Ten Things That Make a Website Fail

Some web designers (mostly the inexperienced ones) have the tendency to incorporate every design element they know on the websites they are building in the hopes of creating stunning sites that would attract more visitors.  However, more design elements does not necessarily translate into more visitors.  In fact, some features can be more of a distraction to users than a compelling request to make them make the desired action. Web design should focus on providing resources that the targeted audience is looking for, not on the designer/programmer's skill level. This is why it is advisable for companies to get the help of professional designers and developers when planning a custom web design project.  Below are some of the most common no-no's that should be avoided when implementing a custom web design.

1.  Background Music.  Loud and meaningless music is a sure-fire way to make people click on the back button! Remember, don't impose your musical preference to everybody: a soothing music to you may be annoying to your audience. If you are keen on putting music on your site, provide visitors with an accessible option to turn it off.

2.  Pop Up Windows.  Don't you just hate it when you are suddenly attacked by a barrage of pop-up windows? I do and i am not alone.  Most people would move on to other sites and swear to never ever come back than deal with the irritating pop-ups.

3.  Huge flash animation.  Sure it's pretty and really jazzes up a page but not everybody is on a high speed internet connection. Most people will wait two minutes maximum for a page to load, more than that and they'll hit the back button or click on another site faster than the speed of light!

4.  Slow page load. Usually caused by cheap web hosting, too many images, un-optimized graphics, or poor coding, a page that takes forever to load is a bane for any kind of website. Most visitors will leave and find a faster site.

5.  Terrible grammar and spelling. Reading poorly written text is not only annoying, it also negatively affects visitors' perception of your website and your company. How could people trust you if a third grader writes better sentences than you do? Grammar and spell checkers are readily available on your computer, why not use them? Better yet, hire a copywriter/editor to take care of your content.

6.  Moving objects here, there, everywhere. Flashing banners, animated graphics, words scrolling, a string of fireworks chasing your mouse pointer. They strain the eyes and cause headaches! Limit the use of moving or flashing object on your site, one per page is more than enough.

7.  Wrong font size – Huge fonts are perfect for websites targetting people with reading disabilities, but if not then you are shouting and nobody ever wants to be shouted at. Fonts that are too small, on the other hand, are difficult to read and make you seem like whisphering to your audience. Always use the right font size for your site.

8.  Missing contact information.  A visitor have found the item she's been looking for for the longest time in your and she's ready to buy.  However, she cannot find the infortion on how to make the purchase or even a way to contact anyone. Frustrated and mad, the prospective customer left your website with a promise in her heart: never to return. Don't forget to include contact information, or a contact link, on every page of your site, so your visitors can contact you if they want to buy something, make an inquiry or simply buy your domain for $10,000.

9.  Other things that should be avoided are links that don't look like links, orphan pages or those which you failed to supply links with and alien pages or those that don't have the same look and feel of the rest of your website thus leaving users feeling like they’ve been suddenly transported to a website from another planet.

10. Navigation tabs and buttons that don't work. Getting lost in a website is frustrating. You can lose a lot of prospective customers if you leave visitors clueless on how to move around your website.  Always make it a point to provide easy-to-use navigation keys to encourage visitors to click around on your site and check out different sections.

Do you need professionals to help you come up with a custom web design?  We can help you get the effective website you want at a price you can afford.  Contact us now for a free quote.

Content Writing and Custom Web Design

Textual content for websites are as important as the website design.  A beautifully-designed website that has little or no textual content relevant to a visitor is deemed ineffective.  A visitor is not expected to stay on a site that does not provide the information the he is looking for. Furthermore, keyword-rich content can give a website greater chances of landing on top of search engine results page which is essential in generating more targeted traffic. In other words, a stunning design and well-written content go hand in hand in creating an effective website.

Deciding on the kind of textual content must be made even from the onset of a custom web design project. If web design is the look and feel of a website, textual content would be its soul.  Aside from the "copy" and other information that will be included in the textual content, it is also important to identify the proper “tone of voice” and writing style that will be used.  These elements should be in sync with the company's overall brand message and placement.

Textual content plays a key role in effective search engine optimization (SEO) which is a very powerful marketing tool. Search engines have programs (called “spiders” or “robots”) which visit websites and collect the data they find there. They will store this data in search engines' database so that when someone searches for keywords, these sites' data will be considered in their algorithms. Depending on how a site does in the algorithm, it will appear higher or lower in the organic rankings. A well-optimized website have greater chances of getting on top of searches and thus attract more audience who are all looking for certain products or services. Thus it's imperative to write the content for your website in a way search engine robots can read it and use it.

Writing content for websites is different from writing for other media. Online folks “skim read” which means they will move away from a website if they don't see what they are looking for and find a site which is relevant to what they are searching for. Below are some tips on how to write content.

* Use subheadings. Since users skim read, subheadings are great way to help them find relevant content quickly.
* Keep it short and simple. Use bullet points; clear and simple language; and avoid using slang, or technical jargon unless necessary. Try and include one concept per sentence.
* Front-load content. Putting the jist of the article on top helps users determine whether the article is relevant to him or not.
* Keep the audience interested. Ensure the text is relevant and doesn’t go “around the bush” to get to the point. Write in an interesting way which will engage your audience.

Aside from writing relevant content for human audience, there are other content that are targeted for search engine "robots". These are invisible to the human eyes but are necessary for any website to be successful. These include tags in a website's page source code (title tags, keyword tags, description tags etc).

Implementing a custom web design project can be complicated for the inexperienced.  It is ideal to leave this difficult task on the hands of expert web designers and developers who are capable of creating websites that are visually-stunning, have relevant content and also search engine "robots" friendly.

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