{"id":125,"date":"2010-03-10T22:58:02","date_gmt":"2010-03-11T03:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sethalling.com\/?p=125"},"modified":"2016-09-10T11:51:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-10T16:51:00","slug":"five-common-website-design-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sethalling.com\/five-common-website-design-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Common Website Design Mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are a lot of good sites out on the internet and there are a lot of bad ones full of mistakes, such as this site<\/a>. (Edit: The site is actually no more, but there’s a working copy on Archive.org.)<\/ins> But, what about all of the ones in the middle? There are a lot of websites that have potential, yet something is off just enough for them to exist and nothing else. No one cares to visit them, and no one remembers them.<\/p>\n

I believe that a lot of this has to do with poor design and development choices in building the website. Sure, it’s possible that the reason could be a poor marketing strategy but a lot of time it’s because of minor (or major!) design and development mistakes. To help you out, I have listed five of them for your benefit.<\/p>\n

The Website’s Width is Too Wide<\/h2>\n

I have a larger than average monitor, and possibly you do too, but to design for these larger monitors only is a common mistake. The most common monitor resolution is 1024\u00d7768. Adding in the vertical scroll bar, a website should not be designed to more than 1000px. Keeping it under this size will prevent the dreaded horizontal scroll bar and will increase user-friendliness within your website. People don’t mind scrolling, but that’s when they can actually use their scroll wheel. I know that a Mac can scroll left and right, but most people have a PC. Design your site so anyone can view it without too much hassle.<\/p>\n

Using Underlined Text<\/h2>\n

Why is having underlined text within your content a no-no? Even if your site’s style doesn’t have links underlined, people still have it embedded into their minds that any underlined text is a link. Clear up some confusion for your visitor by using a different way to emphasize something… How about the <em> tag!?<\/p>\n

Using Harsh Colors<\/h2>\n

Please don’t take this the wrong way. You can use any color in a website and be fine, but some are harsher than others. These bright accent colors will stand out great, but if your background’s color is too bright and your visitor has just had a seizure by spending five minutes on your site, I can almost guarantee that you will not profit with that website. Save your visitors eyes and brain by using colors correctly.<\/p>\n

Incorrect Speling<\/del> Spelling<\/h2>\n

Nothing screams amateur more than having incorrect spelling. Some people will say, “I am just a bad speller,” but this is ridiculous. If you want people to think of you and your company as legit, then take the time to have someone else look over your content. We’ve all been spelling since elementary school. It’s not that hard, it just may take a little more effort, but that effort will go a long way.<\/p>\n

Too Much Content<\/h2>\n

Once someone has entered a page, they check certain areas of the page. One of those places is the right side so that they can see the size of the scroll bar. If your site appears too long and the visitor doesn’t have enough interest in the topic of the page, they could leave. Sometimes this can be caused by having a sidebar that is too long or just text that should have been split into more pages. People value their time and don’t want to read too much. If the page has too much content, it will be harder to scan and it’s possible to lose that visitor.<\/p>\n

Obviously there are many more mistakes and these are just a few of them, but for the sake of keeping the content short, I have decided to limit myself to only five mistakes. It is easy to spot mistakes on other websites, but what about your own? Give your website an honest review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are a lot of decent websites on the Internet, but why are they just decent. Many times it’s because of small design and development errors, which can add up quick. Take some time to evaluate your own website and see if your site suffers from any of these mistakes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"Five Common Website Design Mistakes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There are a lot of decent websites on the Internet, but why are they just decent. 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