6 Most Important Website Mistakes to Avoid
A well designed website will certainly avoid these 6 very critical mistakes. Use a website designer who understands these things and knows how to create websites for both search engines and website visitors. If you’re developing your own website make sure you don’t make these mistakes. You’ll have a much better website!
1. Don’t make highly sought information difficult to find. Phone numbers and addresses are highly sought after items on websites. Make them large enough to spot at a glance. Make sure they show up on every page in an easy to locate position. Don’t make it difficult for your website visitors to find the information they need to contact you. Other information that you offer may also be highly sought after. Popular articles or other content that you have added should be easy to find. Links to those important pages should be included on the home page and maybe on every page.
2. Don’t play music automatically when visitors arrive at your website. It’s not very common but there are still websites that do this. This is a bad idea. It’s intrusive and often results in the user hitting the back button to leave your website.
3. Don’t use a black background with white text. Black backgrounds on websites look classy. However, they are not as easy to read as black text on white background. The most professional looking websites will have white, or another very light color, as the background. They will use black, or another very dark color as the text.
4. Don’t let your website get outdated. This is a common problem. Many people find it difficult to update their website. Many have website developers handle the task and have to pay to get it done. This is an unfortunate scenario. Your website should be easily updatable. It should not require a website developer to simply add content. Websites based on content management systems or blogging platforms such as WordPress are excellent solutions to this problem. Add content to your website in the form of announcements of events and articles about helpful information that is related to your business. Older content that is still accurate can automatically be pushed down to less visible sections of your website. Don’t delete the older content that’s still relevant and helpful to your website visitors. Search engines as well as your website visitors will want as much good, relevant content as possible, even if it’s not new. New content is a signal to the search engines and to the website visitor that the website is fresh and active.
5. Don’t use complicated navigation and unorganized content that is difficult to find. Many websites contain a menu bar with lots of tabs. Many of those tabs have drop down items. Many of those drop down items have their own sub items within them. This can be overwhelming. Neither search engines nor website visitors will bother to carefully read every item and sub item. Keep the navigation simple. Break the website down into major categories and then reference them with simple navigation. If you have dozens of topics to categorize you can either combine some of them together on single pages or use post categories that are common in blogging platforms such as WordPress. Websites that are easy to navigate are less likely to drive visitors away.
6. Don’t make your website hard to understand at a glance. When a visitor arrives at your website they should know immediately what it’s about. Confused visitors leave fast. Why should your website visitor spend time trying to figure out what’s on your website when there are millions of other websites out there that may be much easier to understand. Make it easy for them and they will like your website. People are very impatient when browsing the internet. Use simple, large headlines to break up text. Use pictures that convey information relevant to the text and to your message.
In conclusion, remember that your website must please your website visitors. It must also please the search engines if you want your website to rank high and be found when people are searching for your type of business. And remember that simple is almost always better than complicated. Avoid clutter and present a simple, easy to use experience.