MediumWeb

1. Live support is off-line
Haven’t we all seen those “live support” icons with a smiling stock photo headset girl, and the word “offline” under it? What does that say to your customers? It says “no one’s home”. Maybe you’ve gone shopping. Or it’s your company’s week off. Or you’ve taken the money and disappeared to the Cayman Islands. Wherever you are, you obviously aren’t minding the shop. If you aren’t going to be available for support chat, get rid of it.

2. No local address or phone number
You have a toll-free number? That’s good. But without a local phone number, you won’t see any business from overseas, because toll-free numbers only work in North America. That customer in Scotland can’t call you. Okay, so maybe you don’t care about customers in Scotland. But even your domestic customers want to see a local phone number and address. Nothing says fly-by-night like a toll-free (Skype?) number and no address.

3. Your web site is past its expiry date
Copyright 2009? All that says is no one has touched your web site in a long time. If you put copyright dates on your site, keep them current. Otherwise it looks like you might have died but the web site is still up.

4. Broken links
Check your internal and external links. Especially the external ones. Web sites move around all the time. Sometimes it’s better to say “check out our review on coolreviews.com” rather than pointing to the exact URL. That way, you don’t have to fidget with stuff every time coolreviews changes their structure around.

5. Haven’t I seen you before somewhere?
That template or stock photo looks great. That’s why I’ve seen it on a hundred different web sites. If you see your stock photos somewhere else, it’s time for new ones. Everyone knows that group of smartly dressed smiling models are not your staff.