By Henry Brown

You know the advantages that a well-designed website can offer your business, but, sadly, you look at your website statistics and see that you’ve not had a single viewer for the past few hours and you’re getting fewer hits than your personal Facebook page. It’s discouraging to have a website that was professionally designed but still doesn’t generate buzz. It must feel like a gigantic waste of effort and money.

But have you considered that you’re doing it wrong? That’s not to say that your website is bad, lacks information or that you got conned by the freelancer that made it for you. Far from that. In fact, it could be your mentality about websites that has to change before you can start noticing the flaws in your design. Here are three of the most crucial things to look out for before you publish your web page on the Internet. And if your site is already up and not drawing the attention you want, consider whether these issues are the problem and fix them immediately.

Your host is unstable

Website hosting isn’t something that fails very often, but if you’re not seeing a traffic increase then you really need to consider if the web host is offering a consistent service. Many websites don’t take off because they run on servers that are shoddy or have a lot of downtimes. Speak with your host’s customer support and check if your website has a high uptime percentage. If it’s below 99%, then check out something like inmotion hosting review and find a new host.

Lack of sharing widgets

A lot of people browse the Internet and come across websites that they might not immediately need. But if they still find the website useful, they’ll share it on social media and let other people know about it. However, they won’t go out of their way to copy and paste your website into a Tweet then think about the message they want to share. Instead, they’ll simply hit the “Tweet This” button on your product pages or main website and, voila, suddenly your website is exposed to social media networks. Install some sharing widgets into your site and watch it grow.

Too much information

Simplicity is key. Stop writing huge paragraphs of text about your achievements or product descriptions that could qualify for a short story. Consumers are busy people and they’ll do ample research on various websites before they purchase a product—all you need to do is list technical information and product details.

If you are advertising a service, don’t start your web page with a list of old achievements to make your company seem “amazing.” List only a few recent achievements or mentions—don’t flood the page with them. Consumers don’t care much about the awards you won a decade ago or what a random name said about your business. In fact, all consumers want to know is what services you offer, how much it’ll cost them, and why they should pick you over the competition.

You need to treat your customers with some respect and understand that they won’t trust your word if you tell them things like how “well-experienced” your employees are or how many “satisfied customers” you deal with on a regular basis. Consumers are cautious people, and they’ll do their own research into your track record. If you lie about something then they’ll know when they see one-star reviews of your business.

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Henry Brown is an online marketing executive. When he isn’t talking shop he’s roaming the streets of London, uncovering the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.