If you have gone through the trouble and expense of developing a website, you want to make sure that you aren’t committing any easily overlooked mistakes that could be causing you to lose traffic or sales. While everyone has their own pet peeves when it comes to web design and styles, there are a few things that nearly everyone agrees can be detrimental to your site should you include these elements on it:
1. Music – This is one of peoples’ biggest complaints about visiting websites. Granted, it doesn’t occur that often anymore, but you definitely need to avoid assaulting the ears of your viewers by playing music upon arriving to your site, unless they expressly request to do so.
2. Using Flash animations – Using Flash animations to convey trite little animations can be cute, but doesn’t really work to drive sales in most markets. Plus, it isn’t even a good coding option anymore; the stuff is bulky and tends to bog down websites under the weight of its own code. There are better options available these days; ditch the Flash!
3. Use of popups – You probably don’t need to deliver ad material to people right off the bat as they visit your site, before they have expressed any interest; that just annoys people. Instead, take a less aggressive and invasive approach to building genuine interest.
4. Contact Info – If visitors are interested, make sure they can get to your contact info very easily without having to dig. Take advantage of placing it in a prominent location in the top right hand corner of your site as well as in the footer of the site
5. Unclear purpose – Much like television commercials where you can finish viewing them without having a clear idea of what exactly they are trying to sell you; it is easy to overdo the element of mystery on your website. Keep things simple and clear, and you will experience better sales conversions. Less is almost always more.
6. Poor Implementation – Don’t assume that your customers use the same software platforms you do for every little task. If simple touches like the default email program launched when clicking a link on your site lead to strange options, or the site was not browser tested for multiple versions, visitors will be less than thrilled.
7. Text that is too small – Static web pages aren’t the place to deliver oodles and oodles of content. I understand the temptation is to put every convincing argument and impressive portfolio piece you have out there, but keep in mind that they need to keep the text in a readable size for users of all ages, which often means bumping up the size a bit.
8. Searching for search – You would be surprised how many people leave out something as integral and simple as a simple search button on their densely packed, information websites. That’s asking your potential customers to try to find a needle in a haystack. Make sure to have your developer include a search button on your site.
9. Poor social media connectivity – Another cardinal mistake some sites make is not using the social media buttons correctly. You make your organization look ignorant when you do things like have the Facebook button on your site attempt to share your About Us page, rather than take the visitor to your Facebook fan page so they can Like you there. Use the social networks to your advantage to grow your potential customer base.
10. NO COMIC SANS - Under absolutely no circumstances shall you ever use the font 'Comic Sans' on any section of your website. End of discussion.
If you own a website, and you’re interested in providing a pleasant user experience for those who visit it, you may want to check it over and make sure you aren’t committing any of these mistakes. Some of them are pretty easy to make, and you would be surprised how big a difference they can make to a site’s traffic and user experience. Contact us today to consult about improvements for your company website.
