A Few Things That Kill Your Website

A Few Things That Kill Your Website

There are as many ways to get a website wrong as there are to get it right, of course — but we have noticed that most organizations that need a new web presence are struggling from at least one of these issues:

Incoherent design choices. This might sound harsh, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of websites we see feel as if they were designed and constructed by half a dozen different people (and they might have been, with successive revisions over time). Your pages should look like they belong together; inconsistencies in sizing, fonts, or colors might not seem obvious at first, but they make a poor impression on visitors.

Key information that is buried. On every page in your website, key information and details should be “above the fold,” meaning that the user shouldn’t have to scroll around the page to find them. When that’s not the case, your website feels cumbersome, confusing, and difficult to use.

Difficult navigational structures. Speaking of usability, there are a handful of different navigational structures and menu types that searchers and visitors are used to. Once you stray away from these, people have to think about what they’re doing when they use your website. That can be frustrating, and detracts from your message.

Unconventional colors. Lots of people want to think “outside the box” when it comes to website design, but you have to be careful when it comes to color choices. There’s only a slight difference between something that makes your pages “pop” and coloring that’s distracting and irritating to visitors.

Low-quality graphics and unreadable fonts. Amazingly, we still see webpages using clipart from decades ago, or are built with fonts that are either hard to read or can’t be displayed correctly by modern web browsers and mobile devices. These send an instant message to visitors, and it isn’t that your group should be taken seriously.

A lack of mobile compatibility. More than half of all web users access the Internet through tablets and smart phones. If your webpages don’t display properly for them, then you can’t be surprised when you aren’t getting the kinds of results you planned for.

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