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:
(Please see: Top 60 Web Design Mistakes of 2009 for further information & resources)
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 - No Competitor Research - by not doing competitor research you won't know how firmly rooted your page 1/2 competitors are - this is simple & can be done by using one of many free backlink checkers available on the net - as a general rule the more backlinks your competitor has the harder your job will be to compete for position. For example sites like moneysupermarket.com have 100s of thousands of backlinks - so that is a task you would want to avoid unless you can pay for an army of SEMs. It is also important to check how many pages your competitor's websites have indexed as building a site with say 5 pages to your competitor's hundreds would be equally pointless. Google will disclose this information - type site:yourdomain.com without the www. in the search bar.
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 - Inadequate Page Planning - it's like the old saying: 'fail to prepare - prepare to fail' - inadequate page planning will inevitably result in lower rankings. Use well researched keywords in: titles, descriptions, headings, footers, menu text, link text, paragraphs, page names & directories. Keep your layouts consistent & your menus easy to follow. If you have the necessary skills prepare to write your website in scripting language such as ASP/PHP for greater control of layout & functionality & consider building in CMS so pages can be added or removed easily.
6 - No Plan for Marketing - most of us by now know that the myth of 'write a website & the visitors will come' is not true. The objective for most websites should be to aim for Page1 or Page2 of search engines. By doing your competitor research you will know how big a hill you have to climb un order to match/beat the competition. Being unrealistic with the time/budget for this task will make even the best website fail.
7 - Poor Choice of Hosting - cheap hosting deals overseas may not necessarily be good for your website as many search engines today use 'Geo Targeting' in some manner in their ranking algorithms and you visitors may find your website slower than your competitors. Where possible use host with servers located in your home country & look at live review sites before making a decision. If your site is geared for high traffic and/or overseas trade then use a dedicated server and insure you host has good peering agreements with the countries that you are likely to do business with. Always check your host's IP address to insure the servers really are based where the host claims they are.
8 - Poor use of Colours - you have approximately 3 seconds to make your first impression hence insure your colour scheme is perfect for your website & is unlikely to offend your visitors. Avoid luminous colour schemes & take care when designing websites geared for other countries as certain colours have major cultural significance. Avoid using any more than 3 colours in your scheme & insure these are web safe & matched well. Poor planning in this area is likely to make your website look amateur.
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 - Poor use of Domain & Suffix - Wherever possible register a domain which incorporates your keywords, whilst this is not essential, every little helps. Many of us still make mistakes in registering the wrong suffix, whilst getting this a little bit wrong is neither here or there, however you might have trouble ranking a .pl (polish TLD) in the UK searches. Below are common UK TLDs
.com - ecommerce website
.co.uk - typical uk corporate website
.net - larger network website - typically used by web hosts
.biz - use for B2B business
.org.uk - group, charity or organisation
.info - informational site .name - usually used for individuals
.name - for an individual or organization
.ltd - requests only accepted from ltd companies
(Please see: Top 60 Web Design Mistakes of 2009 for further information & resources)
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 - No Competitor Research - by not doing competitor research you won't know how firmly rooted your page 1/2 competitors are - this is simple & can be done by using one of many free backlink checkers available on the net - as a general rule the more backlinks your competitor has the harder your job will be to compete for position. For example sites like moneysupermarket.com have 100s of thousands of backlinks - so that is a task you would want to avoid unless you can pay for an army of SEMs. It is also important to check how many pages your competitor's websites have indexed as building a site with say 5 pages to your competitor's hundreds would be equally pointless. Google will disclose this information - type site:yourdomain.com without the www. in the search bar.
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 - Inadequate Page Planning - it's like the old saying: 'fail to prepare - prepare to fail' - inadequate page planning will inevitably result in lower rankings. Use well researched keywords in: titles, descriptions, headings, footers, menu text, link text, paragraphs, page names & directories. Keep your layouts consistent & your menus easy to follow. If you have the necessary skills prepare to write your website in scripting language such as ASP/PHP for greater control of layout & functionality & consider building in CMS so pages can be added or removed easily.
6 - No Plan for Marketing - most of us by now know that the myth of 'write a website & the visitors will come' is not true. The objective for most websites should be to aim for Page1 or Page2 of search engines. By doing your competitor research you will know how big a hill you have to climb un order to match/beat the competition. Being unrealistic with the time/budget for this task will make even the best website fail.
7 - Poor Choice of Hosting - cheap hosting deals overseas may not necessarily be good for your website as many search engines today use 'Geo Targeting' in some manner in their ranking algorithms and you visitors may find your website slower than your competitors. Where possible use host with servers located in your home country & look at live review sites before making a decision. If your site is geared for high traffic and/or overseas trade then use a dedicated server and insure you host has good peering agreements with the countries that you are likely to do business with. Always check your host's IP address to insure the servers really are based where the host claims they are.
8 - Poor use of Colours - you have approximately 3 seconds to make your first impression hence insure your colour scheme is perfect for your website & is unlikely to offend your visitors. Avoid luminous colour schemes & take care when designing websites geared for other countries as certain colours have major cultural significance. Avoid using any more than 3 colours in your scheme & insure these are web safe & matched well. Poor planning in this area is likely to make your website look amateur.
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 - Poor use of Domain & Suffix - Wherever possible register a domain which incorporates your keywords, whilst this is not essential, every little helps. Many of us still make mistakes in registering the wrong suffix, whilst getting this a little bit wrong is neither here or there, however you might have trouble ranking a .pl (polish TLD) in the UK searches. Below are common UK TLDs
.com - ecommerce website
.co.uk - typical uk corporate website
.net - larger network website - typically used by web hosts
.biz - use for B2B business
.org.uk - group, charity or organisation
.info - informational site .name - usually used for individuals
.name - for an individual or organization
.ltd - requests only accepted from ltd companies
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 Cheltenham for more information.
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