We’ve been building websites for a long time. Over the course of the last 8 years, the internet has evolved dramatically and, like all of life’s trends, it evolves faster than many of its users can keep up with.
I’m not here to talk about the latest bleeding-edge technology or the hottest new website gadgets. What I want to discuss today are some of the most serious web design disasters plaguing the internet today, and how you can avoid them.
1. Do not play music on your website.
This is a treacherous invasion of one’s personal space and should be avoided at all costs.
Just imagine: you’re sitting at your computer, innocently browsing the internet for a local gym or a dance studio when your speakers, still at full volume from that hard to hear YouTube clip, begin blaring the obnoxious melodies of Lady Gaga’s latest hit single.
Your husband, who has to wake up at 4 AM to be at work is now quite annoyed, your 3 year old refuses to go to sleep and your neighbors are calling 911.
The only websites that should play music are musical sites, like a band’s official fan page, and even then it should give users the option to play the music, not just the option to turn it off.
2. Don’t ask your designer to build your site in Flash.
Flash is the internet equivalent of a Porsche. Less than practical, over priced and inaccessible. It takes way to much time to develop, is very difficult to optimize for search engines and cannot be accessed on the majority of mobile devices on the market (including the one I am writing from at this very moment).
3. Search engine optimization
It is an important aspect of almost every website, but one that is so misunderstood it gives a lot of web designers a headache. You do not need a hundred keywords, you do not need to list them all three times on every page and do not, I repeat, do not need to bold everyone of them.
Write good title tags, use alternate text on your images, write lots of high quality, thematic content and promote your site to bloggers and other websites. Then wait your turn.
4. Don’t copy other websites.
This is extremely important but often overlooked because of a false perception of distance online. The internet is a very small world, and search engines can easily tell if your site is too closely mimicking the content of another.
Even if you’re in Miami and you are copying a website from a business in Seattle, Google knows it, and will penalize you for your unscrupulous plagiarism.
5. Unless you are a web designer, don’t design your own website.
We see it all the time, embarrassing examples of the most hideous sites on the web. People judge you based on the professionalism of your site, so it is far better to not have one than to have a disturbing ugly one.
Stay away from cheap help too. If someone doesn’t have a portfolio, don’t think you are doing either of you a favor by letting them design your site.
Cheap, home-made sites are the mullets of the world wide web. They’re not out-of-style, they never were in style.
6. Don’t use long domain names.
Ok, I understand that the great short ones like “Oturia” and “Google” are already taken, but for crying out loud, WWW.greaterkansascityareacosmeticdentist.com is a bit over the edge.
If you need a domain name and can’t find your first choice, a company name or a three word description will do just fine.
7. Avoid fancy navigation.
I know that you want your site to be as unique as possible, but users expect certain things to be consistent on the web, and navigation is one of them.
Users are going to look on the top or side for an easy to use interface (read list) of pages. Whether you do it horizontally or vertically doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that your navigation doesn’t have animation, outside of the simple drop down type menus. Keep it in a simple list, styled with background colors that contrast the text.
8. Don’t write poor content.
The truth is, if you’re writing poor content you probably don’t know it. If you care at all about your business, ask someone else for their honest approval of how it’s written. Simple things like mixing up “you’re” and “your” or “their” and “there” look unprofessional and happen more often than people realize.
Aside from grammatical errors, does your content really sound all that great to everyone BUT you? You would be shocked at the number of websites on the internet with content written by people with knowledge of their industry or topic but no clear grasp on how to communicate those ideas to the general public.
Get someone to proofread your content unless you’re blogging. The message your primary content sends to your potential customers needs to be clear, concise and straight to the point.
9. Do not format text for the web like text for print.
Another big one we see lots of. It’s amazing how many people are wed to the idea of content written like a flier for a
church bake sale.
The web is not a bathroom door or a glass window, and websites are not pieces of 8 1/2 X 11 paper designed to welcome people to the
Neighborhood BBQ
OR TO INFORM THEM THAT YOU WILL
BE BACK IN 5 MINUTES.
Either align your text to the left, or justify (my personal favorite for the web), bold your titles and italicize only really important words.
10. Too many/too big/too small.
Don’t give people thumbnail images that don’t link to larger ones. It’s aggravating trying to figure out what is in a small image.
Few people know this, but a web browser can only make a couple of requests at a time when loading a page. Got 35 images on your page? Count on the browser only downloading two of them at a time.
Don’t try to put huge images on your website. If you are designing a site, you need to invest in the basic software to re-size your images to an acceptable file size so that they don’t slow down the browser.
Use a logo. Use a medium sized image (read 300 or so pixels wide) for a post if need be. Heck, get crazy and add a small gallery with a few thumbnails that link to larger images. But don’t forget that unless you’re a photographer, the visitor came to your website to read about your company and/or product, and not to look at pictures of your daughter or nephew or dog or 18 different angles of your office building.
