According
to VeriSign,
there were over 250 million domain names registered at the end of
2012, with other industry sources putting the total number of
webpages at around 1.4 billion. However, there is a dirty little
secret – most of these webpages aren’t very well designed. While
a well-constructed webpage can make you stand out from the crowd,
there’s nothing that will drive visitors away more than a poor one.
Here are some of the mistakes that you need to avoid if you want your
audience to stay around.
Keep
your website design simple. You want your website to be interesting,
but strange fonts, too many competing images, and complicated layouts
just make your website confusing. For example, when you want someone
to press a button, don’t give them three different choices – it
may sound like a good idea, but people actually respond better when
they only have one choice to make. Similarly, some heavily-styled
fonts make content very hard to understand, even if they seem cool.
Stick to a straightforward typeface if you want to get your message
across.
Have
you ever visited a site and spent ages trying to find what you want?
The chances are that you actually left after a few clicks and found
another site that was easier to use. Make sure that your content is
well organized and categorized. For instance, if you run a sports
statistics site, categorize the content by type of sport, and then by
type of information – standings, player stats and so on. Make your
navigation as simple as possible, and, above all, keep it consistent
throughout your site – there are many different options when you
are laying out navigation, but you need to pick one and stick with
it. It is also a good idea to include a search box so that people can
find what they want quickly.
Another
big mistake that people make is to use unnatural-looking images. A
picture of a person sitting at a desk banging their head on a laptop
just looks corny, and, worse still, creates the impression that you
have not tried to select meaningful content that resonates with your
audience. It doesn’t matter what your website is about – you
can always find realistic looking pictures that show people behaving
naturally on sites such as Dreamstime.
Also, try to avoid images that have been used again and again – if
your visitors recognize an image from other sites, then your site
will look like a “me too” site.
Finally,
if you are trying to get someone to sign up on your site, avoid
complicated registration forms. If people have 10 different fields to
fill, they are going to give up before they finish 19 times out of
20. They are also going to wonder exactly what you are planning to do
with all that information, which can turn them off before they even
start. Stick to a name and password, and perhaps an email address if
you want them to sign up for newsletters and similar items.
