Fix 10+ Most Common Website Mistakes

There are tons of website on the Internet, and

hundreds or probably thousands are created by day.
Heres a very interesting thing to ponder
www.dalassolutions.co.uk

Contents
1. Preface about the book.
2. Who we are & what we do.
3. Wheres the Search box?
4. Poor Readability & Legibility.
5. Unorganized Content Layout.
6. Bad Navigation.
7. Inconsistent Interface Design.
8. Unfriendly Screen Resolution.
9. Complicated Registration Forms.
10. Unscrupulous Use of Images/Videos/Animations.
11. Cluttered Pages, More Whitespace.
12. No Background Music, Please!
13. Test, Test and Test.
14. Opening new windows.
15. Failing to put a phone number and address.
16. Broken links.
17. Outdated information.
18. Failing to link with your social network sites.
19. Tiny clickable areas.
20. Duplicate page titles.
21. Forgetting the Contact Page.
22. Conclusion.
23. Contact Us .

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Preface about the book

There are tons of website on the Internet, and hundreds or probably thousands are created
by day. Heres a very interesting thing to ponder What are the elements of a good website?
Building a website can be daunting but the real challenge lies in making it usable. The problem
is most web designers forget that the website wasnt created for themselves but to solve the
users needs. They give creativity priority over practicality and usability.
In this report, we would like to highlight 10 web design blunders that web developers and
designers make and some suggestions how these mistakes can be easily avoided in near future
& how to fix them now. Working in this industry for past 16 years, there are so many goofs site
builders make--but lets narrow the focus to the most disastrous 10. Avoid these gaffes, and
your site will be far better than much of the competition. By now, all good designers and
developers realize the importance of usability for their work. Usable websites offer great user
experiences, and great user experiences lead to happy customers. Delight and satisfy your

visitors, rather than frustrate and annoy them, with smart design decisions. So we are going to
only point out few and guide on how to fix the top most 10 + mistakes in websites.

Who we are & what we do

Dalas Solutions was founded in 2008 & is a rapidly growing Client-focused IT

Development, Business Process Outsourcing & Consultancy services, specializing
in Software & Application development, Supporting the services with our Inbound
Response Handling, Outbound Telemarketing, Telesales Campaigns, Voice
Broadcasting, and IVR Technology Services.
Dalas delivers a rare mix of outstanding quality services, while maintaining a
personalized service.

Apart from an Software development firm we are also a mid-sized Call Centre
specialist, seeking to add value and profitability to all our client relationships from
Blue Chip to SMEs. Dalas is totally committed to providing the best possible level
of service.
As an Independent IT Consultancy, we can provide you with a totally unbiased
view, and provide you with a solution to suit your companys specific needs &
Advisory services to help your business grow and overcome all the huddles and
challenges faced in the past. In short we get you all set for future.
About the Author :Santosh Salve has 2 plus years of Experience working with
Start-ups as well as established companies in providing Rich
Internet Application Services has Handled multiple roles and
actively involved in developing and deploying more then 300
plus websites. Well versed with Sales & Marketing, Business
Analysis, Project Management, Operations Management to
meet the organization targets by leading and guiding various
departments.
Fix 10+ Most Common Website Mistakes

1. Wheres the Search box?

The web is like an archive of information. Whether its a corporate website or
merely a blog, a search box is essential. The visitor might be looking for
something that is hidden within the website, with the search box, chances are,
visitors will get what they want.
Suggestions:
Google Custom Search is a neat, simple and effective way to get started. It
enables visitors to search your site in an efficient manner. Just copy the HTML
code from the control panel and paste it on your website and voil, youve got a
search function right on your website.

Heres a simple form code to display Googles search engine on your site too. All
you have to do is change the site name to your websites name. Plus, you can
modify the submit value to anything you like.
<form action="http://www.google.com/search"
method="get"><br> <fieldset><br> <input type="hidden"
name="sitesearch" value="http://www.dalassolutions.co.uk/"
/><br> <input type="text" name="q" size="25" maxlength="255"
value="" /><br> <input type="submit" value="Search Dalas Solutions"
/><br> </fieldset><br> </form>
Fix 10+ Most Common Website Mistakes

2. Poor Readability & Legibility.

This is a crucial element of web design. Of course, a good interface design will
grab the users attention but users have to read text to be able grasp the
information they desire. Some websites use the most bizarre font styles and sizes
that make reading a pain.

