I hear lots of rumors or myths about websites and wanted to list a few that I’ve heard before so we could clear up any misconceptions you might have with your own website. These myths include thoughts on designing your site, maintaining it and everything else in between. Your website can be a great marketing tool for your company, so it’s important to utilize it well so you can maximize the greatest value from it.

Check out some of of the myths we’ve heard so your website can be a powerful tool for you!

Your site is done once you launch it

This is probably the biggest misconception I’ve seen. People work really hard to create a great site and then they don’t touch it once it’s live, however continually updating your site is really important. There are two good reasons to keep content coming on your site, search engines and your users. Users need you to give them a reason to keep visiting your site and having something like a blog with constant updates and new content is a great way to encourage visitors. Search engines also look for new content and updated pages so updating is great for that as well.

Using analytics isn’t helpful

Analytics is actually really helpful, but only if you use it! Google Analytics is a free tool that we use for our websites and it gives you some really valuable information about your visitors. It tells you what pages are most popular on your site, how long visitors stay on your site, where they came from, what keywords they found you with on Google, etc. You can use this information to tailor your site appropriately so your users find it useful and relevant and will stay longer.

White space is wasted space

White space or negative space on your site is certainly not wasted. Your eye needs space in order to see things on your site and that white space allows items on your site to pop out more and be seen adequately. So it’s important to make sure you don’t cram too many things on your site, give things room to breathe and be seen so they can have maximum exposure.

The navigation is the best place for all new pages

Many people think each new page is really important and therefore needs to go in your main navigation. However, if you have too many pages in there, it starts to get overwhelming for people and they won’t be able to find what they are looking for. Great organization is really important for the page structure of your site, so it’s great to think about each new page and where it fits within your site. If it doesn’t fit well, think about how you could rearrange things, grouping together like pages so you can have the minimum amount of pages needed in your navigation.

You don’t need to worry about SEO

SEO is really important because it relates to how you’re found on search engines. So many people are using search engines to find products, recommendations, and services, and if your site isn’t being found because of poor SEO, then you’re missing out on potential business. So it’s important to make sure your site is optimized for search engines so they can crawl it easily, and there are also tons of things you can do on your own. Professionals can help as well, getting you greater results through more extended measures.

Make sure your site is as great as it can be, and don’t believe the website myths you hear!

What other myths have you heard about websites?