Top 60 Web Design Mistakes of 2009
I have written this blog after falling foul to miss-information elsewhere hence where possible I have added references to credible sources that support the information. If you have any valid/supported information to add to this blog or believe that the item or order of the items be changed/removed – then feel free to add comments. Enjoy!Surprisingly web design companies are still making big mistakes when advising clients on web design.
Download Top 10 Web Planning Mistakes with useful links & support files
Download Top 60 Web Design Mistakes with useful links & support files
Top 10 Web Design Planning Mistakes
1. No Keyword Research - writing or even pricing websites before doing any keyword research is a cardinal sin - if you don’t know what keywords web visitors actually use when searching for your products/services, how can you attempt to write a website that meets your customers needs? Getting this wrong is disastrous for your success in gaining search engine traffic especially with the number of free research tools available. Ref: Matt Cutts Google Engineer
Useful resources:
http://www.keyworddiscovery.com
http://www.wordtracker.com
http://adwords.google.com
http://www.webceo.com
2. No Competitor Research - you wouldn’t advertise in the yellow pages without looking to see who’s advertising in the relevant section - would you? Without competitive research you won’t know whether your page 1 competitors have 30 or 30,000 backlinks, and you wont know if their websites have 3 or 300 pages. For example the term ‘mortgage’ has 189 million pages listed in Google - moneysupermarket (usually p1 rank1) has 306,000 backlinks - it would be unrealistic for anyone other than a team of SEOs and 5/6 figure budget to compete. Simple research takes minutes and could save months of wasted effort.
Useful resources:
http://www.whois-search.com
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
http://www.domain-pop.com
3. Nothing Unique/Special to Offer - well if you want to blend in then design a site that does exactly the same thing as your competitor and kiss goodbye to your web success. Quality web design is all about being a bit different, it’s about leading and not being led - hence if you believe you are best tailor in the world then validate your skills with excellent photography and create special offers to tempt customers. Use Compelling Content - Ref: Google Webmaster Central
4. Content Quality & Quantity - If you knew that most your page 1 competitor’s websites had 100s of pages of quality content then would you seriously consider competing with a 5 page site thrown together by your mate? Many people believe that it’s worth a go. Even if you rank highly by some SEO miracle, your competitors are still more likely to have lower bounce rates & higher conversion ratios. Lack of content planning will result in poor visitor experience. Ref: Matt Cutts Google Engineer
5. Lack of Page Planning - if you don’t plan your pages then you could make a mess of your ‘on page factors’ these count towards your position in search engines. The following should ‘naturally’ contain your researched keywords (if appropriate to the page): page names, directory names, titles, descriptions, headings, footers, menu text, link text & paragraphs. Your most important keyword/s should appear high on page.
6. No time/budget for organic marketing - web designers are all to keen to take their clients money but fail to educate customers that unless their market area is un-contended (see point 2) it's unlikely that the customer will rank purely on design & keywords. Take care before engaging in Google Adword marketing as this rarely works well for small business and could prove costly - organic listings almost always produce better results. If your aim is to write a website which will drive some business and you haven’t got a sensible marketing budget or you haven’t got the time to do marketing yourself then take your friends/family on a good holiday and forget the website - money better spent!.
7. Hosting Overseas - could lead to longer load times & down ranking in search engines. Host your website in your home country ie use a UK host for .co.uk etc – use a fast well recommended hosting service for speed, uptime – be sure to check the hosts ip address to insure the servers really are based where the host claim they are. Many search engines use Geo Targeting in some manner in SERPs.
Useful resources:
http://www.reviewcentre.com/products100.html
8. Poor use of Colours - writing sites in luminous, drab or poorly matched colours could make your site look amateur, hence could put off prospective visitors. Dulux are right you do need an eye for colour - use no more than 3 colours for your theme, take care though as certain colours have major significance in certain cultures & avoid luminous colour themes. If you don’t have access to Adobe Illustrator (has a neat colour match tool) then you will find lots of free websafe colour match utilities in Google.
Useful resources:
http://www.colorsontheweb.com
http://www.w3schools.com/Html/html_colors.asp
9. Selecting Wrong Fonts - could make your site hard to read & increase your bounce rate. Wherever possible use basic fonts such as Arial & Helvetica - granted these can be a bit restrictive for the creative ones however they are safe. If you must use alternative fonts insure the text is clear & it matches your theme.
