Common Website Mistakes to Avoid

Ok, here is the comprehensive listing of “Bad Website Ideas”, that will hopefully help you know what

design and text issues to avoid.

This is a listing of common mistakes made by first time website designers,

and do it yourself web designers (and an appallingly large number of professed commercial web designers!). It is

not meant to criticize, but to help you understand what the mistakes are, why they matter, and what to do

instead. It can also help you insure that your designer is doing a quality job if you have hired someone on a strict

budget.

Some of these issues are covered in context in other sections, this listing is just a quick reference so you can

assess a site quickly.

1.

Bad Backgrounds

– Background patterns that have high contrast will conflict with text. You can put the

image into a graphics program, and turn the contrast down, and the brightness up. You may need to

adjust the color some. Wash it out so it is very pale. If you still want it strong, then put your text into a

box with a plain colored background, and just keep the pattern around the outside of the box.

2.

Huge Images

– Compress large images, and crop and scale them so that they are faster to download.

3.

Sound Loops

– These are annoying! Set the sound to loop just two or three times, or give your visitors

the option of turning it off.

4.

Unnecessary Flash

– Make it optional, or make sure that Flash design really is an asset to 95% or

more of your site visitors. Otherwise, use a simpler development method.

5.

Useless Pages

– Each page should be there for a reason that benefits the customer. If it is not, then

take it out.

6.

Wasting Time

– Awkward functions, cumbersome shopping carts, slow pages, features that do not

work, confusing instructions, etc. Have several people review your site, and take their comments

seriously.

7.

Bad Doorways

– Home pages that say nothing but “click to enter”, or that have obscure graphics for

entering the site. Get to the point, provide options and good info on your home page!

8.

Bad Text Size

– Keep text sizes compact, but not too small – size 2 or 3 is right for most info, 1 or 2 for

less important, 4 or 5 for emphasis.

9.

Low Contrast

– Make sure your text and background color contrast well. Avoid “vibrating colors” (colors

of the same intensity which compete for attention). Avoid pale pink on white, or yellow on white, unless

you choose very intense colors. Remember, always choose a stronger contrast with text than you think

you need to, as it tends to wash out due to its small size.

10.

Bad Frames

– Do not use frames unless you have a strong reason for doing so. They are bad for

search engine indexing, and they are of no use to the visitor.

11.

Overlapping Items

– Check your site in several browsers. Some HTML editing programs produce items

that do not stay in the same place all the time, and this can cause embarrassing problems.

12.

Horizontal Scroll

– Avoid making a site so big that most of your visitors have to scroll sideways to see it

all. 1000 pixels wide is the largest you want to make a site currently.

13.

No Scroll

– NEVER set a page to No Scroll. All it does is permanently remove the scroll bars – maybe

you think that looks nice, but it means that your visitors cannot even SEE the parts that are hidden,

because they cannot scroll to get at them. It is rude.

14.

MS Word Pages

– PLEASE, PLEASE do not create pages in MS Word, Open Office, Publisher, Excel,

or other programs that were not designed to create web pages as their primary function! They do it

badly! Try out NVU (a free HTML editor) – it is not perfect but at least it does better than secondary

programs. MS Office programs are the worst, they produce bloated code, and pages that do not function

predictably. NO professional designer worth paying will use that kind of program!

15.

Form Problems

– Make sure your forms function, or put an email address on the page. Remember,

when a form does not function, the visitor has no way of telling you that it did not function!

16.

No Contact

– No contact means “possible scam”. Make sure you have clear contact information posted

– on every page, or on a Contact page that is accessible from every page.

17.

Popups

– Don't use popups. They annoy people. Do not use dhtml “windows” either – they STILL annoy

people! Annoying your site visitors is not good. Half of all visitors have them turned off anyway, so they

won't even see it long enough to BE annoyed.

18.

Typos

– Clean up your text. A typo or two is not going to be a big deal. A page riddled with them is

unprofessional, and deadly to a business.

 

19.

Purely Ugly

– Lack of aesthetic balance, bad graphics, ugly color combinations, etc. Ask your neighbor

– the one with the nicely decorated house, for a site review. Then listen.

20.

Bad Animations

– Too fast, too many, or unmeaningful animations need to be corrected. Slower frame

rates are more effective, and no more than ONE animation per screen view.

21.

Bad Navigation

– Confusing, illogical, or tangled navigation needs to be corrected. Logical link names,

logical categories and organization of pages, and no more than three clicks to get to what you want (in

general – there are a few exceptions to this).

22.

Flashing or Scrolling Text

– Avoid it except for a single word or two at most – attention getters only,

NEVER use it for key content or important titles. Keep it slow enough to actually READ, or it is useless.

23.

Poor Information

– Talking about it but never getting to the point, lack of unique content, inaccurate

information, badly written information, etc. Clean it up and give it genuine value.

24.

No Consistency

– Message, design, navigation, and function should coordinate throughout the entire

site. If it doesn't, it confuses your visitor and makes them think your business is unreliable.

25.

No Marketing

– You have to register your site with the search engines, but you also have to market it in

effective ways. If you don't, it won't grow.

26.

Overcomplexity

– Keep It Simple Silly! Simple sites that work well are the goal. Do not make anything

more complex than it needs to be to perform essential functions.

27.

No Differentiation

– Your site needs something valuable and unique about it.

28.

All Links, No Info

– A page of links is not information. If you provide a directory, give commentary on

the links.

29.

Browser Specific

– It is rude to tell your visitors that they have to use a certain browser to visit your

site. This is a sure way to lose customers.

30.

Requires Plugins

– Don't require plug-ins unless you have a compelling reason (which benefits the

customer).

31.

Under Construction

– Avoid “under construction” signs. They stop search engine indexing, and they

make people think you are unprepared. Use a more helpful notice, such as, “We are not completely

finished adding information or products to this site, if you need something that is not available yet,

please email us and we'll be happy to help you personally.” This provides something of value.

32.

5 Pages or Less

– You cannot showcase a business well enough to compete when using only a 5 page

website. You need certain standard pages (About, Contact, Policies, etc), to maintain credibility, and you

need well thought out information pages which answer the questions that the visitor is most likely to

have. A “one page website” REALLY hurts your credibility! The dirty secret of web design is that it takes

very little more effort to create a 10 page website (which will be sufficient to either showcase a simple

business well, or to provide a solid foundation for a larger site) for very little more than a 5 page one.

The design and structure process is the most complicated aspect of a simple site, and adding pages is

easy after that. If they can provide a 5 page website for $400 or $500, they can give you a 10 page one

for $500 or $700, because all they have to do is use the same template, and put in additional content (if

they tell you it will cost you $100 a page to add pages, RUN, don't walk, and find a more reasonable

designer!).

That was a long list, but it includes the most common issues. Notice, they are not things like “failure to comply

with W3C coding standards” or anything else that is technical. They are identifiable, and correctable things.

This list doesn't cover every reason why a business site does not make money, but it does cover the most

common reasons why people leave a site instantly.