Suggestions:
Fortunately, there are simple ways that you can do to improve the users reading
experience on your website.
Compare color schemes of most major sites and notice how the colors improve
readability. A good place to try out different color schemes isAdobe Kuler.
Use a Sans serif typeface as it allows for easy reading on the web.

More: Here is a good article that will gives you more tips on improving readability
Readability Making Web Pages Easy To Read.

Fix 10+ Most Common Website Mistakes

3. Unorganized Content Layout.

A websites content is what drives traffic to it. How the content is structured is
what will make it a success or a failure. Users do not read unless absolutely
necessary but scan through information and pick out points of interest on a web
page. Some designers just put a block of text on the web page and totally neglect
headings, sub-headings, bullets, keywords, paragraphs, etc.
Use an appropriate page title for each web page so users know exactly where
they are. Some designers even forget to name the web page.
Overall, the worst in this category will be putting inaccurate, inaccessible,
insignificant or out-of-date content on your website. The content must coincide
with the overall theme of the website and be useful. If a page is under
construction, why bother putting it up? If a designer really must, then it is only
temporary and 3 weeks will no longer be deemed temporary.

Suggestions:
Organize content on your website using HTML and CSS should be used when
creating the design of your pages.
Create enough whitespace between your text and images by using margins.
Update and be consistent. The purpose of updating is not just to add new
content but to spot and correct past mistakes. We suggests that you hire a web
gardener. Budget to hire a web gardener as part of your team. You need
somebody to root out the weeds and replant the flowers as the website changes
but most people would rather spend their time creating new content than on
maintenance. In practice, maintenance is a cheap way of enhancing the content
on your website since many old pages keep their relevance and should be linked
into the new pages. Of course, some pages are better off being removed
completely from the server after their expiration date.
The process needs to be done in very systematic ways so that any new changes
does not affect the existing search engine rankings or factors adding to traffic to
the website using proper 301 redirection plan.
Fix 10+ Most Common Website Mistakes

4. Bad Navigation.

Navigation within a website should be seamless. Users should be able to find

their way around easily. While there is no standard for navigation within a website,
especially now as more new web development technologies emerge, it is
imperative to understand that navigation must be intuitive and consistent.
If text is used as navigation, it should be concise. Visual metaphors should not be
re-invented. If hyperlinks are used, then they should stand out from the body of
the text. Dead links should have no place on any web page whatsoever. This
increases user confusion and wastes time. And one that is even just as worse is
having a link on the homepage that links to the homepage.

Suggestions:
Make navigation smooth by using textual descriptions for all links. Provide alt text
for images. Use alternative text description techniques for Flash or Javascript
links.
Organize and structure your navigation in tandem with the theme of the website.
Personal websites can afford to be more creative yet accessible but a business
website requires more efficiency and clarity.
Remember, if users cant find what they want in less than 3 clicks, most will leave
immediately.
Fix 10+ Most Common Website Mistakes

5. Inconsistent Interface Design.

Excessive creativity can be just that. Excessive! Some designers take it to

another level when creating websites by creating different designs for every web
page within a website. This is by no means confusing to the user. And utterly
annoying. No matter how outstanding and attractive a website is, if the overall
look and feel is not consistent, users cannot relate to it and feel less in control.
Thus, leaving as soon as they arrived.

Suggestions:
Use a standard consistent template for every page with links to the main sections
of the site. The keyword is simple. Create aesthetically simple designs and users
will never get confused on your website.

Fix 10+ Most Common Website Mistakes

6. Unfriendly Screen Resolution.

Im sure weve visited websites where you have to scroll horizontally. This is an
absolute no-no in modern web design. A good designer will develop websites that
fit on most screen sizes. The current optimized layout for websites currently is
1024 x 768 pixels.

Suggestions:
Its hard and almost impossible to cater the design to fit every resolution
especially when visitors are now surfing from mobile phones and netbooks, but
we can get a rough idea what are the generally used screen resolutions with
these following ways:
Check your stats Analytics services like Google Analytics provides you
information about what monitor resolution they are using. These are useful
information you should know before initiating your next revamp.
W3 Schools Browser Stats W3 Schools gives clear lists of the most popular
browser used by netizens and sort them according to popularity. There are other
interesting and important statistics too.

