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Web Design
Common
Website Mistakes
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you may notice from some of the other topics on this site, I feel that
content is extremely important in the development
and maintenance of a website. Taking that philosophy
one step further, here's a few all too common mistakes made by business
websites.
- Before you start conceptualizing or writing one single
thing, you should define what you want to achieve with the site. Just
because everybody else has one is not a good enough reason for building
a site. They are often expensive to build and maintain and say as much
about your company as any printed piece of collaterals. It says more,
in fact, as more people have access to the Internet than have access
to your collaterals.
- Let what you want to achieve define the structure of
your site and not your company's organizational chart. A company's org.
chart may work well for the structure of a company but, chances are,
it won't be a clear structure for a website aimed at serving customers.
- Don't use more than one designer or studio to design
your site, if possible. You want your site to have a consistent look
throughout all of its pages. If you use another designer for each new
project, you won't have a consistent look. Each designer has his/her
own design sensibility and will want to put a creative mark on your
site.
- Be sure to budget sufficient funds for site maintenance.
If you put all of your money into building an exciting site but don't
allot enough money to keep it maintained, you're wasting your investment.
You should expect to spend the same amount on a year's maintenance as
you did on the initial design and development of the site. You'll want
to allow enough funds for new technology, expansion and design and text
changes.
- Companies that don't develop content exclusively for
the Web are making a big mistake. Print media and the Web are two totally
different animals and should be treated as such. Short and to-the-point
content that interrelates and connects with other pages should be developed.
Pages and pages of marketing text from big brochures are what you don't
want. Visitors won't read a lot of text and it won't interconnect in
a cohesive manner with other online content.
- Use and don't misuse your site's address in ads and
printed media. If you're running a generic ad or brochure, then it makes
sense to include your site address. If you've create a specialized brochure,
why not direct readers to a specialized area of your site? If you don't
have a specialized area, shouldn't you consider creating one? After
all, if an offer or product is worth running ads about, isn't it worth
a special section on your site? A note of caution: if you're going to
put a line of text like "visit our site for more information"
on a brochure or ad, make sure you have additional content on the site.
It's a total turnoff when a customer takes the time to visit a site
for additional information, and all they can find is the text from the
brochure or ad.
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