Eight Design Pitfalls You Need to Avoid

Mistakes can be costly. You've spent a lot of money, effort, and time to get visitors to your site. The last thing you want is to have them leave because of design flaws that you could have avoided. You must avoid these eight design pitfalls.

Don't Make Your Visitors Think

Your site should be clear and to the point; visitors shouldn't have to figure out what you are selling or how to get additional information (see Chapter 12, "The Power of PARM: Positioning Your Business"). But design also enters the picture here. It's too easy for someone to say, "It's too confusing" and then click the Back button or close your page. Make sure your unique selling position (USP) is available, and have product images on your home page. Visually, customers need to see what you're selling and read how your site will benefit them.

Don't Make Them Guess Where They're Going

Don't make your visitors guess where they need to click to get to certain sections or products. It's okay to be descriptive, and it's okay to add more product category links. You can also cross-link by putting products in multiple categories, if it applies. The worst thing you can do is make visitors click a couple layers deep only to find out that the product or information they are looking for is not there.

Avoid Shopping Cart Abandonment

In shopping cart abandonment, a shopper adds products to the shopping cart and initiates the checkout process, but then leaves the site before completing the purchase. It's equivalent to shoppers in grocery stores adding a bunch of products in the shopping cart and then just leaving the store. So how can you reduce shopping cart abandonment?

Shopping cart abandonment happens for these reasons:

• Shipping prices are too high.

• Delivery time is too long.

• The total cost of items is too high.

• Shipping is not included.

• They don't want to pay tax.

• The checkout process is too confusing.

Knowing why shoppers abandon their cart will help you plan and design your store accordingly.

Avoid Content Overload

Not enough content can hurt, and too much content can overwhelm visitors. Don't make your pages look like a big blob of text or a never-ending site map; keep it simple and clean. Break up the content into multiple pages or organize the content by sections. You don't want your visitors saying, "What do I do next?" or "What should I focus on?" or "Where am I?"

Avoid Sending Your Visitors to Your Competitors

Try to avoid placing banner ads and other affiliate-related ads all over your website. You spent all that time, energy, and money getting people to visit your site, and now you want them to leave your site so you can make a few cents on banner advertisements? Some of these automated advertisement programs even put competitors' advertisements on your site (their keywords match yours). If you have to advertise others, remember to send the link onto a new window. This way, your website will still be available if the visitor exits the other window. Reciprocal links are okay because there is a mutual benefit and usually the two sites do not compete.

Avoid Changing the Location of Your Main Navigation

Make sure your main navigation menu and overall layout are at the same location on every single page. This creates consistency and makes it easier for visitors to navigate your site. Also, make your navigation menu visible and obvious. Don't use small text for your main navigation links. Incorporate tabs, graphics, or colors into your menu.

The FerretStore.com (see Figure 8.3) has a great main navigation. It's consistent on every page, color makes it stand out, and the image tells you what it's all about without making you read the menu title.

Figure 8.3. FerretStore.com's main navigation is consistent on every page, uses color to make it stand out, and uses images to tell you what it's all about, without making you read the menu title.

Avoid Graphic Overload

You might have a high-speed Internet connection and be able to blaze through Web pages at the speed of light, but not every visitor has a connection like yours. Don't go crazy with too many and too-large images. This can bring your pages to a screeching halt because they will be too slow to load. Create thumbnails of your products, and offer larger versions of the image that open in a new window. This way, the image can load while the visitor can still navigate your site.

Avoid Using Technology That Users Need Plug-Ins For

Incorporating cutting-edge technology can be cool, but it usually requires visitors to download a plug-in. Unless visitors can automatically install the plug-in quickly, they most likely will decline the plug-in download. Then, instead of seeing the cool effect, they will see a big red "X" where the technology is supposed to be displayed. Give visitors options and let them know that a particular plug-in is required. Then, offer a link to the plug-in on your site.