Once you find out the large number of users who are using handheld devices to
visit your site its best to get your site to be responsive in nature to suit all devices.
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7. Complicated Registration Forms.

Registration forms are tricky. How much information do you require from the
user? Gone are the days where a user had to enter a zillion details to register to
your website. Some websites make most registration fields mandatory and
validate the fields to the extent where the user is frustrated after a few tries.
Remember, users visit a website to acquire information. Not the other way round.

Suggestions:
Compare registration forms across communities on the web and understand what
basic information is required of the user during the registration process.
A more simple way along with a simple registration form is to provide the user to
register or login using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Paypal, OpenID,
VKontakte, Google, Yahoo etc.
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8. Unscrupulous Use of Images/Videos/Animations.

Too much images/videos on a web page is a huge turn off. It can be used to
capture users attention but it can also be a distraction or just plain aggravating. It
should be used to illustrate and guide the user where appropriate.
Animations are awesome and a powerful medium. Especially when used
appropriately. When its a cycle or just too much on a web page, it gets on the
users nerves. Users dont have the patience, time or resources so designers
must offer alternatives or better yet, the skip button, if its a full page animation.

Suggestions:

Remove any unwanted images, videos or text from your website as they are not
only unwanted, but also add to the load time and causes your website to load the
page slow on his browser. If you have too much of FLASH it will turn away your
users as the load & buffer time is pretty high for flash and only useful if the user
has an FLASH player installed. So make wise choice of the usage.

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9. Cluttered Pages, More Whitespace.

Too many designers forget about whitespace and its importance. They are so
engulfed in their own design creativity that they forget that its not about them.
Thus, they try to cram as much as they can onto a single page. End result? A
busy, cluttered and unreadable page.

Suggestions:
Remove any unwanted pages because providing too many pages to navigate will
also cause the user to go in a different direction. Hence the pages included into
the website should be those which are informative and answering the questions
with which the user comes to your site.
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10. No Background Music, Please!

Users dont want cool, they seek efficiency. And yes, 99 percent dont care
about the music on your website. Some designers make it worse by putting
different background music on every web page.

Suggestions:
Dont use background music, but if you must, create a frame for the code and
user controls. That way, the music loops continuously, instead of changing each
time a new page is loaded within the website. And the user can stop or pause
whenever.

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11. Test, Test and Test.

This cannot be overemphasized. How many times have we been to web pages
that can only be viewed on a certain browser? Web developers have to have a
checklist of sorts when testing websites.
Can the website be viewed in different environments?
Is the design layout consistent in all browsers?
Can the website be viewed in different settings such as Images turned off,
JavaScript turned off, etc?

Suggestions:
W3C offers tools to test for quality assurance. Check out W3C Quality
Assurance Toolbox and Web Page Validation. If all this fails its best to hire a
part time tester to test your website and then you can get a developer to fix it for
your site.
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12. Opening new windows.

Once upon a time, using multiple new frames to display content as a user clicked
through a site was cool--a new thing in web design. Now it only annoys viewers
because it ties up system resources, slows computer response and generally
complicates a visitors experience. Sure, its easy to use this tool. But dont. With
tabbed browsing common in browsers like Firefox, users who wish to open links in
new tabs can do so if they wish.

Suggestion
From the usability point of view the decision to enforce opening links in new
windows violates one of the fundamental principles of the user interface design:
users should always be in control of the interface they are interacting with. So
remove the below or similar code to disallow your links to open a new window.
Code :
<a href="http://www.w3schools.com" target="_blank">Visit W3Schools.com!</a>
Remove the target="_blank from all your web pages. You can use the code
editors
find and replace function for the same.
Fix 10+ Most Common Website Mistakes
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13. Failing to put a phone number and address in several easy-to-find

locations.

