Common Mistakes. Wedding Professionals Are Making On Their Websites. Created by BRENDA CADMAN

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1 10 Common Mistakes Wedding Professionals Are Making On Their Websites Created by BRENDA CADMAN

2 10 Common Mistakes Wedding Professionals Are Making On Their Websites INTRODUCTION Your website is one of your most important marketing assets. I have been developing websites for over fourteen years and recognized early on that a website is not an expense, but one of the greatest investments a business owner can make. These days, my focus is squarely on the wedding industry. Your website is your front door online, so to speak, so it is critical that you make that great first impression to entice wedding couples to learn more about how you can help them create their perfect wedding day. While working with the professionals in this industry, I began to notice many businesses were making the same set of mistakes over and over, so in this e-book we re going to address 10 of the most common ones and give you some tips on how to fix them on your own website. SO LET S DIVE IN! i

3 1 Your Website Looks Outdated MISTAKE #1: YOUR WEBSITE LOOKS OUTDATED Modern couples expect their providers to be up to speed with the latest trends, and having your website be described as outdated is not the impression you want to leave with wedding couples. Here are 5 things that will automatically make your website look outdated: Using default web colors like blue and purple links. Instead, choose colors that work with your brand s color palette and avoid those default color shades. Avoid old school fonts like Times New Roman or Comic Sans. Instead, use Google Fonts for a free and easy way to add modern, attractive fonts. Give your site a look right now do you have any blinking or flashing elements, such as mail icons, gifs, banners, buttons, or a rotating logo? Get rid of them. It s completely outdated to use them. Website visitor counters are a thing of the past. You should be using a robust, behind the scenes analytics tool like Google Analytics. Skip the neon. Fluorescent yellow or hot pink (and so on) look highly dated, especially against a black background. For more examples of items that make a site look outdated, visit: WeddingBusinessWebsites.com/Outdated-Website

4 2 Your Website Has Too Much Going On MISTAKE #2: YOUR WEBSITE HAS TOO MUCH GOING ON If you have too much going on, it will make your website look cluttered and overwhelming. Here are some changes that can go a long way to creating a more organized and visually appealing website: Limit your website to two or three font styles to give it a clean, modern look. Stick to a cohesive color palette that matches your brand. I have seen some brands effectively use multiple colors throughout their website, but I would recommend that you keep it to two to three colors (not including a neutral light or dark color for text or backgrounds). For example, choose one primary color and one or two accent colors, and then use it consistently throughout your website. Images are great, but they should enhance, not clutter up your page. Don t add pictures just for the sake of adding pictures.

5 3 Your Website Text Is Difficult To Read MISTAKE #3: YOUR WEBSITE TEXT IS DIFFICULT TO READ The quality of the fonts you select for your website are a large contributor to your website s usability. Fonts should be easy to read and consistent in size with the exception of some headings or subheadings. In general, sans serif fonts are preferable for website use because they are easier to read on screen. Font colors should also be considered. Make sure your font color is readable against your background color. Too much contrast (for example, using yellow text on a black background) can be just as ineffective as low contrast (for example, using a thin, light gray text against a white background). Also, never used stylized, fancy fonts for your body text. Save those for your titles and accent text and stick to a simpler font. Note that sans serif fonts are often easier to read on screen than serif fonts.

6 4 Your Website Has Broken Links & Errors MISTAKE #4: YOUR WEBSITE HAS BROKEN LINKS & ERRORS Broken links and errors imply poor site maintenance and means potential clients won t be able to find information they are looking for. Worse, it automatically gives users the impression of laziness, poor attention to detail, and general lack of care for your website and possibly your business. Explore your own website regularly to check for broken links, as external links are often changed or moved with no notice to linking sites, rendering them dead links. If you are unable to fix the link, remove it from your website altogether. Get friends or family to proof your website and check for errors and missing information. There is nothing like a pair of fresh eyes, and it s free too!

7 5 You Haven t Implemented Analytics MISTAKE #5: YOU HAVEN T IMPLEMENTED ANALYTICS Website analytics provide invaluable information not only about your website s performance, but also about the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. It can also reveal important facts about your target market. Therefore, it is important to have them implemented to make sure your website is doing its job, and that your efforts are not in vain. There s an easy and free way to address this! Simply set up a Google Analytics account and obtain the resulting code to plug into your website. If you re not sure how to add the code into your site, your web developer should be able to do it very quickly. To set up your Google Analytics account, go to: Google.com/Analytics

8 6 You re Using A Personal Or Free Domain Name For MISTAKE #6: YOU RE USING A PERSONAL OR FREE DOMAIN NAME FOR If you re thinking of using your Gmail address (or Yahoo, Telus, Shaw, etc.) as your contact address on your wedding business website STOP! You should always use an that shares your domain name (e.g., in our case, we use hello@ weddingbusinesswebsites.com), not your personal or free address. Making this one change on your website will contribute to raising your credibility and professionalism. Most domain services let you set up a professional for free or inexpensively. Alternately, there are some great hosting providers such as Google or Zoho that are highly affordable.

