Websites can fail even before a single line of code is ever written. The success or failure of your website will very much depend on the competence or incompetence - of your web designer & how dedicated or lame they are in preparing your website for your market. 95% of sites will never make page 1 or page 2 of SERPs. Here are the worst web design planning mistakes in order:
(See Top 60 Web Design Mistakes of 2009)
1 - No Keyword Research - Attempting to write a website without keyword research is effectively going blind. Good keyword research usually reveals many surprises and potential niche keywords that could be used to drive traffic. Poor use of keywords is the number 1 reason for website failure and it's totally avoidable through the use of keyword research tools - many of which are free to use.
2 - Lack of Competitor Research - without competitor research you won't know whether your page 1 competitors have 30 or 30,000 backlinks, and you won't know if their websites have 3 or 300 pages. The term 'mortgage' has 189 million pages listed in Google - moneysupermarket.com who are usually number 1 has 306,000 backlinks - hence it would be unrealistic for anyone other than a team of professional SEMs to compete. Simple research takes minutes and could save months of wasted effort and wasted cash.
3 - Nothing Special to Offer - doing exactly the same thing as your competitors is likely to make you blend into the abyss of failed or failing websites. Quality web design is all about being different - hence unless you spend some time planning to be better than your competitors then you are likely to fail. Think about better content, better visitor experience, easier navigation, special offers - anything that distances you away from the average - If you make the effort so will your visitor
4 - Poor Content Quality - if you have done your competitor research then you will know how much quality content you have to write to match your competitors. Both quality & quantity of text content is important - paragraphs should be no more than a few lines long, headings should contain your researched keywords. Planning this in advance will help improve your website ranking & conversion rates.
5 - Lack of Page Planning - failing to plan each of your pages correctly will cause you a problem with 'on page factors' - these affect your position in search engines. The following should contain your researched keywords: page names, directory names, titles, descriptions, headings, footers, menu text, link text & paragraphs. Your menus should be simple/ text selectable & your primary keyworded heading should be displayed high on page. Your contact details should always be found easily.
6 - No Plan for Marketing - if your aim is to write a website which will drive business through web traffic and you haven't considered how this traffic will magically appear then you haven't made a marketing plan. Depending how competitive your industry is - you may need to build 10s, 100s or 1000s of backlinks using web partners, directories & blogs. This may take hours/week/years hence you will need a plan with timescales.
7 - Cheap Hosting Overseas - unless your site is geared more to international traffic rather than local or national then hosting overseas is a bad idea. Cheap overseas hosting will lead to longer load times & will affect your ranking in search engines. Plan to host your website in your home country - use a fast well recommended hosting service with 24/7 support - be sure to check the hosts IP address to insure the servers really are based where the host claims they are. Many search engines today use Geo Targeting in some manner.
8 - Poor use of Colours - using drab or exotic colours could make your website look amateur - you have an average of 3 seconds to make your first impression hence spend time planning your colour scheme. Remember that its not your personal taste that counts - its your visitor's. Take care though as certain colours have major significance in some countries. Insure your colours are well matched - you will find plenty of websafe colour match utilities in Google.
9 - Strange Fonts - consider that not all of us have perfect vision hence try not to make your visitors strain to read your content - use basic fonts such as Helvetica or Arial. Poor use of fonts is a certain way of your website becoming a victim of the back button. There are nor laws in place in a few countries that govern the use of text within websites - I haven't heard of anyone being sued yet, but I'm sure someone will tell me otherwise.
10 - Selecting your URL & TLD - wherever possible choose a domain that contains your researched keywords then select the correct domain suffix (TLD) - use .co.uk for a UK company .com for e-commerce - you will have trouble indexing an Indian domain (eg .co.in) in the UK . Here are come common UK domain suffixes:
.com - ecommerce or commercial website (UK &/or International)
.co.uk - typical uk corporate website
.net - often used by web hosts - large network
.biz - almost purely for business-to-business sites
.org.uk - organisation, group or charity
.info - informational site
.name - for an individual or organization
.ltd - for ltd company - 16039
(See Top 60 Web Design Mistakes of 2009)
1 - No Keyword Research - Attempting to write a website without keyword research is effectively going blind. Good keyword research usually reveals many surprises and potential niche keywords that could be used to drive traffic. Poor use of keywords is the number 1 reason for website failure and it's totally avoidable through the use of keyword research tools - many of which are free to use.