Useful resources:
http://www.inspirationbit.com/16-best-loved-font-bits-in-web-design
10. Wrong Domain Suffix (TLD) - obvious really - use .co.uk for a UK company .com for e-commerce you will not rank well in SEs if you have the wrong suffix - eg. you will have trouble indexing an Indian domain .co.in in the UK. Here are come common UK domain suffixes:
.com - Commercial Site (Global or UK)
.co.uk - Site based in the United Kingdom.org
.net - Site within a larger network.
.biz - Purely for Business-to-Business sites
.org.uk - Non-profit organisation or group
.info - Informational sites providing no e-commerce
.name - For identity purposes of an individual or organization
Useful resources:
http://www.icann.org
Top 50 Web Design Mistakes - 2009
The higher the mistake appears on this list the more damaging it will be to your website success.
1. Lack of Instant Impact - this by far is the sole largest reason for high bounce rates. Visitors must work out what the site is about in the first few seconds else they will go elsewhere. Your site must be eye pleasing and get the message across fast - else it will become a victim of the back button. - Ref: Google Webmaster Central
2. Dated or Poor Quality Photos/Graphics/Content - these make your site look cheap uncared for & convey the wrong message about you & your attention to detail - if the site looks dated or amateur the visitor will move on and avoid in future.
Useful resources:
http://www.w3.org/Conferences/WWW4/Papers/53/gq-intro.html
3. Not Answering your Visitors Most Likely Question Immediately - let me explain: if you are an estate agent I would want to know what properties you have for sale, if you sell Juke boxes I would want to see pictures & prices - so the sites that deliver this information easily and preferably on their home page have my interest and the sites that make this difficult to find become the victim of the back button. - Ref: 5 Pillar Marketing
4. Too Little Page Text - text is what search engines look for and index hence a site that lacks text will not rank well - you need a few short paragraphs that naturally include the right keywords for the pages that matter: index page, product/services & keyword relevant landing pages. Insure you use well researched keywords where appropriate. - Ref: Matt Cutts Google Engineer
5. Too Few Pages - too little relevant page content will not help your ranking. Try adding technical specification pages, review pages, forums, blogs, free downloads, widgets, testimonials, case studies etc. Content is still an important factors in SEs - you will never have enough. Ignore this at your peril! - Ref: Matt Cutts Google Engineer
6. Lack of Website Security - could leave you or your visitor exposed. There are many aspects of a website & web server that have to be secured. If you or your web designer do not understand security then at best you will suffer nuisance & spam and at worst you will have downtime/data theft.
Useful resources:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=424
http://www.acunetix.com/websitesecurity/website-auditing-wp.htm
6. Missing or Poorly used Titles - title tags are often overlooked & where these are filled they are often done seemingly in a rush - 'Joe Blogs Home Page'. Title tags (if filled) usually appear on line 1 of an organic listing & hence are important and should contain your researched keywords - filling these in thoughtlessly is in-fact worse than leaving these blank. Titles should not be any longer than 65 characters in length - any further words are unlikely to be indexed (in Google anyway). - Ref: Matt Cutts Google Engineer
7. Missing or Poorly Used Description Meta - designers often don't pay any attention to the description meta tag - this tag usually appears on line 2 of an organic SE listing if filled - else ‘snippets’ are used. - well written descriptions that include your keywords will help with both visitors & search engines. Description Meta should be no longer than 150 characters - any further words are unlikely indexed (in Google anyway). Yahoo uses description & snippets - Ref: Matt Cutts Google Engineer
8. Poor Text on Links/Menus - such as ‘more info’, ‘click here’, ‘products’, ‘our services’ don’t help with indexing your website theme try including your product or service types ie if you are a dentist then say dental services & where possible use relevant anchor text. - Ref: Matt Cutts Google Engineer
9. Missing Keywords in H1 H2 H3 H4 – missing keywords in headings doesn’t help your visitors or search engines. Keywords in headings are rated as more important than keywords in paragraphs but both are crucial to your website success and yet are often overlooked by web designers. Use CSS to control how these look on page.
10. Not Keeping to a Theme - as of November 2000 many search engines started using site themes as a method of indexing websites. This is where more than one page on the site is tailored to similar keyword/s. For example a site with the following pages: leather shoes, beach shoes, school shoes could be theme indexed as a site about shoes - the objective by search engines here is to deliver websites first (ahead of pages) that match the term searched. Not conveying the right theme message throughout your website or conveying too many messages will result in lower positions in SEs - many websites today fail to stick to a theme. If your business has more than one theme then it’s wise to separate these into different websites - this way you will give each theme equal priority and make the most of any search engine traffic.
