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Table of Contents
PAGE 3 Domain name and hosting
PAGE 3 Domain name
PAGE 4 It’s not brandable
PAGE 4 It’s unpronounceable
PAGE 4 It’s too long
PAGE 4 It violates copyright laws
PAGE 5 Hosting
PAGE 5 Choosing the wrong hosting plan
PAGE 5 Your hosting is not reliable
PAGE 6 Your hosting is not flexible
PAGE 6 UX (User Experience)
PAGE 6 Your website is not responsive
PAGE 7 Poor Forms
PAGE 8 CTA (Call to Action) is not clear
PAGE 9 SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
PAGE 9 Robots.txt and Sitemaps
PAGE 9 No title tags and meta descriptions
PAGE 10 Broken links
PAGE 10 Content
PAGE 11 Dummy text
PAGE 11 Plagiarised copy and images
PAGE 12 Sources:
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Websites today are immensely important. It does not matter if your business is big or small, you
can not succeed in it without a website. But even if you have a team of seasoned professionals
on it, websites are complex, there are lots and lots of things that can go very wrong and even
harm your business.

In this eBook we will look into the most typical issues and help you make sure none of them
happen with your precious new website.

Domain name and hosting

Domain name

The first thing any website needs is a name. Domain name is going to be one of the things you’ll
have to live with for a loooong time, so you can not afford to treat it lightly. Other reasons that
make the domain name choice so important are:
• It’s the first impression. The url your visitors see or type in is the very first thing they
see and in many cases - know about you. A good domain can make a lasting
positive impression, and a bad one can make the visitors run for the hills.
• Domain name defines your brand. The right domain name is the perfect opportunity
to increase your brand recognition
• It can affect SEO. Yes, exact match domains are no longer a must, but keywords in
domain name can still help your rankings.
Well, now that you know that your domain name is really important let’s see what can go wrong
here.
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Image source: domaindive.com

It’s not brandable

Say your domain name aloud, does it sound like a brand or like something generic and strange?
Hyphens and numbers are usually not a good idea here, they make it sound generic or strange.
So try to avoid these.

It’s unpronounceable

You might think that it’s not important since people mostly click on a link or type it in. But
psychology says otherwise. People are more likely to remember and have more positive
associations with something they can easily pronounce and think about. Of course, this depends
on the language you are targeting, but in any case - if you can’t easily say it, you can be sure the
name won’t be memorable and you’ll lose all the benefits brandability could give you.

It’s too long

This really should be a subpoint of the previous one. The shorter the domain name, the easier it
is to type, say, share etc.

It violates copyright laws

This is dangerous waters. If you don’t want to be sued make sure you don’t use someone’s
trademark name. If there are any doubts do consult an attorney or legal professional.
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Hosting

Hosting may seem intimidating at first, but it really isn’t that scary or complicated. There are a few
things that can go wrong, especially if you don’t know what to pay attention to.

Choosing the wrong hosting plan

So many things can go wrong if you end up buying the wrong hosting that does not satisfy your
website’s every need. Prior to buying any web hosting you should understand what those needs
are. Some of the most basic questions to ask yourself are:
• What kind of website are you building? Is it eCommerce, is it a photo portfolio, is it
a simple blog etc.?
• Does your website need any special software?
• How big can the traffic volume go?
• Do you need Windows applications?
Once you understand what you might actually need from your hosting provider there are tons of
comparison websites to help you choose the best value for your money.

Your hosting is not reliable

If your website is down more that it’s up you have serious problems. To avoid this nightmare make
sure the hosting provider has high uptime. There’s a number of ways to check this, here’s a nice
guide with a list of tools to check uptime:

http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/web-hosting-guides/the-ultimate-guide-in-
tracking-website-uptime/
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Another thing that makes hosting provider reliable is great support. They must be there 24/7 to
help you out with any issues. Most of the web hosts nowadays provide tech support, but not all of
them have quality in this area. You’ll need to thoroughly check reviews.

Your hosting is not flexible

What happens if your business grows bigger? Will you be able to upgrade your hosting plan?
How much will it cost to upgrade? If you decide to run with a different webhost how easy will the
transfer be?

You need the answers to these questions before you buy a hosting plan.

UX (User Experience)
You product or service might be unique or the best on the market, but if your website is a UX
nightmare your business is doomed. The core principle of great web design is that an aesthetically
attractive design paired with value content is nothing without the right UX. These are the most
common things that can go wrong here:

Your website is not responsive

Studies show that the number of mobile users is constantly growing. Another thing that should
concern you is that Google banned websites that are not optimized for mobile from their mobile
search results. You can not ignore these facts.
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Creating and maintaining separate desktop and mobile versions of your website is a costly and
exhausting affair.

Responsiveness though allows your website to change in accordance with the visitor’s screen
resolution. This way you have one site that looks and performs well on any device with any screen
resolution.

And if your website is not responsive? Well, people will most probably think it’s broken and leave.
Bad for business. Check these responsive designs.

