Are you at your wit’s end about your Web site? Worried about making irrecoverable mistakes when you start developing your site? (Not to worry. You can recover from most mistakes.) If you’re thinking about a site redesign, check your current site against this list of problems and take advantage of the opportunity to fix them.

No matter what size or type of business, or how well financed, Web sites share common problems. Here are ten of those found most often. Not surprisingly, the problems start long before a Web site launches.

Not Setting Business Goals

Problem sites usually start with problem people, especially those who act before thinking. If you’re not sure what your site is supposed to accomplish, it will end up as confused as you are. Start with clear business goals for the site, identify very specific target markets, and set quantifiable objectives so you can measure your success and enjoy your accomplishment.

If you already have a brick-and-mortar store, think about how to expand your market without cannibalizing it. If you’re starting a new pure-play business, write a complete business plan first.

Not Planning

Site owners often think they can delegate everything to their web developers and walk away from Web responsibility. Not so. No one knows your business and markets as well as you do. You need time to prepare content, write or review copy, obtain photographs, stock your store, and then maintain the site. Programming generally goes a lot faster than content.

Think ahead about everything: equipment, phone lines, staff, merchandising, measuring leads, shipping, wrapping, training, and so on. If you have problems offline, fix them before you go online. Nothing is ever simple — and that includes Web sites.

Underestimating the Time and Money It Will Take

If you’re planning for Christmas sales, you can’t go to a developer in August and expect to make money in December. Besides development time, you need to allow time for your site promotion to kick in.

Putting up something quick and dirty to start the clock ticking on a search engine listing is fine, but any serious Web site takes thought about how it will look, how it will function, what will be on it, and how it will be promoted. Allow at least three months for most sites, unless your company has deep pockets to pay multiple staffers or professionals to work on it.

Whatever you plan, your site will take twice as long and cost twice as much as you estimate!

Not Building a Search-Engine-Friendly Web Site

With all we know about search engines optimization, it’s astonishing that companies and developers still build sites that are not only unfriendly, but also sometimes downright hostile to SEO. Huge corporations that buy enterprise-level solutions are among the worst offenders. If your developer or Web software doesn’t support the following, consider a change:

• Search-Engine-Friendly URLs

• Site Index

• Link Pages

• Linkable Footers

• Contact Information on Every page

• A Way to Collect Email Addresses

• XML Feeds of Site Indexes to Google for Large or Database-Driven Sites

Thinking About “Me” Rather than “You”

From navigation to content, too many site owners tell their own stories rather than what site visitors want to know. A little imagination goes a long way. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. What do they want to know and how easily can they find it?

Like all other forms of advertising, Web sites are hostage to WIIFM (What’s in it for me?). It’s the question customers always ask and every site must answer from the first headline on the home page to the thank-you message at the end: “What’s in it for me?”

Not Updating Your Site

A neglected site is a non-productive one. If you abandon your site after it’s built, you’re wasting your investment. Update content, freshen merchandise, and counter what your competition is doing. Customers’ expectations inexorably rise, conditioned by the best practices of sites such as Amazon.com.

You might get away with a poor site if you’re the only supplier of hard-to-find products, but don’t count on it. Remember: Your search engine rankings will slip if you don’t update.

Waiting for Traffic to Click in the Door

So, you’ve built a better Web site, and the world is not beating a path to your domain. It can’t, and it won’t unless you actively promote your site. Search engines and an inbound link campaign are the two most essential components of Web marketing, yet many people don’t do even that.

Onsite, online, and offline techniques must all be brought to bear in an active, continuous, and eternal marketing campaign. After all, Coca-Cola didn’t stop marketing after it taught the world to sing.

Ignoring Statistics

Many site owners don’t know they have statistics, let alone use them. They can’t answer the simplest question about real trends in traffic. Instead of reviewing data, they react to someone’s last impression.

While Web data of any sort is imprecise and shouldn’t be trusted for absolute values, it’s great for trends and relative evaluation. Plan to monitor statistics before you design your site. Confirm that your developer or host can provide the data you need.

Avoiding Problems with the Back Office

Web sites don’t exist in a vacuum but in the context of your overall business operations. Many business owners blame their Web sites or Web marketing plans, when the real difficulty lies elsewhere. Is the right merchandise on the site? Is customer support available, either online or offline? Are there problems filling orders? With quality control on products? With staff maintaining the site? With your infrastructure, inventory, or accounting?

Being Unwilling to Change

Change is the only constant in the world. If you don’t change with it, especially in the innovative environment of cyberspace, you will be left behind. It’s easy to get attached to the past, to what’s comfortable, to what you’ve always done. As soon as things start to look down, think about what you can change to improve. Better yet, keep an eye on trends and try to get ahead of your competition — as long as your changes track with your target market.

Of course, there are many more mistakes that people make with web marketing, but those seem to be the ones which crop up more often than others. What do you think? Do you have any idea’s, or know of other common mistakes? Be sure to let me know by leaving a comment, and your comment may well be a feature of the next edition to this article.