Most people can spot a good website, but it can be difficult to figure out the specific factors that make a website less than perfect. Unfortunately, when your website has flaws, it can often frustrate visitors and cause them to leave your site. We've compiled a list of some of the most common mistakes that people make when creating a website. These mistakes are ones that can often drive people away from a website. To keep people on your website for longer, avoid the following mistakes.

1. Difficult Navigation

It should be near impossible for a visitor to get lost on your website-- make it simple for people to navigate your website. Consider how grocery stores label the isles-- it's informative and let's you know where you need to go-- now make sure that your website visitors get the same treatment. By the same merit, try to make sure that the menu is simple, you don't need to overwhelm a user-- unlike a grocery store a website visitor doesn't have to come back for sustenance. 

2. Pop Ups

In the earlier days of the Internet, pop-up advertisements were littered across the web and frustrated people to no end. Then came the invention of ad-blocking software that eventually led to pop-up advertisements becoming obsolete. However, recently, a new type of pop up has surfaced. Many websites now have pop ups requesting for subscriptions to their emails. When you choose to have these pop ups cover your entire page, especially when there is not a clear exit, many people will see your site as frustrating and unreliable. If you opt for pop up requests, consider small pop ups that only appear in the corner of the screen or ones that are easily clicked out of.

3. Anti-Social

It's difficult to engage users with a website that dismisses the power of social media-- make sure that your website includes social media logos either on the header or footer. Invite users to interact with your organization on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, or even Instagram.  Ensure that social media logos are featured prominently so fans of your business know where to get the latest company information, news, and promotions. And don't forget to update these accounts regularly.

4. Cluttered Graphic Design

Disorderly design diminished the impact of your content and could very well annoy visitors enough that they navigate away from your site. The cleaner your website is, the easier for a visitor to understand its purpose and navigate the site. Plus, if the page contains too many gigabytes of design content, it will take longer to load and, as a result, may not work at all for people with slow internet connections or who are visiting via their phones or tablets.

5. Text Eyesores

Avoid these at all costs: fancy fonts, excessive use of bold and underlined text, and poor color choices. While it may seem simple to use a traditional dark color font on a light background, it works. It is important to keep this in mind: many of the visitors to your site have already spent some time staring at their screen, so you do not want to give them a headache with a pastiche of garish colors.

6. Too Much Text

The Internet is becoming more and more visual with each passing day. In fact, video content has surpassed written content as the most popular type of content on the web. Therefore, websites with too much text cannot be successful. If you have a lot of text on a page, be sure to break it up well with bold headlines and lots of visuals throughout the content. When people see large sections of text that are not easily skimmed over, they will often move on to a different page or even a different website without reading the text.

7. Letting The Dust Pile Up

Google is omnipresent-- the search engine's spiders will know when you haven't updated your website in months and Google is not afraid to penalize you by making it a chore to find your website in search results. Take time to consistently add to your website; construct new pages to focus on different keywords, maintain a regular blog page, and keep each page's information current for results.  Bring your website into the 21st century and invest in professional marketing services for the best online results.

8. Lacking Calls-To-Action

Surprisingly, people will typically do what you ask of them; for example, if you end a blog post with "Let us know your thoughts. Leave a message in the comments below." you will notice higher engagement rates than if you had ended the blog post without a CTA. Simple CTA's show readers that you value their opinion-- you can also offer something of value to the reader at the end of the post (like a downloadable eBook). Everyone wants to feel that they received something of value for time spent. When you're crafting your CTA phrase be sure that it directly engages the reader, challenging them to take action. Remember, if your content reads like a sales email or is too boring, it's a major turn off.

ImageWorks, LLC | CT Web Design

If you steer clear of these web design disasters, you will be able to create a fresh, user-friendly experience for your visitors. Using terse, readable content will give visitors an incentive to come back.

If you partner with a company like ImageWorks LLC that specializes in both responsive web design and inbound marketing, you can merge your design and marketing goals together to create an appealing website that effectively draws in website traffic, converts leads into customers, and makes it easy for users to find what they are looking for and communicate with your company.