Today, if you need to do some searching, you go online. Nobody uses phone books or do anything else 'manually' anymore. Even your grandmas and grandpas prefer it that way.

However, there are those websites, especially nonprofits, who just take the fun out of looking things up online. They put up websites that look like they put it just so they can say that they have a website. Not only are they boring, they are also not useful.

People go online because they want to see and not just read about what they are looking for. So the fact that some companies put up static sites defeats the very purpose of its existence.

A website should reflect what a company is all about: its mission, vision, products services. So it is absolutely necessary to have photos, design and copy.

But apart from all these, there are some major mistakes websites make. Here are the three most important and most common.

Outdated information

Some nonprofit websites are guilty of this. Their site does not contain any new information for months on end. Websites should be updated on a regular basis. New and lively content should be added weekly at least. Photos should be updated at least every few months. Blogs should be updated at least once a week.

Insufficient contact information

People who find you on the internet are not just there to look at things in your website. They may want to ask information on some of your products of services. It would be a good idea not to provide a contact form to be filled out by someone. But, it would not be filed out completely. Plus, going down the fill out form route is a bit impersonal. The best way to go about it is to provide a contact list of real people and tell the viewer who can help with what.

Amateur design

If you're just staring out, your website may start off as something you or one of your staff people played might have created. But once your business or service has takes off, have a professional web designer create a website that is alive, readable with a clean program, and above all easy to update and easy to navigate (for browsers).