A website to a commercial venture is like unleashing a whole new dimension to one's commercial success. Going online defeats geographical boundaries and widens advertising and marketing horizons, rendering you sitting on the top of a pile of opportunities waiting to be exploited.
Many a times, it is observed that the website design itself defeats the numerous web-marketing endeavors and overall worthwhile efforts invested in the website to make it a commercial success. Following are some of the frequently made mistakes by web designers:
The grayed 'Back' button: The back button is the most commonly used navigation feature that must not be meddled with as it may adversely affect the interest of the visitors to your site. Obviously frustrated by a poorer browsing experience against their habit, the visitors may opt for your competitor for sheer ease of navigation. For example, many designers opt for opening a new browsing window so as to keep the user on their site. This disables the back button of the current window for obvious reason. But as the user may have a smaller monitor and the older window goes unnoticed, it may baffle the user and give him a bad experience, which he will, in turn, attribute to the website.
Loose interaction consistency: Reliable studies of the behavior pattern of Internet users confirm that they like consistency. In fact, it is such a powerful usability principle that it can rob you off some qualified visitors. The users like the browser to act as per their expectations as it renders them more confident about their own knowledge and control on Internet browsing. Shaking the confidence of your visitors can prove to be harmful for your business. So it is an additional reason to stay away from opening new browser windows. Also, using radio buttons as action buttons is a walk away from the habitual norms and makes web harder to use.
No archives: Though keeping archives may add to about 10% of the cost of running a website, it increases its utility for the visitors by at least 50%.
Lack of information about the people behind the website: Visitors often like to know the people who are behind the information on your website, such as their biographies, photographs etc., as such details builds up a sense of trust and personal touch.
Shifting web pages to new URLs: As soon as you shift web pages to new URLs, you break the incoming links from other websites. This in turn discourages people to send you free customer referrals out of bad experience.
Meaning less headlines: The objective of the website is to educate your prospective customer about your products and services. Therefore, it is absolutely essential that the content and headings be given to enhance user interface and meet the goals. Removing headlines in context of the full page is not a good idea.
More of an advertisement than a website: According to latest trend, the Internet users generally choose to ignore any legitimate web design elements that look more like advertisement. So it is better to stay away from any web designs that are analogous to prevalent forms of advertising.
In a nutshell, take care of the choice of the users and they will take care of you.
