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Are Your Web Design Mistakes Causing Your Online Business to Tank
By: Tiffany Dow
When you go into business on the ?net, you have to take special care in creating a site designed to leverage the traffic it receives. There are six common mistakes marketers are making in their web design techniques, and you need to know how to avoid these traps.
A slow loading website is the worst culprit. There?s nothing more irritating than a site that takes forever to load. Even though you might be on a high-speed connection, most users are still on dialup, believe it or not.
This percentage should not be taken for granted. In building your website, try to stay away from large graphic files. You don?t need a high number of pixels, fancy flash animation or catchy music. You need a website that will deliver the information it promises at a fast speed, and for this reason, you have to choose functionality over design.
The second common mistake is having a navigation system that?s very difficult to understand. If your menu bar is complicated, you?ll just end up driving away a lot of your visitors. You don?t want your traffic to get stuck on the first page. You need to make it easy for them to explore your website.
Your pages must be interlinked in a logical way, and this connection should be easily navigable through an intuitive interface that even a five-year old will be able to understand. Place your navigation links either at the top of the page right below the header, or at either side of the page in a separate column. This is where your visitors? eyes will wander once they want to discover the other pages in your website.
Low quality content is the third dilemma marketers are having in web design. Content is king on the Internet. People log on to find information they need. If your content isn?t unique, why will people choose your website over others? There are two requisites for good quality content: excellent presentation and originality. Minus either of these, your entire website will be in jeopardy.
Is your site suffering from the fourth worst web offender ? having a poor choice of keywords? Keywords drive traffic to your website. Keywords are the terms that people search for when they?re looking for information. If you target the right keywords, quality visitors will come in droves. If you target the wrong keywords, visitors will be scarce. So make sure you discover the right keywords even before you start building your website.
The fifth problematic area is succumbing to cookie cutter websites. Again, this is a matter of originality ? or the lack of it. Why would people choose your website over thousands of others sharing the same layout and boasting the same content? What makes your site special?
If these questions can?t be answered positively, then your online business is doomed. Worse, search engines penalize duplicate content, and your website will have a lower position in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
The last big area of concern is having a website that lacks focus. Focus is key in designing a website. It will be difficult for a site to focus on several, unrelated topics. Why would visitors who are interested with dogs want any content on astronomy? There?s no connection between the two subjects, and if your site caters to these topics, among others, then it can kill its success.
Taking care to build your website is the first step in creating the foundation for your online empire. Invest the time and attention it requires to build a decent website the same way you?d pay attention to details if you were investing in building the next Trump Tower.
Tiffany Dow has written a free report called The Multi-Layered Mindset of Web 2.0 Marketing, which you can find at http://www.TiffanyDow.com |
