Common Mistakes To Avoid When Building A Web Site
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Building a new web site will go much smoother if you avoid some of these common mistakes.
Not Having Enough Time
Shame, shame – you are spending good money to have a professional web site designed, and yet you cannot give it the time it needs. This is a sure recipe for an unsuccessful web site. As explained in the web design process, you will need to devote considerable time to building your web site. The more active and involved you are, the better your web site will turn out.
Not Being Responsive
Your web designer asks you to fill out a questionnaire, or asks for your company logo, or needs you to make a decision – but you just don’t want to be bothered with all this extra work. Well, guess what? Your web designer can’t move forward until they get the information they need from you. So the project just stalls in neutral, idling along as the days and weeks pass. Instead, be as responsive as you can and provide the web designer with the information requested as soon as possible. This will ensure a continuous design process that gets completed in a timely fashion.
Writing Poor Copy
You can have the most beautiful web site in the world, designed to the most professional fit and polish – yet it will be unsuccessful if the copy (text and content) of the web site is poor. Good copy is what makes or breaks a web site. With good text and information, your customers will view your web site as a valuable resource with informative content. Without this, your customers will move on and find a better web site.
One of the biggest culprits is writing copy that is too short. Why sell yourself short by only writing a paragraph or two per page? Your competitors certainly are not doing that. All this says to your customers is that you don’t have enough time to write the necessary text for your web site. Instead, make sure each page is a full page of text that thoroughly covers the topic at hand. Be thorough, be informative, be convincing – that’s what will make your web site a success.
Working By Committee
Designing a web site by committee may not be the most effective way to do things. With a committee, you often wind up with a variety of personnel, all with different backgrounds and levels of experience. Each has a different opinion, and achieving a consensus can be challenging. In many cases, the committee members are not particularly qualified to know what would make the best web site. For example, someone with a technical background may not know what makes a good graphical design. Or someone with an executive background, may not understand the key factors that make a successful web site. In our experience, it usually works best to work with one main point of contact that has the necessary experience and background to lead the web design process.
Frequently Changing Your Mind
It is very difficult for a web designer to design a web site, if the client keeps changing their mind. It is usually a sign that the client has not thought things through, and is unsure of the direction they want to go in. Instead, be prepared and do your homework before designing a new web site. Study the competition, and decide the features that you want or do not want in your new site. Understand what you like, and be prepared to share that with your web designer.
Keep in mind that changes can be very costly. If you approve a graphical design, and then later change your mind, your web designer will charge you for the extra work. If you approve the site architecture, but later change things considerably, your web designer will have to charge you for that as well. It is always best to have things well thought out, and to make decisive decisions during the web design process.
Delaying The Process
This goes back to the first couple of points: not giving enough of your time, and not being responsive. If you delay the process by not being available, not being responsive, or not providing the information that your web designer needs, then the web design process will be painfully slow.
It is much easier to design a web site in an ongoing, continuous fashion, rather than a process that is continually being delayed by the client. You want to maintain the momentum, and the train of thought that goes with developing a web site. The more interruptions and delays in this process, the harder it is to develop the web site.
Conclusion
Keep these basic tips in mind when designing your web site for the best results. Be sure to give yourself enough time to handle the work involved in creating a new web site. Be responsive to your web designer, and provide information in a timely manner. Write good, informative copy. Make sure a qualified main point of contact is in charge of the new web site, and be decisive in your decision making.
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