If youre selling, you need to offer viewers multiple ways to contact you. The
smartest route is to put up a Contact Us link that leads to complete info--mailing
address, phone and email address. That link should be on each and every page
of your website. Even if nobody ever calls, the very presence of this information
adds real-world legitimacy and transparency to your site and comforts some
viewers.
User engagement is important if you want to build a successful community, and
communities are important if you want to build successful websites and social
Web apps. User engagement is also important if you want to build loyal
customers. Quickly answering peoples questions and fixing their problems
doesnt just mean that you have good customer service it means you care, and
your customers and visitors will appreciate it. But many websites still dont give
visitors an easy channel for getting in touch with the company. Some websites
dont even have an email address or contact form on them.
Suggestion :- Enkoder is my favorite solution for putting email addresses on the
Web. Enkoder is an application that comes in two flavors: a free one for Mac OS
X, and another free one as a Web app. It encrypts any email address that you
give it and gives you a bunch of gibberish JavaScript code to put on your page.
When the page with the code loads, your email magically appears as a clickable
link. Bots scouring for email addresses wont be able to interpret the code at
least thats the plan.
You could also use contact forms to bypass the problem of showing your email
address on a page; however, youre still likely to receive spam unless you put
some good Captchas or other spam protection mechanism in place. Keep in mind
that things like Captchas are barriers to user interaction and will likely degrade the
user experience

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14. Broken links. Bad links--hyperlinks that do nothing when clicked or lead to
404 error pages--are the bane of any web surfer. Test your site--and do it
weekly--to ensure that all links work as promised. Include a Contact the
Webmaster link in your sites footer so users can quickly let you know if they find
a broken link or other mistake on your site--and fix those errors immediately.

Suggestion :- You can't fix what you don't know about. The best way to fix it is
first do a test for broken pages on many online tools http://404checker.com/404checker once you have the list of broken images you can set new pages for the
same link or remove those links from the reference pages. So the steps generally
followed are as below : 1.Recover the lost pages:2. Correct the source links :3. Redirect the 404 error pages to meaningful pages.
4. Ignore the pages as sometimes, for low priority not found errors that aren't
costing you customers, you can simply ignore the 404 is an acceptable solution.
Its your best call but not advisable.

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15. Outdated information. Again, theres no excuse, but its amazing how many
sites include old, dated content. Make sure to keep your site fresh and updated
daily for best results. You can't afford the loss of credibility that can come from
having dated content. Also, make sure your content is accurate, and if you should
find a single error, fix it immediately.

Suggestion :- Every visitor to your site is either looking for answers or to get
information, if you have outdated information the best way is to update it manually
by accessing your Content Management System via your admin account and
make the necessary changes. There are plenty of website where you can get
freelancers to write updated content for your site, but make sure the keywords are
targeted while they write content for your site. Also before updating new content
make sure you dont loose your SEO ranking due to new content so follow the
best practice for updating the content.

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16. Failing to link with your social network sites.

Most businesses have their own Facebook pages, others use Pinterest with
boards full of photos, while some broadcast their latest activities on Twitter. The
point is that social media is here to stay and businesses are benefitting from
having a presence in it. Forgetting to link to your social media platforms is a big
no-no. People should be able to go from one to the other effortlessly. Using social
media to market your business and drive customers to your website will only work
if you make it easy for users to move from one to the other. If done right, you can
drive a lot more traffic to your site.

Suggestion :-The best way to promote your content is using

http://www.sharethis.com/ as it is very simple. Just one piece of code for your
desktop, tablet or mobile website. You can just register and get the code after
fiiling a small form and you are all set to allow users from your website to share all
the contents from your website to their social networks.
The next step is that you need to create your company pages on various social
network and post your company page as follow us along with your social pages.

Fix 10+ Most Common Website Mistakes

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17. Tiny clickable areas

Hyperlinks are designed to be clicked, so to make them usable, it makes sense to
ensure that theyre easy to click. Heres an example of links that are far too
small; clicking them is harder than it should be. These are the comments links
on Hacker News, a social news website. (Clickable areas are highlighted in red):

Heres an example of the same interface element, the comments link, but this
time with a much larger clickable area:

Suggestions : Why would we want a larger clickable area? Simple. Because our
hand movement with the mouse isnt very precise. A large clickable area makes it
easier to hover the mouse cursor over the link. To ensure we get a large clickable
area, we could either make the whole link bigger or increase the padding around
the link using the CSS padding property. Heres the code:
<a href="http://www.examplesite.com" style="padding: 5px;">Example Site<a>

