When starting out your online business/brand or moving an existing presence to the web, the first course of action is usually to create a website for consumers and visitors to access. There is a careful balance that must be maintained between style, accessibility and the ability to edit the overall design and function easily. With a variety of web development tools and content management systems available today, it is quite easy for anyone to set up their own website. Unfortunately, not everyone has an idea right out of the gate of the dos and do not’s that revolve around website development. Below, we will discuss some of the most common newbie website owner mistakes you’ll want to avoid making.

Bad Domain Name Selection

Usually, the very first thing you’ll do is decide on a domain name and make the purchase along with your web hosting. This is a hugely important decision, and one many do not consider carefully enough. Domain names that are hard to remember, hard to spell, too long in nature or that even feature subdomains are general no-no’s for your business. You want to select a domain name that is as short as possible, easy to remember, relates to your brand and that is top-level in nature (“www.yourdomain.com”, and not “www.yourdomain.com/yourpage”). Domain names are important because they leave impressions on searchers, shoppers and users, as well as determine in part how well you will rank in search engine results. If you have picked a domain name that violates any of these rules and are still new to the game, then you need to pony up the additional $10 or so in order to purchase a new one for future use.

Bad Hosting Selection

Even worse than the domain name selection, many individuals make the mistake of selecting the wrong hosting provider for their needs. Search engines and users alike will penalize you for a slow-loading webpage; not all hosting providers are created equally. Some hosts will cram as many domains as possible onto one server, which usually results in slower page loads for all involved. Some companies charge much less than others, but as is often the case, you get what you pay for. When pinging links on social media and in search to your audiences, you want to make a good first impression. You cannot do so if your hosting provider loads slowly. Another huge consideration to make when selecting web hosting is what features with respect to site maintenance, reliability and access are available. If you need a MySQL database but your barebones hosting company doesn’t offer that, then it’s not a good deal.

Failure to Accommodate Mobile

Did you know that over 40% of web traffic now originates from mobile devices? The internet is quickly becoming an empire of tablets, smartphones and portable forms of computing power; if your website is designed solely to accommodate desktop and traditional computers, then you are losing a lot of traffic. Mobile users who cannot properly view your content will not fight with your website to see what they want; they’ll go elsewhere. Likewise, Google recognizes this behaviour through your bounce rates, ensuring that you will inevitably descend in SERPs and that your efforts of pinging links become less and less effective. Incorporating a responsive design theme is quite easy these days, so do not allow your website to exist for long without making this adjustment!