Useful resources:
http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/se-optimization-future.html
11. Invisible/Missing Contact Details - there is nothing worse than a website where you have to go on an expedition to find contact information. This is not bad only for the visitors but also for your website - this will only be beaten by no contact information or just an email address - do this & you will loose enquiries/sales for sure.
12. Missing Pages & Broken Links - in short these just make your website look amateur - check everything - Google webmaster tools is an excellent source of information.
Useful resources:
http://validator.w3.org/checklink
13. Poor Positions of Keyworded Headings - your page message should be clear and near the top of the page - if your primary keyworded heading does not appear near the top of the page then your visitors/search engines may miss the point of your page - this is sometimes referred to as keyword prominence.
Useful resources:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/3-ways-to-give-your-keywords-prominence/7372/
14. Poor use of Page & Directory Names - this again is all too common, if a page is about web design then name it 'web-design' or 'web_design' and try to avoid joining words: webdesign. Correctly named pages and directories count towards good SE positions by helping to confirm your page message. - Ref: Matt Cutts Google Engineer
15. Pitching on your Home Page - your home page should feel welcoming and comfortable to the visitor - big flashing BUY ME NOW! buttons are a big no as far as websites are concerned. Statistically most visitors will view a site 7 times before proceeding any further, hence the hard sell is unlikely to work. Try inviting a stranger to your house and immediately try selling them something - I doubt you will succeed either - so why do it on your website? Try making your visitors feel at home first & focus on good content and clear concise information.
16. Lack of Keyword Targeted Landing Pages - for example if the business you are writing a website for is a web design company - its is good practice to write separate pages about web design & any other specialties such as PHP web design, ASP web design etc. Visitors will expect to see content relating their search term used - landing pages with well researched keywords are exactly what the doctor ordered - if your website lacks these do something about it.
17. Image Based Navigation - whilst most designers are aware of this nowadays, there are still a few ‘ready cooked’ websites that use anchored images - Google indexes internal anchor text when indexing pages - hence avoid this but if you have to use it then use alt/title tags to your images/anchors. Text navigation is not only faster but it’s also more reliable and works well with all search engines.
18. Using Known Bad Elements - such as frames, excess script, flash intros, large graphics may result longer page load times, bulky HTML & poor indexing. Its best practice nowadays for designers to use text based link menus, external CSS files to remove on page code bulk & improve keyword density. Avoid writing pages that require plug-ins.
19. Poor Layout & Script Control - OK if your website will only ever contain a few pages then its OK to write in vanilla X/HTML - however you may get to a point where you will need to make some layout or menu changes and then you will have to do this to every page - moan! Most developers today use the likes of PHP or ASP to write websites - this is a combination of script & HTML hence layout/menu changes can be applied to one or many documents simultaneously hence cutting down workload. Vanilla HTML is painful on bigger sites.
20. No Sitemaps - Google advice on this is clear web designers should build an XML & HTML sitemap one for the visitor the other for the web crawler - this is even more important for large dynamic sites with many pages/changing content, but is good practice on all sites as structures will change as pages are added or removed. Advice from: Matt Cutts Google Engineer
21. Easy Page Building Programs - many programs today will create a pre-designed website however unless you are certain that the code generated meets good page building guidelines then stay clear. Most programs lack the flexibility & control of bespoke websites.
22. Poor Navigation Structure - just writing the pages is all very well if they are not found easily on your website - most of the pages on your site should be accessible from any page - use top/side menus & footers to insure that all your pages are easily accessible.
23. No Keywords in Domain Name - obviously a good domain name helps. If you are writing a website for web design then it's wise to have the term 'web design' as a part of the URL - whilst this is not essential but it does count towards your rank in SERPs - not much but every little helps.
24. Linking to Low Value Pages & Sites - if your web marketing professional does their job then you will have plenty of ‘link love’ from other sites - this ‘link love’ will be distributed through the links on your page. It is important not to pass any ‘link love’ to pages that don’t matter ie pages like contact us, terms and general outbound links other than your link partners. This way the user will still link to the page but spiders wont follow/index the link - use rel=”nofollow” in your anchors.
25. Complex URL Structures - you cant easily copy & paste long complex URLs, a simple, keyword-based URL structure will not only help improve your search engine rankings, but it will also make it easier for the reader to identify the content of your pages before visiting them.
