Despite the great improvement we have seen in the way websites are built in the last few years, there are some companies that still like to live in the past – resulting in poor design elements that still creep through to new websites designed beyond 2016/17 .
These elements serve little to no marketing purpose and are very good at slowing down loading times, (which in 2017, is very bad for business) and also make a website behave poorly, or even render the website inaccessible from portable internet connected devices such as tablets and mobiles.
From a business perspective these design elements are to be avoided at all costs. They will harm your business reputation as customer interactions become more difficult. They can also negatively impact search engine performance.
Elements to Avoid at all Costs on a Commercial Website
Too Many Large Images
If you publish a website with too many high resolution images you will greatly slow down how fast your website loads. Anything that slows down a website is considered a very bad idea. You will find that most of your customers access the web via their mobile, an therefore on these devices large image files will ‘take forever’ to load and few have the patience for that. Google now also penalise sites that have large loading times. So not only will your customer base lose patience with you, new customers will never find you.
Best Viewed on a Firefox / Chrome / Internet Explorer / Edge
Some sites still have a message saying something like “best viewed on Firefox.” Firefox is a great browser, and so are the others, but your site should work on every browser not just one. This browser preference harks back to a time when browsers were limited in what they can do. As the most used browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Windows Edge, and Opera), can display sites with full functionality these kind of messages have no place especially on a commercial website.
Your Site Lacks Responsiveness
If your site does not adapt to the screen size it is being viewed on you need to change this now. More and more research in how we view the web shows we use mobile devices over desktop PCs. When we grab a coffee in the morning we look on our phone. We read email on our phone and click through to offers, via our phones and tablets. Guess what happens if your site cannot be viewed properly on a phone or tablet. Making sites responsive is a must.
Flash Animations
At one time Flash animations were the best and only way to display a video. Flash, however, had many flaws. It used too many resources, it assisted hackers with its poor security, and in 2010 it was banished by Apple who ensured their iPhones no longer supported the format.
Newer, more secure and faster technologies now exist. HTML5, Web Assembly among others are much better choices. Adobe, the makers of Flash are now killing it and have opted for HTML5. You should do the same.
With Flash on the way out, your promotional videos won’t play for your audience and as such your marketing message is lost.
Background Music
For a billion reasons background music or sounds should no longer be a feature on a commercial website. They are off putting and disrupt your marketing message. They also channel resources making load times faster, and they make your business appear like an elevator. They really are so 1990s.
Special Award Goes To: Live counters
If your website features “You are visitor number 004567” anywhere on the site – then please, please please, remove it asap. There are more transparent ways nowadays to track your user activity. Tools like Google Analytics can help you get more information on the use of your website and a lot more information than what a typical web counter can.
Get a Professional Site
If you are interested in getting a professional site that will become a valuable business tool, then get in touch. We can give you a state of the art smooth website that avoids dreadful things that should no longer exist on a commercial business website. Click here to get in touch.