3 web design mistakes that are costing you money

They're very common, totally understandable, and responsible for countless unnecessary headaches for the business owners who make them.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. VIDEO: 3 web design mistakes that are costing you money
3. Mistake #1:
4. Mistake #2:
5. Mistake #3:
6. Recommended resources
7. Let's take action
8. Share this post

Intro

We're talking about three web design mistakes that might be costing you, your hard-earned money.

Disclaimer, I am not a web designer myself, although I've certainly worked on my fair share of wellness websites. As always, I'm going to share links and resources with you, and I encourage you to follow up and do your own research to make the best decision for you.

Read on for how this information can help you in your business:

Please note: You can support my blog by using the affiliate links below! If you go on to make a purchase, I'll receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you!

VIDEO: 3 web design mistakes that are costing you money

Mistake #1

The first mistake that I see health and wellness professionals making with their websites is choosing the wrong platform to host it. The platform is the digital land on which your website is hosted. It’s really common, especially when folks are putting their website together for the first time to choose a really cost-effective option or one that promises great ease.

Wix is an example of this type of platform. It's usually very cost-effective, at least in terms of the upfront costs and it promises to streamline the process of getting your website up and running. In many ways, it delivers on these promises. The reason that it ends up costing money in the long run, is that what you gain in the ease with a platform like Wix, you usually end up sacrificing flexibility in the ability to have a website that does what you need it to do.

For instance, you might find that you're pretty happy early on with how your website looks on a platform like Wix, but over time you run into speed bumps. When you try to do much that's outside of that kind of predetermined box for your website, this often shows up with really reasonable changes that business owners want to make to their sites, like moving where an opt-in lives or changing up a form.

You might also find over time that it's difficult to optimize for SEO on a Wix site. These are really major issues and it's worth thinking about down the road to how costly they might be, both in terms of actual financial cost or paying an expert to assist you, either in migrating over to a different site or in trying to resolve these issues on your existing site. As well as the time cost and the cost of your head space that could be used to drive other projects in your business, or do your work with clients. I'm not just picking on Wix here specifically. These same frustrations often come up for folks who choose to build their website on Wordpress.com.

If you weren't aware, yes, there are two different WordPress platforms. There's Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org. So rather than go through all the differences here, I'm going to add a link so that you can read about the differences, but oftentimes people will go with Wordpress.com because it seems so simple and it seems very cost-effective, but again, you sacrifice your ability to make changes to your own site down the line, and you really, really want the freedom to be able to do that. Hosting your website on Wordpress.org does offer you the flexibility that you want with your own website. Other platforms that offer you that same degree of flexibility include Squarespace and Showit.

Mistake #2

The second web design mistake that ends up costing too many health and wellness business owners’ money, in the long run, is using a free template for their website. So, by template, I mean the design structure that sits on top of your piece of digital turf, that really sets the framework for what your website is going to look like and you have varying degrees of control over changes that you make to it.

If you're thinking cheap is a highly subjective word, thank you very much, I totally agree with you. I want to caution you that when it comes to website templates, it often is a, you get what you pay for, kind of deal. Especially if you've just paid for your hosting for your website and you have other upfront costs in your business. It's very common to seek out the most economical cost-effective option for a template to get you started. The problem is that when you purchase a template that was not professionally designed or was not designed with businesses like yours in mind, over time, you might find that there's a ceiling on how good your website can actually look, how clean, how professional, or how responsive, so it's very common for business owners to try a zillion different hacks and strategies to wrangle what they need out of frankly, a template that was never going to get the job done.

A real emotional cost is that this can undermine your own confidence in your own sense of self-efficacy in your business. Often the business owners that I work with in my programs, and one on one will share that they just didn't do a good job with their website or their website is ugly and they don't know what to do about it. They really talk about it like it's a reflection of their talents when they didn't train to be web designers.

I hear that all the time and it's such a shame. It's also such a shame that many of those people get completely fed up, burnt out, and trying to monkey around with their website template that they end up doing a complete 180 and outsourcing the entire thing and splashing out on a custom design, which leads me to mistake #3.

Mistake #3

Paying for a custom-designed website too soon. By too soon, I mean, before you can reasonably afford it, before you've had the experience of working on your website a bit on the back end, just to get the basic understanding of what it takes to run your website before you've gotten to know your dream client, the person you're trying to reach with your website really well, what you want from a website in the meantime before you consider splashing out on a really expensive custom design is you want a website that's going to clearly convey who you help and how you help them.

You want it to be a natural, clean, beautiful professional representation of you and your brand 24/7. You want it to invite your target audience into an ongoing conversation with you. You know, that market research is at the heart of everything that I teach when it comes to your communication, representing yourself in words, it's the entire heartbeat of the copy bank challenge.

I believe a really effective website needs to have lots of opportunities for you to be in conversation with the people that you're trying to reach. It's not just a monologue. This means opportunities for them to share their feedback on the content that you're creating. Lots of creative strategic opportunities for them to opt-in to your email list right there on your website. Even the most excellent web designer is not going to be able to tell you what you need your website to do. That has to be driven by you. So, before you outsource to a custom design of your site, it's really worth taking an excellent middle ground option, which is using a high-quality template. Without a doubt, I think one of the best options out there is Tonic Site Shop.

Tonic creates some of the most beautiful and hardest-working website templates that money can buy. They really walk the talk when it comes to all the strategic parts and pieces that a website needs. Their customer support is unparalleled, you will never be alone as you get in there and start playing around with their templates. Their customer showcase is a testament to just how flexible these templates really are. Just look at some of the ways real business owners are using these templates and really bringing them to life in their own businesses. I am a proud Tonic affiliate. I send copy clients there all the time, and I'm thrilled to share. If you purchase a Tonic template this week using my affiliate link, you can save 20%.

Friend, if you're sitting there thinking I've made one of these mistakes, or several of them, first of all, you are in good company. I told you these are some of the most common web design mistakes that I see. So much business ownership comes through trial and error. We don't know until we get in there and start making some mistakes. That's how I've learned to do anything ever, lots of mistake-making. The great news is that there are fixes for these mistakes. There's always a better option, something that can move you closer to your goals in business.

Recommended resources

Want to explore more ways to avoid website mistakes? Check out these blog posts:

• 3 common website mistakes (+ how you can fix them!)
• 5 simple copy changes to refresh your website
• Worst health & wellness website mistakes (2021)
• 3 sneaky places to find website copy inspiration
• 3 wellness site copy refresh tips  

Let's take action!

Ready to implement what you learned in this post? I like your style!

1. Think about these mistakes to avoid in this post and consider if your business has been affected in any way.
2. Curious about the Challenge I talked about in this post? Come join us here!
3. Want more actionable tips + real-life examples to help you reach more of your dream clients? Subscribe to my email list! 

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