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Things to avoid when
developing a website
There are many options, opportunities and technologies available to develop a new website design. While most of people will get a professional web design agency to do so, some people undertake website design process themselves.
Depending on your budget, you web design firm will provide various options that are available to you. Some people may be tempted to choose as many bells and whistles as are possible on their website. A website design with unnecessary bells and whistles may not only cost you a lot of money but it could become an awkward and baffling experience for the visitors of the website.
Some of the technologies that should be carefully considered are:
Music
Depending on your business, music could be practical or futile for your website design. A good professional website designer should consider the following issues when including sounds at the time of website development:
- What type of business you are in? Is your business related to feeling good or having fun (eg Sigma Infotech when undertaking the web design and application development for www.hitparade.com.au used a lot of music as music is hitparade's business.)
- Are the prospective visitors going to be attracted or distracted by the music on your website? (eg. On www.hitparade.com.au people can listen to their music and be prompted to use hitparade's services).
In short, don't use music in your web development if there is no real reason to use it.
Interfering Advertisements & Pop-ups
For a lot of website owners the temptation to make money through ads on their website is too strong to avoid. My suggestion is that if your website is not an advertising portal than don't do it. Be it Google ads or floating banners, avoid them if you don't want to lose visitors who could become customers of your actual business.
Some other reasons why you should avoid ads in your website design are:
- Are you happy to lose trust of your customers by recommending a business you don't know?
- Are a few dollars you can make from ads more than the revenue you can generate from visitors who may become your customers for life?
- Are you in the business of advertising other businesses?
The other bone of contention is Pop-ups on your website. The way technology and people's perception towards annoying pop-ups is changing, in a very near future, your pop-ups may not even be displayed to your customers. Many people and browsers now block pop-ups and you should be careful in using pop-ups in your website design.
Don't just get a CMS because you can
Before you get your knives out for me, let me explain. I have in the past dealt with so many businesses that have got application development undertaken to get a Content Management System. Still a lot of those sites have content that is out-of-date. The chances are that they got the Content Management System because the website designer or the application development company they were using persuaded them to do so and at that time it looked like a good idea.
However, quite often managing a website takes least priority as businesses grow and people become occupied with other more important tasks (in their opinion). I am not trying to portray that a CMS is waste of money. In fact, I am a big believer in Content Management Systems as they are great tools to keep your website up-to-date in the long run. We have lots of clients that use CMS very effectively to manage their website.
We also have clients that we manage the website design, Graphic design and then web maintenance for and some of them have most up-to-date websites. The reason for this is that a good web design and web development company takes a pro-active approach to manage the client websites. They keep an eye on the developments in the client's business and ensure that the website reflects that (of course, before any change is made, prior consent is sought from the client).
In other words, don't just get a CMS because you will be able to manage your site in next 3 months. Think about what your needs will be in 2 years and will you have enough time to manage your website as you business grows?
More useful articles are available on the Sigma Infotech website |
