
You and your customers are not the only ones reading your website; the Search Engines are going to be reading your content. You need to make sure you have the right information in the right place on your website to maximise your results.

Here at Aspedia we have Copy Writers that can not only produce professional content tailored to your site but arrange your words, images and sentences to be 'Search Engine Friendly'. Ask about our copy writing and content writing services now and make sure that your site is professional and well laid out before it is launched.

4. Flashing and Fast Movements!

Try to keep fast moving flashing items to a minimum on your website. You have gone to the trouble of bringing your prospective clients to your site don't annoy them while they are trying to read about why they should consider doing business with you.
Constantly flashing banners can be likened to a child nagging at your side to buy them a lollie while you are trying to have an important conversation on a business matter that is worth thousands to your business. It is distracting, and seldom helps you to deliver your key message.
If you like the idea of flash try making it look clean and professional with slow and subtle movements, it is a lot easier on the eye, or just an good flash entry to your banner will work well.

Aspedia can show you some examples of flash that we have created that do 'fit the bill' and if you look at the Aspedia website you will see an example of a subtle flash banner that suits the look and feel of the business very well. Remember that flash is very personal and not all viewers of your website will have the same view as you so keep it simple and easy to understand by sitting with your E-Business consultant and fully mapping out your requirements down to the finest detail.

5. Images

Make sure you put good quality pictures on your website. There is nothing worse than straining your eyes to try to look at a computer screen at bad or ugly pictures of someone's product. Here is the message that you will give to your customers.
If you can't get good pictures of your product then you aren't proud of it. If you aren't proud of it why sell it!
Digital cameras are cheap these days. The technology is easy to connect and use. If you have a good quality website system, putting pictures onto your site is easy, it only takes a few minutes. Most images presented on websites don't need to be opened up as a larger image but if they do make sure that they open in a new window so the customer doesn't leave your site or the page they were on. Navigation is the key to keeping your customers on your site for longer. Images also give you the opportunity to maximise your search engine optimisation by utilising your image name and alt source.
Give your products the presentation that they deserve. Make them look good. With the Aspedia content managed websites you have the ability to upload as many images as you want and edit them in 'real time' on the page which allows you to resize the image to fit in around the text and you can even wrap the text around images to produce a smooth flowing page that looks clean and sharp.

6. Web page takes to long to load!

How often have you heard that statement before, it is the most annoying thing about surfing the web and do you really think potential customers have got the time to wait for your page to load?

Reduce the size of the images that you load onto your website to 50kb max if possible and make sure they are in JPEG format; this will make them download faster and make sure that the images look clearer. Often this makes your products look much more attractive to your prospective customer.
Again good website systems will give you the flexibility to do this within your program, but if you do not have a good system, then try editing the size in the photo software that comes with the camera or use a free one on the internet.

The Internet is all about speed. All of Aspedia's website come with a built in image tool which allows you to resize images and crop them to suit the destination page. Your Aspedia E-Business consultant will show you how to organise your images during your training session which is included in all of our Websites except the LITE site.

7. E-Commerce Security

If you ask people for their credit cards but do not take the necessary steps to protect their credit card information then you are giving them a very clear message, don't care about you.

Most people I know are very cautious about putting their credit card details into the Internet. To ask them to do this without providing them with any security for their credit card information is in my opinion reckless and without regard for the value of your customer.

The simple truth is that most people won't bother buying from you. They will move onto the next website to buy. How much business are you costing yourself by short cutting this area? More importantly what message are you giving to your customers? If you have a product worth selling on the Internet, then give your customers the right message about your company and that product. Aspedia offer 'SSL' (Secure Socket Layer) certificates for all our E-Commerce websites, this means your site will have 128 bit encryption and this will be identified by the 's' in the 'https' and also a padlock symbol in the bottom right hand corner of the browser.

Your E-Business consultant will explain the options available to you in this arena as there are many different types of SSL certificates and it depends on how you want to trade and where you want to trade, for example do you wish to sell your products overseas?

E-Commerce offers 24/7 trading opportunities and as such Aspedia has invested heavily in this technology to bring you one of the worlds most advanced E-Commerce platforms, capable of performing complex transactions for a wide variety of business types. Call us today for your free on-site consultation to discover the benefits of the Aspedia E-Commerce Web Solution.

8. Make it easy to find the information your customer wants!

The second biggest complaint about websites is that they are hard to navigate. Typically, I hear comments like, 'they are too hard to find your way around' or 'I couldn't find the information that I was looking for'.
Why make it hard for your customers? You want them to open their wallets and give you cash , why make it hard for them to do this?
Five simple rules worth following:

• Clearly lay out your menus for people to find information fast.
• Use headings and separators so they are easy to read & navigate.
• Make it easy for people to contact you by using enquiry forms
• Use convenient drop down menu systems that are simple and quick to use
• Don't make it difficult for people to do business with you!

Here at Aspedia we believe in the '1 click' system, this means your customer should be able to navigate their way to the page they want by moving the mouse around and only having to click once to go to the page they want. This offers fast and easy navigation and keeps the client immersed in your product. To find out more about the '1 click' system, contact us on 1800 677 656.

9. Encourage Customers to Contact you

I find it incredibly frustrating when I go to a website, decide that I want to contact the business and then spend 10 minutes looking for their phone number or email address to contact their office. Then when I have found the email address I click it and have to wait for the mail client to load.
Clearly it is a major issue. Ideally have a Contact us form on your website so that customers don' have to leave your site in order to email you. Remember to put your phone number, full address details and a location map on your website. You may even want a 'request a call-back' button as this will offer your customers an easy option, all they need to do is enter their name and telephone number and click submit. You can then call them back at the time that is most convenient to them.

Aspedia can offer the 'Call-back' feature and you can choose how much information you want to take from the client but it is best to keep it short such as name, telephone number and maybe a drop down box offering a choice of time to call. Call us for more details.

10. Your Expectations

You have objectives that you need to reach in your business,your website should be one of the marketing tools helping you to achieve these business objectives. Do not buy a website without knowing how you will work with it to make you money. This is a trap many have fallen into. They buy a website from a website designer who makes it look nice and put it on the Internet for you. Effectively they have done their job and you are left with a website somewhere in cyberspace doing goodness knows what. All you know is that it has cost you a lot of money and that it is not making you a lot of money.

Please, find a company with a system that you can use yourself such as a content managed website with full training, so that you have help and support to get the website working for you. Simple things like regular and up-to-date information on how to optimise your website to the search engines, how to embed your sales process into your website so that it brings in leads, and how you can get free press on your website and your business.

You will need to know all this information. What use is your website going to be if you don't know how to use it to bring in leads and sales? If you currently have a website for your business does it offer the flexibility that you need to update content 'on the fly' add features, images, change the look of pages and even promote special offers which can be timed to turn on and off! Do you have a newsletter system if so are you paying it?

Aspedia's approach is unique in the marketplace because we offer free consultation which is solution based so your business obtains the best website based on your specific business needs. All Aspedia's products are fully scalable so even if you start small you can grow with Aspedia and never need to shelve your website just expand and redesign at any time in the future.

Call today for your free Consultation with one of our experienced E-Business Consultants, we even come to you! 1800 677 656