26. Stop Words in Titles & Metas - such as: a, and, the, in, this, it, who, at etc - are all words that are not indexed in search engines - they have no meaning to search engines and are bypassed by most crawlers - so avoid these in titles & meta tags, alt tags etc.
27. No Alt/Title Tags for Images - leaving alt tags blank is just lack of attention to detail - whilst not vital - they are helpful for people with poor vision. where appropriate use your keywords in these sensibly.
28. Too Much Text - don’t greet your visitors with a wall of text - your website is not a place for verbal diarrhea - write a blog instead. Avoid making your website look like a wikipedia entry, be short, to the point and break up long paragraphs. Break up your text with bullet points, photography & graphics.
29. Javascript Menus & Links: - avoid any links/menus that execute Javascript when the user clicks on them - these can cause user issues - if you have to use these test these well in the most common browsers.
30. No Blinking Spinning or flashing Images/text - unless your visitors are stuck in the 1990s time warp or your audience is under 12. Most of the rest of us can work out where the buttons are all by ourselves.
Top Web Design Mistakes Continued.. - Usability Issues
31. Pop ups - I refer to pop ups of any kind - pop ups have almost been eliminated pop-up blockers and are a bad legacy of mis-use by adult web designers.
32. Ads & Banners - Statistics clearly show that visitors hate banners - especially ones where the content is irrelevant. CTR rates are now at an all time low of 0.1% - so unless you want your website to look like a cheap porn site don’t do it - you will severely devalue the site. The only excuse for adds nowadays is to generate small amounts of income and only if you have a lode of traffic ie 1000s of visitors per month - then use text based ads.
33. No redirect page - your website will change all the time, you will add and remove pages - don’t forget that visitors may have bookmarked your pages & and search engines will have pages cached for some time - presenting visitors with a 404 page not found error is not good for your website credibility. This can be easily prevented by a custom error page which would give the user an alternative page such as a ‘sorry this page has been removed see sitemap” Doing this makes your site look professional and shows that you care about detail.
34. No cross-browser compatibility - not all users use the same browser & not all browsers are created equal. Like it or not, you will need to make your website compatible with the most used browsers: Internet Explorer 6/7/8, Firefox & Safari. Not addressing this problem will result in visitor loss.
35. Automatic Subscribe/Re-subscribe - do not automatically subscribe or re-subscribe visitor to newsletters/memberships/renewals when they register on your site you wouldn’t do it if you were doing business face to face - that is taking liberties. Doing this is the best way to loose long term business.
36. Background music - the only site I have ever seen background music work on is a professional photographer’s website and only because it fitted the gallery slideshow and visitors could easily switch this off - on anything else it’s likely to be cheesy.
37. Broken Back Button - I don’t think that there is an internet user out there that has not been annoyed by not being able to go back from a site. Do not break the “Back” button under any circumstances else its bye bye visitor for ever! - certain java script will break it! Test your site thoroughly.
38. Poorly written forms - visitors hate forms, hence poorly validated/written forms only help to irritate users - hence use legends, tip boxes, enable radio button text not just the buttons - and if you have validation tell the user exactly which fields need correcting and whatever you do - do not loose data that has already been entered - that is just plain infuriating.
39. Unreadable CAPTHA Validation - many sites nowadays use CAPTCHA filters as a method of reducing spam/ robots on comments or on registration forms - these usually ask the user to type a line of half scrambled text before pressing the submit button. If these are hardly illegible then many times the user needs to call his whole family to decipher the letters. Just Plain Annoying!
40. Spelling or grammatical mistakes - this is not really a web design mistake, but it is an important factor & affects the overall quality of a website. Make sure that your links text, & headings do not contain spelling or grammar mistakes.
41. No search facility - search indexing is the reason why search engines revolutionised the internet. Do not neglect this on larger sites. There are many free search scripts available on google use them!
42. Complex Menus - the user should be able to see all the important navigation options straight way. Using complex menus might hide the information the reader was actually looking for. Simplify this as much as possible
43. Big PDF & Word files - these can take a long time to load specially if they contain large images - this is especially important if the user is not aware that they have just followed a link to the bulky file – long load times usually resort in the back button.
44. Invisible Links - will not be found or clicked - visitors should easily be able to recognise what is clickable and what isn’t. Make sure that your links have a contrasting color (the standard blue color is the optimal most of the times).
45. Underlining or coloring page text - do not underline/colour normal text unless absolutely necessary. Users need to recognize links easily, they should not get the idea that something is clickable when in reality it isn’t.
