Websites and Pitfalls
There are literally thousands of things that you can do to make your website better. But there are just a handful of things that can kill a website and its associated traffic.

We’ve all seen examples of these designing mistakes while surfing the web. In this series we’ll not only point them out, we’ll discuss why they are mistakes.
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Bad Music Intros or Loud Sound Effects
How many of you have gone to a website, seen the percentage bar load, and then get an earful of loud music or outrageous sound effects, explosions, or other ear wrenching auditory garbage?

You immediately wanted to stay at the website, right?

Wrong.

Your first reaction was to get away from the offending website as fast as you could click your mouse. Your second reaction was to make a mental note to never visit the site again.

What people enjoy in music is extremely subjective. If you decide to listen to what pleases you, that isn’t a problem.

But putting up music on a website is a different matter altogether. You may alienate lots of people without even being aware of it. Best bet? Keep the music and sound effects out.

Long Loading Times
A company decides to save tons of money by signing up for services at “Joe’s Econo Hosting.” It’s only fifty bucks a month!

But did they read the fine print on the contract about the limited bandwidth and slow servers? Or maybe the coding skills of the hired web designers aren’t very good. What is the result — the website loads at a snail’s pace.

But that’s Ok. The visitors will understand, right?

Wrong.

The Internet is a fast place where information literally travels at the speed of light. Websites have entered an arena where only the fastest have a chance at survival.

A website that loads in 5 seconds is considered slow. A ten second wait is almost torture. And a thirty second wait probably means the site is broken.

If a website takes longer than just a few seconds to load, it’s unlikely that people will return.

Weak Website Navigation
Too many (or lack of) menus, buttons, drop downs, vague links, and confusing website navigation can frustrate your visitors and guarantee that they won’t return.

Websites that make their visitors “work” for what they are looking for is similar to what supermarkets do to “hide’ their advertised sale items.

Why do stores do this?

They hope that the customer will pick up additional items along the way while they are searching for the advertised product.

So this will work for a website too, right?

Wrong.

When visitors enter a website, there is an unspoken expectation that they will find what they are looking for in a reasonable amount of time. In Internet terms, that probably means 10 seconds or less.

In the real world, delays are often accepted as typical and expected. People are used to waiting in line at the store, they wait in line for the train, or they wait in line to see the doctor. But in the world of the Internet, the tolerance for waiting is very low.

For some reason, the rules of the game change when people are on the Internet. Getting to information is expected to take a minimum of effort and work.

People want as little hassle as possible when they’re on a website. Making the navigation of a website difficult is a good way to lose your clientele.

Next Time…
We’ll finish out the Top 5 list of Website Design Mistakes and go into some detail on what can help to make a website successful. Until then, see you next time!

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