There are so many mistakes that site builders make on a website, but covering all of those goofs would not be possible here. So, let us just concentrate on the 10 most common mistakes and try to avoid them on your website so that it stands far better in the competition.
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Evil site builders deactivate the back button and program it to create one of the several undesired events after it is pushed by the user, like an instant redirect to an unwanted location, or a new window pops up and overtakes the screen. It’s highly recommended that you do not do this. No benefit is achieved through this process; instead, viewers get annoyed and never return to your site.
Earlier, using multiple new windows to display different content as a user navigated and clicked through a site sounded quite cool. It was like a new thing in web design. But, nowadays, it only frustrates viewers as it ties up system resources, slows down the computer response and often complicates a visitor’s experience. Although it is quite easy to use this tool, you should not use it. With tabbed browsing enabled in most of the popular browsers, users can do so if they wish to open links in new tabs.
Viewers should be offered multiple ways to contact you, especially if you’re in the selling business. The most effective route to accomplish this is to embed a “Contact Us” link on each and every page of your website. This link directly leads the customer to your complete contact information viz. the mailing address, contact number and email address.
Bad links are those hyperlinks that either do nothing or lead to “404” error pages when clicked. They are quite annoying for a web surfer. You should test your site periodically and make sure that all the links work as promised.
If your webpage is taking too long to load, it is giving an invitation to the visitor to click away. A recent study established that online shoppers wait for approximately four seconds for a site to load before clicking away. So, if your site is loading considerably slower than this, you need to work on the heavy images or Flash introductions.
There’s no excuse for outdated content on your website. Make sure that your site updates fresh and informational content daily for the best results.
Surfers want speed. They want to get to their desired location in no time. Poor navigation on the website may force them to go back two or three pages to get to other areas of a site. It’s simply a waste of time. In order to avoid this, one should incorporate a navigation bar on every page that has links to reach other areas of the site. Including a site, the map is also beneficial.
Pages should present a unified and consistent look, but few novice site builders turn their pages into a garish mishmash by using too many fonts and colours. You just need to assure your viewers of your solidity and stability and not convince them that you’re wildly artistic. So, try to use two or three fonts and colours per page at the maximum.
Every page should include a link back to the home page. This is because users often forward a URL to friends, who may like to visit or wish to seek more information about your website. But if the page they get is a dead end, they will leave right away. Linking your site logo back to the homepage can readily solve this problem.
Most businesses have their own Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and other social media pages. The point is that social media has great potential and businesses are benefitting from its presence. Not including your social profile’s link on your website is a big no-no. If you want to use social media to market your business and get customers, you should make it easy for the users to move from one to the other.