46. Long Pages - if the user needs to scroll down forever in order to read your content then boredom will set in and your web page will become a victim of the ‘back’ button.
47. Horizontal scrolling - while most vertical scrolling is OK however the same can not be said about horizontal scrolling. The most common screen resolution nowadays is 1024 x 768 pixels, hence insure that you don’t build websites wider than 1000px - a safe bet is always 800 – 950 px.
48. Compulsory Registration - when I browse around the internet I do it so I find information, not the other way around?! Do not force me to register unless what you offer is so good that I will bear with the registration process. If this is the case then keep the form short.
49. Page Not Easily Printable - for example if you are an estate agent then insure that house particulars are printable - just another annoyance that is often overlooked
50. Too much emphasis on Keywords Meta - Unless you have fallen asleep during your web design classes then you know that Google, Yahoo, MSN ignore this tag totally - and since these search engines make up 96% of all web searches - the time spent typing info in this tag should be minimal.
That is it for now - I am sure that there are other factors so I will be updating this list from time to time drop me a comment let me know your thoughts.
Date posted: Sunday,08 Feb 2009 | Comments (1)
Lies, Untruths, & Web Design Deceptions
95% of websites will fail to achieve page 1 or 2 of search engine results pages - which in reality are the only pages that matter - why? - because people are fed a lot of misinformation about successful internet marketing. It’s pretty easy to buy into the theory as customers don’t have a clue about page/content weaknesses, on page factors & organic search engine marketing. The truth is we naturally trust our web designers to magically propel our websites into global fame. Fact is 95% of web design companies will do a good job of web design but will fail to get any term relevant exposure:By 'term relevant exposure' I mean if you are a florist in Cheltenham then naturally you would expect to be found if someone types 'florists Cheltenham' in Google, Yahoo & MSN or at the very least in Google (76% of all UK internet searches are made through Google)
The problem starts with the customer's deposit for the job. Why? - because if the web design company seriously wants to do a good job for the customer then at the very least they should spend an hour looking through keyword statistics and come up with some kind of strategy that gives their customer some chance of success.
Lets say we are web design company in Cheltenham - the research would show that 10 times more people search for the term web design than web development - hence the site should be built around that term. Statistics would show 1000 monthly searches for 'web design Cheltenham'. That means that there is business there but only for the few that make it to page 1 - top 10 as only 5 percent of traffic is valuable. A further 15 minutes research would show that the top 10 companies are well heeled - their sites are content rich with 100s of indexed pages. What we learn from that is that if our company is to have any chance of success then they must appear on the first page as there is not much traffic and to do well we need to write content rich website with many pages.
So a well informed web designer that spends a bit of time doing homework could tell me that I'm likely to meet heavy competition and I need a well sharpened site targeted to Web Design Cheltenham & it will cost me a fair amount to get there as I need a lot of content - at that point I am well informed and I am ready to edge my bets. Unfortunately - that doesn't happen.
This is what does:
1. Buyers find their web designers on the web and assume that they too will share in web success if the choose a company that writes pages that look good and appear high in search engines - smoke screen.
2. Customer buys into the pretty design and empties wallet in the belief that they will become an instant traffic magnet the minute its launched - self delusion.
3. Web development is done often without any valid research and usually without any attention to ‘on-page factors’ - website is now in bad shape.
4. Customer asks about marketing - this is now an afterthought and much of the on page work which is not always visible has not been done.
5. Web designer will come up with a marketing plan sometimes Google adwords, sometimes SEO - here is where the deception & lies come in - unless the website has been written and targeted to particular keywords - then its usually a rewrite - as almost all pages & link structure will need to change - now web designers don’t want to do that as they will loose face - hence you will now be marketed as is - and you're none the wiser.
In fact getting customers to the top of SE’s is just a part of the story...
Hardly anyone ever buys anything the first time they visit a web site. In fact, studies have determined that it takes a typical internet customer an average of seven visits to a web site before they buy any thing and that's assuming that you have a good offer, good credibility and good presentation.
The reality is that website owners spend a small fortune for traffic, high search engine positions but the sales don't come like they expected. So they walk away muttering that the internet just doesn't work "or "it's all just a bunch of hype". It's true a lot of - information out there is just a hype.
Poor web success is almost always down to poor preparation, poor research, and partnering up with a web company that will bedazzle you with pretty designs rather than quality information and absolute attention to detail and proven skill in website marketing.
Date posted: Thursday,29 Jan 2009 | Comments (2)
