Everyone seems to be a website expert these days. Any and all businesses have been scrambling to ensure their digital presence is representative of the product they are trying to sell, or the vision they want to convey. But, did you ever stop to think about ways in which your website may be detrimental to your business?

“We build about 5-10 websites a month,” Chelsea Brown, our CEO and founder comments. “While most of our customers have established websites or at least landing pages where they can post about their services and contact information, some of the most common mistakes we see our clients make is not updating their website often enough.”

With more than twelve years developing and implementing marketing for commercial real estate, we asked Chelsea and the team to give us their top three mistakes they often see. In those top contenders, we realized that these mistakes are not only easily avoidable, but if they are not handled, they can be blocking new business opportunities from coming in. Let’s take a deeper look into these top three items:

#1 Not including Alt Text or following ADA Compliance

Something as simple as including Alt Text on your website’s graphics will not only ensure optimum SEO ranks, but it will also ensure that your website is accessible. ADA Compliance is not the same in each state, but there are general rules that need to be addressed when going live with a website.

According to GetADAaccesible.com, The alt text should be the most concise description possible of the image’s purpose. If anything more than a short phrase or sentence is needed, it would be better to use one of the long description methods discussed in complex images.

Usually, there’s no need to include words like “image”, “icon”, or “picture” in the alt text. People who can see will know this already, and screen readers announce the presence of an image. In some situations, it may be important to distinguish between paintings, photographs, or illustrations, etc., but it’s best to avoid the more generic use of the terms.

#2 Not sizing your images correctly

As of February of 2022, the most recent image sizing recommendations state that unoptimized images slow down websites. Slow websites = bad user experience, lower chances to rank in Google searches and ultimately less inquiries and customers. Saving your images with appropriate dimensions and optimizing images for the web can help with a few things:

• Speed – according to research done by Google, if a web page loads in more than 5 seconds, the probability that a mobile user will leave that page increases by 90%. By resizing and reducing image sizes, you make your website pages faster.
• User experience – good quality, impactful images helps visitors have a more engaging experience while they browse your website. By keeping those images optimized and loading fast – you’re ensuring a seamless and smooth experience for your visitors, which motivates them to spend more time on your site and explore your content.
• SEO ranking – site speed is a ranking factor. The faster your site is, the better you can potentially rank. Web pages with optimized images will load much quicker on both desktop and mobile devices.

#3 Not having a designated developer

We have touched on this topic in depth in our blog on why outsourcing is the best option for your CRE Marketing, but more importantly, not having a designated developer to be on top of your website changes can be sales suicide.

All of our clients are assigned a marketing manager, but in addition to that, our web clients have designated developers available to address any issue that may come up. Bugs and issues are pop up from time to time up, and not having someone “on call” to address those items will hinder both web functionality as well as Google Ranking.

Next Steps?

Our complimentary website audit is a great way to start your website optimization journey. Make sure to check out our portfolio and website gallery to learn more about the type of work and pricing we offer.