Classic Errors of Do-it-Yourself Wordpress Sites

If you are planning on building your Wordpress website yourself, watch out for the classic errors I find Do-It-Your-Selfers make:

1. Not including enough relevant page content with key word phrases especially on the home page -Too little content with your keyword phrases means your site gets ignored.
2. Insufficient use of heading tags in content - search engines scan H1 and H2 html tags. These should be on every page. If you don't know what these are, then have someone who does check out your site.
3. Hard to scan page layout and font size - readers scan in an F shape, format your site to take this into account, and don't make you text so small it is unreadable.
4. Missing Alt tags for image and video - always take the time to apply the alternate title to the image, this then shows up if the image doesn't and it is what the search engines use to identify what an image is. Often you will be found for your images in a search before your website.
5. Forget that they are designing for mobile devices too- make sure your theme is scalable or looks good on mobile devices and ipads and that your key information, like contact info is in the upper left corner of your site, readable! especially if you think your customers will need access to this information on the go.

These are just some of the examples of why hiring someone who understands website design from the technical side and the user interface design side is important. Sites are found for a variety of reasons - good technical and content design, aliveness, and cross links are the three most important factors. Again - if you don't know what this means and how to make it happen, I recommend getting assistance from someone who will help you and teach you so your marketing can be effective.

Also, get a referral from someone who gets the results from their site that you want to see - what did they do? Often people come to me after waiting for a person to design their site for months. Make sure the person you hire has the bandwidth and ability to create what you want, in the time frame you need.