Common Website Mistakes to Avoid

January 6, 2016 Teresa Clark

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When you decide to build a website for your business, there are so many things to consider. It can be confusing to deal with the conflicting information out there about what constitutes a useful website, as well as matching it with your own vision. As you work everything out in your mind, try to avoid making these mistakes.

Ignoring the Rules of Accessibility – It’s very important to understand the rules of accessibility, not just so that differently-abled people can enjoy your website but also to help search engines access your site better.
Including Irrelevant Content – From images to audio to text, you want to avoid including any type of content that is not relevant to your audience and the message you want them to take away from visiting your website.
Contact Info Is Not Readily Visible – Nothing is more frustrating than wanting to contact a business but not knowing how. Don’t hide your contact information from your website visitors. It’s imperative that they can contact you.
Unnecessary Entry Pages – You’ve seen websites like this, the ones that you have to “click here to enter.” This is completely unnecessary. It can be an impediment to your audience finding the information it needs and is absolutely a problem for search engines.
Including Automatic Audio – Some websites have sound that comes on the moment the visitor goes to it or if the cursor goes over it, but this also is a bad thing to do. Let your visitors choose when the sound comes on and goes off so they aren’t irritated.
Not Updating SEO Regularly – Search engine optimization involves ensuring that the right keywords, headlines, sub-headers, and information are on each page, plus that you provide enough information off your page to help get links back to your page. Learn all you can about SEO to make the most of this organic means of getting traffic.
Too Many Graphics – Graphics are important for a website and add to the look, feel, and mood of your website. But you don’t want to have too many because they will make your website load slower and cause your visitors to get tired fast.
Unorganized Navigation – Learn how people tend to look at websites. When they read paper, it’s left to right; but people generally read websites vertically and sometimes in an F pattern. If you can understand that, you can put the important information where your visitors are most likely to view it.

If you can avoid these mistakes, and in fact perfect each item here, your website will be that much more inviting and useful to your audience. You’ll get more visitors to come to your website, plus you’ll get more of them sticking around, answering your calls to action, and interacting with you and your business.