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Common Website Mistakes

common-website-mistakes

Anyone must know what your site is about in less than 4 seconds. Attention spans are so short and on the internet they are almost no-existent. With sophisticated searching we are used to getting information instantly. . If someone visits your website and cannot figure what it is about right away, they will go somewhere else. Your site must quickly communicate who you are, what you do, what message you want to send and why it is important for anyone to look at this website in more detail.

 

Text that cannot be scanned easily

Electronic readers are one thing, but the internet is not a book. Large blocks of text are difficult to read on a screen. Now that more and more web browsing is being done on smart phones and other small devices this is even more true. Do your visitors a favor, organize your text using things like bullet points, lists, headers and sub-headers. Use anything that will help the reader find the information they are looking for quickly and easily.

 

Do not use fancy fonts or tiny fonts that are unreadable

If you have to choose between attractive and readable, choose readable every time. The objective of your website is to communicate a message, sell a product, etc. It is hard enough to read text on a computer screen so if it is made more difficult by a font that is too small or to difficult to read, your visitors will move on to another site and not return.

 

Always use a san serif fonts for paragraphs

Use a font like Arial which doesn’t have little tails on the letters. It is much easier to read on a screen.

 

Don’t underline text that doesn’t have a link

Most links on a website are underlines. It only confuses things when they are not.

 

Don’t hide links

Okay, because it is common to underline links, underline them so users know where they are. Or use a different color to make them stand out from surrounding text.

 

Do not open new browser windows within your site

This is a rule of thumb and not necessarily required for all situations. Basically users like to control their own computers and may not like you making that particular decision for them. Browsers do have back buttons. While it can be used well in certain situations you don’t want to put your user in a situation where they are closing lots of windows in order to move on to another task on their computer. This practice is generally acceptable when linking to another site.

 

Do not resize the user’s browser windows

The web is viewed on lots of different sized computer screens and lots of different sized devices. Don’t do anything that can screw up what a visitor is using to look at your website.

 

Do not overuse Flash

The good thing about Flash is simple animation and has much smaller files sizes than other video formats. So that is one good thing, here are all the bad ones. First, any Apple device doesn’t support flash so it can’t be seen on Mac’s iPads or iPhones. Too much Flash can increase load times. It can also be annoying to the eyes. Some websites have been built totally with flash. When that happens is there is no text. Actually the text that is on the site is an image and can’t be read, analyzed and rated by search engines. That means your site can’t be ranked by keyword searching which is the way most people find things on the web.

 

Do not play music

It can be annoying to the user and anyone working around the user. If you have to have it, don’t have it start automatically. Allow the user to turn it on and off easily.

 

Make sure to include contact details

Of course you want to include contact info, but it is important that it is easily available on any page. The best idea is to have it at the top, and bottom of each page and a “Contact Us” tab in the navigation.

 

Avoid complex URL or web addresses

If your web address is too long, too general or doesn’t say who you are, it will work against you. Ideally it should be our business or organization name. However a simple, keyword-based URL will improve your search engine rankings and make it easy for a visitor to identify the content of your website.

 

Don’t leave out a search function on your website

Everyone searches the internet by typing what they are looking for into a search engine like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. They should also be able to do the same thing on your website to find specific information.

 

Text is Text not Graphics

Graphics are a great way to turn a website into something really nice to look at. However, if used in correctly, graphics can do more harm than good. Avoid using graphics for page headers, sub-headers and navigation. Graphics, even with words in them, are not text so it can cause problems for people who search the internet with graphics turned off. It may also play havoc with how your website will look on smart phones and other mobile devices. Even more important is that you make sure that any important key words are text so they show up in search engines.

 

If you have pages that are PDF files let them know

When clicking on a link that is a PDF file the screen will freeze while Adobe Acrobat opens. This can be confusing and annoying to a user if they don’t know what is going on. While on the subjects of PDF’s, it is not a good idea to make full web pages out of PDF’s as they do not resize to various sized screens in the same way an HTML coded web page will.

 

Keep website navigation simple

To make it easy for your users of your website the navigation should be clear and easy to follow. Too much visible navigation, navigation bars in multiple locations can be confusing. The more organized the information is on your website, the easier it will be to plan out the navigation and the easier it will be for users to follow it and get the information they need quickly.

 

Avoid intro pages

Please don’t force the user to watch or read something before he can access to the real content. Flash intros and other animated videos that launch before your site are annoying and waste time. A few seconds on the web waiting for something to load is like a few hours to most people. Even if you have a skip button, these intros give a bad first impression.

 

Stay away from bad color schemes

Don’t use harsh colors, colors that are almost the same color as your text. This and similar design errors make your website content hard to read and will make your visitors leave. Design your color scheme to meet the feel you want for your website. The color, and the design should deliver the mood of your website with our hindering your users’ ability to focus on the content of the site.

 

Make sure there are no spelling or grammatical errors

Nothing can ruin the most perfect website and leave a bad taste in a visitors mouth to see poorly written text and spelling mistakes. This is probably the most important factor affecting the quality of a website. Plus it is just common sense that should be applied to any written content from a memo to a book.

 

Stale content is like stale bread, not much use to anyone

Keeping your website up to date is probably the most important function. You website is a bill board to the world that is available 24/7. It should be the center of all your marketing. It needs to be fresh and frequently updated so anyone visiting a website gets current information. Nothing looks unprofessional on a website like old and stale content. If you don’t care about your site, no one else will either.

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