In the early 1990’s, when were not so popular, commercial sites were designed in a very simple way. Their number is not many and they’re just about being ‘live’ and readable. Today, with tens of millions sites online and have ‘war’ on the internet, visitors would NOT choose worse-organized and unprofessional sites that don’t provide information they search for. So, be careful when you design your own sites.
Here are 8 things you should avoid when designing sites. Your visitors don’t like them very much.
1. Outdated information
It’s clear enough. In the world of information, there’s nothing worse than outdated information.
2. Lack of focus
Many websites seem to make their visitors wondering what the site is all about. You have to always make sure that your home page will explicitly convey what information you are offering and its value. Don’t forget to attract their interest to explore the other pages on your site, too.
3. Text, text, … and text
A lot of text would be no problem actually. Just, don’t use lengthy paragraphs without any breaks between them. Reading online is absolutely different than reading printouts. It’s always better to use breaks at your text-block. Try using short and more focused paragraphs, white spacing, heading & subheading, numbers & bullets, or picture with the right size and the right place.
4. Hard to read
How do you feel when you read text with blue-coloured font on black background? Or otherwise… yellow-coloured font on white background? What about text with tiny fonts that strain your eyes when you read it? Yes… all of them are absolutely bad choices. Make sure your writing is easy to read.
5. Crowded and disorganized
Let’s say you have a great site. But if you ‘force’ your visitors with lengthy text blocks, promotional offers here and there, animations, sales chart, flash, or any other thing that is too much, you’ll soon confuse your visitors, drive them away and finally lose them!
6. Too long to download
Don’t waste your visitors’ time by displaying such photos, flash, and video with large file size that will only make your site longer to download. You only have seconds to attract your visitors and catch their interest. Use their time efficiently!
7. Aggressive ads
Surely, we hope our sites or blog can act as a media to lead our visitor from prospect to costumer. But showing ads blatantly is not the correct answer. There’s something more effective, and that is providing right information, solution and good product value. You can use pop-up, but don’t display it full screen and difficult to close. Your visitors will get angry with it!
8. No Privacy Policy
People hate being spammed. So, if you ask your visitor to fill a form with their e-mail address, please be sure that you have convinced them you will protect their e-mail address and won’t sell or distribute them to anyone else.
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Eventually, the content of your site might be the main key to attract visitors. But site appearance is another important thing you have to work on. When people enjoy visiting your site, then there’s more chance for you to do business with them.
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