Poor Forms

Is there too much fields in your forms? Dan Zarrela of Hubspot analyzed about 40,000 of customers
and found out that conversion rate improves nearly by half, if there are just three form fields
instead of four. Your clients are most likely to abandon your website if they see they’ll have to
suffer through filling out a long and overly complex form to get your precious product, service or
newsletter.

Source: smashingmagazine.com
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Keeping the forms short and keeping the data captured in one go at minimum is key to success
here. If you do have to ask for more data consider breaking it all into several steps, but be careful
here, too much steps is frustrating as well.

Read more:

7 Common Web Form Design Mistakes to Avoid

Web Form Design: Showcases And Solutions

CTA (Call to Action) is not clear

Every website has a goal, yours will have one too. Failing to clearly articulate it to your customers
is failing your business all together.

Whether you want them to sign up, or make a purchase, or request a quote it’s essential to let
them know what it actually is you want them to do. Any call to action has to be visible and easy
to comply with.

There are lots of other UX mistakes that might occur if you are not careful. But don’t panic just yet,
you can always opt to base your website on a professionally done web template. These are made
in line with every UX best practice and thoroughly tested for any mistakes.
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SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

So many things can go wrong here and spoil all your efforts, even a small mistake can have a huge
and costly impact. Below are the most common issues you might face with SEO.

Robots.txt and Sitemaps

User-agent: *

Disallow: /

This is all it takes to completely eliminate all your hard work and efforts. These two simple lines
in the robots.txt file completely block the crawlers from your online project.

Another thing that can go wrong is not having a robots.txt and sitemaps at all. These two play
crucial role in SEO, yet they are often an afterthought.

Check the robots file prior to launching to make sure it won’t block the crawlers. Make sure your
sitemaps are in place and are accurate; sitemap.xml file is the very thing that allows the search
engines to find and categorize your website. You don’t want these two messed up.

No title tags and meta descriptions

Title tag is basically the very first thing your prospective clients will see, it’s the text that Google
displays as the page title in the search results, and it’s displayed in the browser:
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Naturally, displaying generic text instead of a properly optimized title will damage your business.
Using the keywords you want to rank for in search results is a good idea here.

Title tags need to be short (under 60 characters), descriptive and to the point. And make sure every
page has a title tag.

Meta description is the next thing your customers will see after the title tag. This is the short text
that is displayed in the snippet below your url and title in the search engine results:

If you want your click through rate to be great you need to make sure the meta descriptions are as
unique as you can manage, descriptive and engaging.

Broken links

Broken links are frustrating both for the end user and for the search engine crawlers. Manually
checking every internal and external link is a good idea.

Content
Content is king. Long gone are the days when you could copy some dull text from all over the
place, dump it together and call it a day. You could do that back in the day when backlinks were the
thing that determined whether or not yours’d be the first website people see when they searched
for something you offer.
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Nowadays you have to offer quality content to stand out from the crowd of competitors. Content
has to be unique, engaging and valuable. Here’s what can go wrong from the start:

Dummy text

When we work on an online project we usually fill the pages with some dummy or test content.
Then the website goes live and the dummy text might get forgotten in some not that obvious
places. Well, check for that, you don’t want your customers to see Lorem Ipsum instead of your
valuable copy, don’t you?

Plagiarised copy and images

Violation of copyright laws is a serious crime, I’m sure you understand this. Stolen content won’t
do you any favours even if it wasn’t punishable by law. Google and any other search engine simply
won’t show your pages in their search results if you copy someone’s work. Why would they if there’s
perfectly appropriate said someone’s website with original content and the very product your
customers are looking for? So do your job, create good and original content before you launch the
website and don’t forget to update it regularly when the project is up and running.
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Sources:
https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/2016-3-7-first-seo-steps-to-take-after-you-launch-a-
new-website

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-guide/what-to-do-when-things-go-wrong/

http://searchengineland.com/scary-many-ways-seo-can-go-wrong-261625

https://moz.com/blog/10-things-relaunch-your-website

http://www.innonlinesolution.com/things-check-launching-a-website/

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2016/10/4-ux-mistakes-almost-every-designer-makes/

https://www.adpushup.com/blog/9-worst-ux-mistakes-you-must-avoid/

https://www.found.co.uk/blog/avoid-these-5-common-ux-mistakes/#.WKR3c2995pg

https://conversionxl.com/common-ux-mistakes/
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Thanks for Reading!

If you’ve found this guide useful, chances are you’ll like the other guides and e-books that
we have to offer. While working on these e-books, our authors focus on the topics that help
novice site owners build their online businesses and make their websites profitable:

See other e-books

P.S. Well-written content is crucial for your website, but there’s is a ton of other factors that
influence its success. Namely, impeccable design and robust architecture are the two cornerstone
aspects of any online resource.

In case you’re just about to launch a new website — or want to redesign your current one — have
a look at the awesome readymade solutions available from TemplateMonster. We’ve got more that
26,000 website themes to choose from, and our products have been crafted by professionals.

See our website themes