A previous blog talked about the fact that using website design templates to craft your own site might not pay dividends in the longer term. It’s also possible that deciding to undertake the project yourself might cause harm to your business, because to design a website that works, there are several key danger areas to avoid.

Firstly, it’s not unknown for owners to become so enthusiastic during the process that other vital aspects of the company receive less attention than they should, as interminable hours are spent trying to get their web presence ‘just right’. The finished website might ‘work’, but at what cost elsewhere?

Other problems often concern the content. It’s natural for an owner to want their business to look as good as possible through its web presence. Yet, in creating a website that works, the real key is to make it do so from the visitor’s point of view. Therefore, it needs to be both understandable and accessible to those who do reach it. Such guests are arriving for a specific reason, one that has little to do with your business and is much more concerned with their needs. If what they find is a website that spends too much time saying ‘we’re great and here’s why’ then it doesn’t work for them. They are looking for one that immediately seems to say ‘we appreciate what you need and here’s how to get it’. Otherwise, their reaction is often just to leave and go elsewhere – and to do so very quickly. Many businesses lose customers they never even knew they had!

Another problem that prevents your website being as effective as you want is that it’s very easy for a business insider to pitch their web content to match their own level of understanding, which is often considerably greater than that of a person visiting it. Jargon is often used but rarely explained. Communication shortcuts, obvious to those who know the business, services or products, become commonplace. Even the most basic of information points can be omitted, simply because they are so obvious to the people within the company but less so to users of the site.

Your website must also work by being fully visible and thoroughly compatible across the wide range of devices now used to access the information. Increasingly, it’s vital to make sure that website design templates can deliver a site that is fully accessible. This is another reason, to make sure you do have a thoroughly workable website, it really does pay to bring expert help into this area; because good website design is about so much more than having good things to say about your business!