Top 10 Ways To Ruin Your Website Summary
We have reached the end of our series! Its true, so many little things can ruin your entire website. In the series I tried to touch on each of the most common pages businesses place on their site and then discusses the top ten worst things for each. Here we’ll do a quick summary of those lists.
But what I want you to take away is this: your website is part of your branding. Make sure every page, every line of text exemplifies who you are as a company. That’s the best way to create a great website.
- Too much text
- Unclear navigation
- Clutter
- Screaming Colors
- Forgetting the Bottom Line
- No Logo or Branding
- Flash
- Too Much Scrolling
- Ads Taking Up the Top Half of Your Page
- Skimping in the Design Department
- Huge Pictures of Yourself in Classic Realtor Style
- Writing for Yourself, Not Your Audience
- Removing Distinction Between You & Your Company
- Text Overload
- Being Boring
- Not Optimized
- Repetition from Home Page
- No Formatting
- Failure to Highlight the Important Part
- No Purpose
- Wrong Information
- No Information
- Contact Form Error
- Never Hooking Your Email Up to Your Contact Form
- Never Checking the Email Connected to Your Contact Form
- Requiring Someone’s Birth Certificate Before They can Use Your Form
- Making the Form Look Too Long
- Hiding Your Phone Number
- Excessive Text
- TMI
- Log-In Hell
- Not Saving Contact Information
- Deleting Everything When There is an Input Error
- Not Putting the Cart Front & Center
- Not Giving Prices Upfront
- Making the Process More than 3 Steps
- Long Load Time
- No Options
- Errors
- Charging the Wrong Amount
- Hiding the RSS Feed
- Captcha Doesn’t Work to Comment
- Requiring a Log-in to Comment
- No Structure in Posts
- Design doesn’t Mesh with Website
- Blog Content Doesn’t Match Goal of Website
- 5th Grade Writing Level – Sometimes You Should Pay for Content
- Not Using Your Own Work (Or At Least Claiming its Yours When it isn’t)
- Not Taking Advantage of Titles
- Clutter
Did you enjoy this series? Is there page you think should be added to the list?
Tags: About, Branding, connectivity, Contact, ecommerce, Homepage, Ruin, shopping cart, top ten, Web Diagram, Website
September 18th, 2009 at 12:16 am
[...] Veribatim Web Design and Consultation » Blog Archive » Top 10 Ways … [...]
September 18th, 2009 at 1:32 am
I enjoyed the series and even agreed with most of the points you made. One place where disagreed was on the About page. You mentioned text overload and keeping the About page to two paragraphs. I think it’s o to share more information depending on your business and who your market is.
Awhile back I discovered that one of my selling points to clients was me. I tend to add some personal touches and my clients let me know they liked that. I realized one reason clients choose me is simply me and my personality. I made a conscious effort to add more of my personality into my last redesign, including a longer About page.
That might not work for everyone, but it seems to work for me and I imagine it could work for others as well.
How about adding 10 ways to ruin your services page?
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Steven,
I will certainly look into a Services Page post, that’s a good one.
I think my problem with About pages isn’t so much having personal information, because trust me, I know lots of people whose business IS their personality. Its more the droning details about how awesome they are. there’s a difference between letting “you” shine through and being egotistical.
But your point is well taken, everyone’s needs are a little different. And it should certainly be based on what your clients want to know.
-Kat