2 - Lack of Competitor Research - without competitor research you won't know whether your page 1 competitors have 30 or 30,000 backlinks, and you won't know if their websites have 3 or 300 pages. The term 'mortgage' has 189 million pages listed in Google - moneysupermarket.com who are usually number 1 has 306,000 backlinks - hence it would be unrealistic for anyone other than a team of professional SEMs to compete. Simple research takes minutes and could save months of wasted effort and wasted cash.
3 - Nothing Special to Offer - doing exactly the same thing as your competitors is likely to make you blend into the abyss of failed or failing websites. Quality web design is all about being different - hence unless you spend some time planning to be better than your competitors then you are likely to fail. Think about better content, better visitor experience, easier navigation, special offers - anything that distances you away from the average - If you make the effort so will your visitor
4 - Poor Content Quality - if you have done your competitor research then you will know how much quality content you have to write to match your competitors. Both quality & quantity of text content is important - paragraphs should be no more than a few lines long, headings should contain your researched keywords. Planning this in advance will help improve your website ranking & conversion rates.
5 - Lack of Page Planning - failing to plan each of your pages correctly will cause you a problem with 'on page factors' - these affect your position in search engines. The following should contain your researched keywords: page names, directory names, titles, descriptions, headings, footers, menu text, link text & paragraphs. Your menus should be simple/ text selectable & your primary keyworded heading should be displayed high on page. Your contact details should always be found easily.
6 - No Plan for Marketing - if your aim is to write a website which will drive business through web traffic and you haven't considered how this traffic will magically appear then you haven't made a marketing plan. Depending how competitive your industry is - you may need to build 10s, 100s or 1000s of backlinks using web partners, directories & blogs. This may take hours/week/years hence you will need a plan with timescales.
7 - Cheap Hosting Overseas - unless your site is geared more to international traffic rather than local or national then hosting overseas is a bad idea. Cheap overseas hosting will lead to longer load times & will affect your ranking in search engines. Plan to host your website in your home country - use a fast well recommended hosting service with 24/7 support - be sure to check the hosts IP address to insure the servers really are based where the host claims they are. Many search engines today use Geo Targeting in some manner.
8 - Poor use of Colours - using drab or exotic colours could make your website look amateur - you have an average of 3 seconds to make your first impression hence spend time planning your colour scheme. Remember that its not your personal taste that counts - its your visitor's. Take care though as certain colours have major significance in some countries. Insure your colours are well matched - you will find plenty of websafe colour match utilities in Google.
9 - Strange Fonts - consider that not all of us have perfect vision hence try not to make your visitors strain to read your content - use basic fonts such as Helvetica or Arial. Poor use of fonts is a certain way of your website becoming a victim of the back button. There are nor laws in place in a few countries that govern the use of text within websites - I haven't heard of anyone being sued yet, but I'm sure someone will tell me otherwise.
10 - Selecting your URL & TLD - wherever possible choose a domain that contains your researched keywords then select the correct domain suffix (TLD) - use .co.uk for a UK company .com for e-commerce - you will have trouble indexing an Indian domain (eg .co.in) in the UK . Here are come common UK domain suffixes:
.com - ecommerce or commercial website (UK &/or International)
.co.uk - typical uk corporate website
.net - often used by web hosts - large network
.biz - almost purely for business-to-business sites
.org.uk - organisation, group or charity
.info - informational site
.name - for an individual or organization
.ltd - for ltd company - 16039
About the Author:
The author has 12 years experience as an Ecommerce/Web Design Consultant and works with designers for many large corporations such as Coca Cola, Npower & Vodafone. See web design for more information.