Fix 10+ Most Common Website Mistakes

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18. Duplicate page titles

The title of each Web page is important. Page titles are the pieces of text we write
between the <title> tags in the <head> section of our HTML code. Sometimes
people create a generic title while working on their websites template their
websites name, for example and then re-use the same title across the whole
website. This is wrong because it robs each page of a couple of key benefits.
The first benefit is that a good title communicates to your visitors a lot of
information about what the page is about. People can quickly figure out if theyre
in the right place or not. Remember that this title doesnt just show at the top of
the browser window; its also shown on the search engine results pages. When
people see a list of results on a search engine like Google, they read the page
title to figure out what each page is about. This alone is a good enough reason to
spend a little time optimizing your page titles.
The second reason has to do with SEO. Search engines need different
information to rank the results of a particular query. Page title is one of the more
important pieces of information they use to gauge how relevant your page is to a
particular search term. This doesnt mean you should load as many keywords as
possible into the title that defeats the first benefit but you should ensure that
each title succinctly describes the content of the page, including a couple of
words you think people will search for.

Here we have the title of the article, the category of the article and the name of
the website. Putting the name of the website last puts more emphasis on what the
page itself is about, rather than on website branding, which is still there. Heres
what the HTML code looks like in the markup:

<title>Vintage and Blues WordPress Themes | Freebies |Magazine</title>

And heres how the page is displayed in a Google search result:

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Forgetting the Contact Page

Weve saved the best for last; or at the very least, the most important. This tip
goes above and beyond simple usability. The other mistakes might be annoying,
but this could actually affect the companys profits.
Providing adequate contact information is essential. It is the first step towards
customer loyalty and the necessary link between disgruntled customers and a
problem-solving customer service representative.
The vast majority of credit card chargebacks occur because of faulty customer
service. As a designer, you probably dont know much about these financial
setbacks, but your client does (if you want to know more, check this article about
credit card chargebacks).
Your clients expect you to deliver a top-notch, effective site. And if your design
actually increases the likelihood of a credit card chargeback, they wont be happy.
Since the majority of chargebacks are filed simply because the user cant
find the necessary contact information, it is essential you provide everything a
user could possibly want.
That might include:
A generic email address (like info@companyX.com)
Specific email addresses that connect the user with the exact person or
department they want
A contact form
The physical address
A fax number
A telephone number (although direct lines or extensions to applicable
departments would be better)
GPS coordinates
A map
Links to the companys social networking sites
A live chat interface

The more detailed the contact page, the better.

Fix 10+ Most Common Website Mistakes

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Conclusion:

Keep it simple, stupid (K.I.S.S).Thats bottom line. If its simple, its

usable. All in all, great websites keep it simple and usable. Do your
homework and it comes easy and naturally.
Users are highly goal-driven on the Web. They visit sites because
there's something they want to accomplish maybe even buy your
product. The ultimate failure of a website is to fail to provide the
information users are looking for.
Sometimes the answer is simply not there and you lose the sale
because users have to assume that your product or service doesn't
meet their needs if you don't tell them the specifics.
Other times the specifics are buried under a thick layer of markets
and bland slogans. Since users don't have time to read everything,
such hidden info might almost as well not be there. So make sure
alike your physical store or office needs maintenance and cleaning
every day, your virtual office i.e. your website also needs periodic
Maintenance.

We offer free Consultation & can help you with the following for
any new or existing development :Software Development
Website Development
Mobile Development
Designing (UI & UX)
Internet Marketing
IT Consulting
.

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Contact Us & We will be obliged to help

Corporate Office
Dalas Solutions UK Ltd,
54, New Road,
Seven King,
IG3 8AT.
Phone:+44-0203 286 5791
Mobile:+44 7872921844
E-mail : info@dalassoutions.co.uk
Operations Centre
Office No. 4 Vijay Mahal
Build No 2,436/A, Salisbury ,
Park Pune ,
Maharashtra. Pin : 411037.
Phone:+91 -20-65225596
Mobile:+91 9823655596
Email:operations@dalassolutions.co.uk

Title of the book

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