Website Mistakes
There are a lot of website design mistakes so to cut it down to ten top mistakes was tough. Use these as a general rules type of report. All websites can be improved is the basic theme so always try to make a better site. Tracking is a key to whether or not your page is getting better.
- Bad Content Out of date content or worse yet just plain bad content. Content is why people shop on the Internet. Information is the biggest difference between print and online. If your information is bad or out of date then you will lose your credibility and hence the possible new client. Always maintain your website with up to date information and make sure you link to news worthy articles when you can.
- Non Professional Work It is fairly easy to see when an amateur is doing website design. Don’t make the mistake of doing the site yourself or having your brothers son do it when it is not their occupation. A website is more then just putting content up. It is about having the proper architecture to move the visitor to a sale or a clear action. Amateurs don’t know how to take the visitor from point a to point sale they just put up information.
- Poor Ad Placement Having your advertisements stand out more than anything else on the site. As soon as your visitor feels the only thing you want them to do is view an ad they are gone. Sites that have more ads than education do not succeed on the Internet. I am not saying you can’t advertise but don’t make it the first thing they notice.
- Poorly Optimized Website Search Engine Optimization is not as hard as the gurus make it out to be. You just need to keep a couple of simple premises and you can be at the top of the search engines. First and foremost target local buyers. If you are a small business owner and you provide a local service there is no reason to target the entire United States, just target where you are. Second is make sure you optimize for the correct keywords that your potential buyers are using to get information.
- Flash Based Sites Gone are the days that flash is used as an intro page. The user doesn’t want to wait for pages that tell you to wait while it loads. Flash is something that can be useful but most of the time it just uses up consumers resources. Flash really hurts your website by diverting attention away from useful content and towards something of no true value. You don’t want anything that may cause a customer too leave or divert your customer away from your content.
- Bad Website Flow By this I simply mean there is no current pattern to what you want the visitor to do. Always remember you have a goal with everything you put on the web. Without a clear goal or path the user is unsure of what they are doing or where they are suppose to go. They flutter around from box to box until the decide its no longer worth being here.
- Inconsistent site design Does each page look like the same shell as the other pages. If not the user will think you have a spam site. You should always want the customer to know where they are. A lot of sites have different looking pages and you get confused if you clicked to another page or another site. When you are confused you leave and don’t buy.
- Poor navigation There is nothing more annoying to me personally than not being able to clearly determine where the navigation is for a site. Don’t use pictures for navigation as it is too hard to determine where to go. Don’t hide the navigation outside the the top fold of the site because visitors may not go further than the page fold. Never put main navigation at the bottom and always have a way back to the homepage.
- No Contact Information or Company Information Would you buy from anyone that you don’t know? I wouldn’t and web buyers are no different. They want to know who what and where before they will make a decision. Make it easy for them to see that information. When at all possible include a picture of you ar your location so they can see your legitimate.
- Errors in code The biggest mistake with this is the existence of links that don’t go anywhere. When there are coding errors it makes it look like you don’t keep up with your website and therefore don’t care about service etc. Just make sure everything works or take it off, simple enough.
This should give you some ideas as to what you don’t want to do with your site. If you are breaking these rules you may want to talk with your designer about how to fix them. As always I am available to help in anyway I can. You may call me at 414-531-4035
