Top Three Website Pitfalls

Posted by Staff Writer on Sunday, June 14, 2009 at 9:04pm.

An effective website can generate sales, promote products and bring new customers to a small business, at a very reasonable cost. It operates 24/7 around the world – as long as entrepreneurs avoid a few common mistakes.

1. Choosing the wrong domain name.

With the proliferation of new extensions such .us, .au, .nz, .uk, and .ca, choosing a domain name has become even more problematic.

The .com domain name is still the first choice for most online retailers, winning over .org, and .net. Most consumers looking for a company like Kwaze-Kwasa, a popular retailer of African crafts, will search for the .com extension first. If they don’t find what they are looking for, many will never return.

This choice is complicated because so many popular domain names have already been purchased. More than 70 million domain names are sold but inactive, taking them off the market.

“If your first, second or even tenth choice of ‘.com’ domain name is taken, get creative,” says Doug Addison, author of Small Websites, Great Results. He suggests adding a location to the site like “nairobi_recruiter.com” or using a slogan such as “no_hassel_car_sales.com”.

According to Addison, it can take a great deal of money to promote a less popular extension such as .net.

The lesser-known country designations such as .cm for Cameroon and .co.ke for Kenya, can be effective if a business is local, or if an international company is targeting a local market in Cameroon or Kenya. These domain names are also successful if the country of origin is part of the company marketing strategy. A company that sells handicrafts from Kenya worldwide might want a .co.ke domain name – especially if the .com domain name was taken. The Kenya Broadcasting Company reports great success with its site,

www.kbc.co.ke.

However, an African company hoping to tap into the lucrative U.S. or European markets would be wise to use a .com extension.

2. Unreliable Web Hosting

A website is not an effective marketing tool if it is always down. In fact, customers who cannot get through often begin to resent the company for wasting their time.

The old American adage “You get what you pay for” is often true in web hosting. Smaller, newer web hosting companies may offer rates as low as 30 US dollars per month – but usually they come with poor service, low bandwidth and unreliable servers. A suddenly popular product may result in customers being unable to view the website.

Even worse, smaller hosting companies are notorious for poor customer service. It can take hours to reach someone when a problem occurs.

“Thirty dollars a month is not going to provide you with the level of uptime needed for continuous ecommerce and business-to-business transactions,” says Jay Slattery, analyst at Technology Business Research, an internet marketing company.

For busy sites and companies that generate a lot of traffic and a lot of revenue, major web hosting companies like Apache, SunJava, Verizon and AT&T are best.

3. Spending Too Much for a Web Designer

Although some sites like www.citymax.com offer low-cost web design templates, most entrepreneurs in Africa and worldwide want a customized site. The simplest way to do this is to hire a web designer directly. However, unless the web designer is carefully chosen, this can be a very serious mistake.

Naita Burger wanted a website to sell personalized children’s books worldwide. She hired a team of programmers recommended by a friend. Six months later, after paying more than $10,000 in fees, Burger still did not have a site. The team would often go a week or longer without answering her phone calls or emails. As far as Burger could tell, no work had been done on the site.

Freelance websites like Guru, RentACoder and Elance offer a solution to this problem. Experienced designers list their qualifications and experience, along with samples of their work, on the sites. Web builders quote a flat rate for designing a website. Buyers do not release payment until project benchmarks are completed. In addition, all three freelance sites offer arbitration if the buyer or seller is not satisfied.

Avoiding these three major pitfalls will ensure a successful and profitable Internet presence.