9 7 You ve Only Provided A Contact Form On Your Contact Page MISTAKE #7: YOU VE ONLY PROVIDED A CONTACT FORM ON YOUR CONTACT PAGE It may seem redundant to provide both your and a form, but trust us when we say you should. In fact, if we had to choose between having just a form versus actual contact info only, we d go for the latter. Why? Simply put, many users don t like forms. It often doesn t provide a copy of the message sent, it confines the user to the fields provided (annoying!), and we don t know where the message is going! Providing your address gives potential clients the choice to fill out your form now, or keep a copy of your for future use. An address can be easily forwarded and shared with others, whereas a form forces people to visit your website to contact you. This is not necessarily a good thing, especially if your website is not mobile responsive. Make it easy for your customers to contact you via the method they prefer list your phone, , address (if you have a business location) and yes, a form.

10 8 Music Automatically Plays When Your Website Loads MISTAKE #8: MUSIC AUTOMATICALLY PLAYS WHEN YOUR WEBSITE LOADS Websites should never have music or video on auto-play. Most users get distracted or turned off when they hear background sounds they did not explicitly activate or choose. If it s important for you to have audio or video, always use a media player so users can play and pause anytime. Auto-play also slows down your website s loading time, which may cause users to exit out of impatience. And finally auto-play music is one of the biggest factors that make a website appear dated, so we recommend removing it altogether. If music is crucial to your business or branding, install a media player (do not set it to autoplay!) so users can choose to turn on the music if they want.

11 9 Social Media Is Poorly Integrated On Your Website MISTAKE #9: SOCIAL MEDIA IS POORLY INTEGRATED ON YOUR WESBITE Be Consistent. Often business owners will only list their social media platforms on their homepage or one other page (usually the Contact page). You should place your social media links in the same location on every page. Be Visible. Make sure that your social media links aren t hard to find, either because they are placed in an odd or obscure place on your website, or because your website is cluttered and they get lost amidst all the content. Choose a location that is easy to find. Your footer is a great option because you can add extra text or call to action with it. Be Recognizable. Use the official platform icons to indicate social media links. These icons are recognizable and what your customers will be looking for if they want to find your social media properties. Simple text blends in too much and isn t strong enough as a call-to-action. Be Accurate. Make sure your links actually take your visitors to the right pages! You may not even realize that certain users aren t being directed to your business Facebook page double check in your page settings that you haven t hidden your page from any viewers, unless there s a specific reason you don t want people in other countries to be able to access your page. If your Facebook link doesn t seem to be working for everyone who tries to visit, it s possible you are blocking access to your page.

12 10 You Don t Think Security And Backups Are Important MISTAKE #10: YOU DON T THINK SECURITY AND BACKUPS ARE IMPORTANT The reality is that small business owners, including wedding professionals, are often targets for hackers. In fact, according to a September 2013 Forbes article, a shocking 30,000 websites are hacked every day, and the majority of those sites are legitimate small businesses like yourself. Here are 5 simple ways to ensure that your time is free to spend on your wedding business, not fixing a hacked website: Use maximally strong passwords - This applies to your WordPress login and your hosting passwords. Strong passwords contain a mix of letters, numbers and special characters. Do not use admin as your username - When you install WordPress, the default username is admin, and a lot of people don t change it. If you don t update this, it makes your website more vulnerable. Run your Wordpress updates regularly - Your WordPress updates are not something to be ignored. In fact, it s imperative to run upgrades because they improve features, fix bugs and prevent hackers from inserting malicious code. Implement malware monitoring - Sucuri.net is an awesome website monitoring and malware cleanup service. In a nutshell, their service frequently scans your website and alerts you if you ve been hacked or infected. If you do end up hacked, the Sucuri team will clean it up for you at no additional cost. Utilize a third party backups solution - It s much more reliable, it s faster and it s more efficient for you to have direct access to your backups, rather than relying on a hosting company to restore them for you. Consider Vaultpress.com or Codeguard.com, both of which are inexpensive.

13 Who is Wedding Business Websites? BRENDA CADMAN Principal, Wedding Business Websites Brenda Cadman has been providing website development services for over 14 years and in the past has successfully managed both local and national marketing initiatives. These days, her focus is squarely on the wedding industry and she dedicates most of her time to educating and working with wedding professionals across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Mexico. At WeddingBusinessWebsites.com, we help wedding industry professionals build websites they love.

Strong signs your website needs a professional redesign

Strong signs your website needs a professional redesign Think - when was the last time that your business website was updated? Better yet, when was the last time you looked at your website? When the Internet