Top 10 Ways to Screw Up Your Website no comments
© Noah Sussman
Sometimes, your website sucks. It's odd to me how personal people seem to take this criticism, like they personally slaved away with design and code to create their online presence. But, sometimes it just needs to be said. The website blows.
The first to know, is that if someone tells you that your website isn't so hot, take a moment to consider. If you DO think your website is fabulous, read through these top-ten and see if your website has any of these qualities. (Hint: If it does, return to first paragraph.)
Your Website Sucks if…
1. No contact information. If you don't have a form, an email address or a phone number, your site sucks
2. No defined navigation. It you don't have an obvious tool bar with the pages of your site on them, you're missing the boat.
3. More than 500 words of text on the home page.
4. No obvious branding.
5. Colors that don't match. It sounds simple, but I see all three primary colors on one site, or colors that change from page to page all the time.
6. Text with too much emphasis. Outside of your blog you should probably never italicize something. Especially not bold and italicize. And underline or highlighting is right out.
7. Images without purpose. Images should not be rotating gifs. They should match the page and look coded in.
8. Using tables. This is a coding thing. If you don't know, ask someone who programs.
9. Automatically playing anything. Auto starting music or video is never good form.
10. Anything broken. As I say this, there are broken, outdated links on my personal website that I haven't gotten to. But the point is that if the site itself is unusable, so is your company image. Check these things out at least once a quarter and fix them ASAP.
What do you think makes a terrible website?