8 things your website should NOT have

1. Pop Ups

If anything is sure to turn people away from your website, it’s pop up messages. They irritate people the moment they appear on their screen.

2. Music

Page load speed is essential and having background music that starts automatically will slow your webpage loading speed down to the point where potential customers might not hang around to see what you have to offer. If you really want to provide background music don’t start it automatically and provide controls so people can stop and start the music themselves.

3. Hard to Read Text

Contrast is as important to your website as a great design. Your website’s content should be as easy to read as a newspaper. For best practices a strong contrast between the text and the background is important.

4. Broken Links

This is a give away that a website hasn’t been updated in a long time. If your website has a number of links that don’t work, people may think your website is no longer active. Every website should have a custom 404 page. If your website doesn’t provide one and a potential customer mistypes your address into the search bar, they may think there’s something wrong with your website or that it no longer exists.

5. Poor Content

You could have a beautifully designed website, but if it doesn’t have enough relevant content, then you may lose potential customers. There is never a need to drone on and on about how many years experience and how many big clients your business has. Write content for the person reading it, not for your company.

6. Bad Navigation

People visiting your website should be able to easily find what they need. Nowadays people have little patience or forgiveness when something doesn’t work how they expect it to. Make menus clear and easy to find.

7. No Calls to Action

This is especially important for a company’s services page. Explaining the brilliant services you provide without telling the visitor what to do next is a cardinal sin. Simple things like “To talk to us about this service call 01 123 4567” make it very easy for a potential customer to get in touch.

8. Advertisements

When placing advertisements on your website you may be required to place them in a prominent location. Unfortunately you may find the advertisement competing directly with the product or service that you’re providing.