Five Common Web Design Mistakes

By Charles Nixon III
Posted Sunday, July 25, 2004

There are often many mistakes encountered when creating a webpage or website. Learn about the top five website mistakes, and how to avoid them.

Mistake #1

Web page size. If your website takes longer than 10-15 seconds to load you should consider optimizing it for the web. This is one of the biggest mistakes a web designer can make. You may have cable and love to fill your website with graphics, but if your visitors don't have cable or a fast connection at all your chances of getting them to wait that 10 to 15 seconds for your page to load is very slim.

Mistake #2

Flashy ads. Ok, so you have to bring in some cash some how right? So you sign up to a bunch of banner ad affiliate programs. Only problem with this is their banners are animated and constantly flashing while your visitors view your website. This can be good in some cases for getting some extra cash. But visitors can be easily annoyed by these banners.

If your trying to get customers, having these flashy banners increases your chances of your visitors leaving. Lots of people may be drawn into these ads (probably your best customers) and if they click that ad, they are now a customer to someone else thanks to your affiliate program.

Mistake #3

Confusing Navigation. Before you build a website you should make a sitemap for how everything is going to be setup. Come up with a plan to have some form of contact information on each page. If your visitor comes to a page and wants to purchase something and they cant find a contact link they will most likely change their mind while searching for it. Keep your navigation consistent on each page. If your visitor has to learn to use a different type of navigation system on every page they will become easily annoyed.

Mistake #4

Confusing Content. You want to make everything easy to read and navigate. If you know someone thats in their teen years you should come up with some questions to ask them about your website. Like: What do you think my site is about? Would you buy this product on my website? Can you understand the information on this(blank.html)page?

If you can get a teen, or even any average person to answer these question's honestly you can find ways to change your setup so that anyone and everyone is drawn in to purchase from you.

Mistake #5

Advertising. When you advertise your website the number one thing that you do not want to do is spam. It is very easy to advertise your website all over the web for free! You can use forums, article submission groups, online communities, chat groups, news feeds, and much more. If you do resort to spam this could hurt your website sales. A lot web surfers will go around and if they find spam they will report it to someone that will post it on a website that degrades or gives bad reviews on your website.

If you can avoid these five mistakes that almost every webmaster experiences than you will be on your way to success in no time.

About The Author
Charles Nixon - Website Designer Driven by Creativity Building websites to increase sales, and build web presence Did you start your business to create a website? or to run your business? With competitive pricing and your project delivered on time and on budget CharlesNixon.com may be the web design firm for you!
(http://www.CharlesNixon.com/)
Charles@CharlesNixon.com