Websites can fail even before a single line of code is ever written. The success or failure of your website will very much depend on the competence or incompetence - of your web designer & how dedicated or lame they are in preparing your website for your market. 95% of sites will never make page 1 or page 2 of SERPs. Here are the worst web design planning mistakes in order:
(See
Top 60 Web Design Mistakes of 2009)
1 -
No Keyword Research - Attempting to write a website without keyword research is effectively going blind. Good keyword research usually reveals many surprises and potential niche keywords that could be used to drive traffic. Poor use of keywords is the number 1 reason for website failure and it's totally avoidable through the use of keyword research tools - many of which are free to use.
2 -
No Competitor Research - by not doing competitor research you won't know how firmly rooted your page 1/2 competitors are - this is simple & can be done by using one of many free backlink checkers available on the net - as a general rule the more backlinks your competitor has the harder your job will be to compete for position. For example sites like moneysupermarket.com have 100s of thousands of backlinks - so that is a task you would want to avoid unless you can pay for an army of SEMs. It is also important to check how many pages your competitor's websites have indexed as building a site with say 5 pages to your competitor's hundreds would be equally pointless. Google will disclose this information - type site:yourdomain.com without the www. in the search bar.
3 -
Nothing Special to Offer - doing exactly the same thing as your competitors is likely to make you blend into the abyss of failed or failing websites. Quality web design is all about being different - hence unless you spend some time planning to be better than your competitors then you are likely to fail. Think about better content, better visitor experience, easier navigation, special offers - anything that distances you away from the average - If you make the effort so will your visitor
4 -
Lack of Good Content - fail on this point & it doesn't matter what else you have got right - many visitors use search engines to resolve a problem: this could be: find a product, find a supplier, find a service provider etc - hence answer your visitors immediate question & provide plenty of supporting content. The more thoughtful you are with your content the more likely your visitors will turn into business
5 -
Lack of Page Planning - failing to plan each of your pages correctly will cause you a problem with 'on page factors' - these affect your position in search engines. The following should contain your researched keywords: page names, directory names, titles, descriptions, headings, footers, menu text, link text & paragraphs. Your menus should be simple/ text selectable & your primary keyworded heading should be displayed high on page. Your contact details should always be found easily.
6 -
No Plan for Marketing - if your aim is to write a website which will drive business through web traffic and you haven't considered how this traffic will magically appear then you haven't made a marketing plan. Depending how competitive your industry is - you may need to build 10s, 100s or 1000s of backlinks using web partners, directories & blogs. This may take hours/week/years hence you will need a plan with timescales.
7 -
Poor Choice of Hosting - cheap hosting deals overseas may not necessarily be good for your website as many search engines today use 'Geo Targeting' in some manner in their ranking algorithms and you visitors may find your website slower than your competitors. Where possible use host with servers located in your home country & look at live review sites before making a decision. If your site is geared for high traffic and/or overseas trade then use a dedicated server and insure you host has good peering agreements with the countries that you are likely to do business with. Always check your host's IP address to insure the servers really are based where the host claims they are.
8 -
Poor use of Colours - you have approximately 3 seconds to make your first impression hence insure your colour scheme is perfect for your website & is unlikely to offend your visitors. Avoid luminous colour schemes & take care when designing websites geared for other countries as certain colours have major cultural significance. Avoid using any more than 3 colours in your scheme & insure these are web safe & matched well. Poor planning in this area is likely to make your website look amateur.
9 -
Strange Fonts - consider that not all of us have perfect vision hence try not to make your visitors strain to read your content - use basic fonts such as Helvetica or Arial. Poor use of fonts is a certain way of your website becoming a victim of the back button. There are nor laws in place in a few countries that govern the use of text within websites - I haven't heard of anyone being sued yet, but I'm sure someone will tell me otherwise.
10 -
Selecting your URL & TLD - wherever possible choose a domain that contains your researched keywords then select the correct domain suffix (TLD) - use .co.uk for a UK company .com for e-commerce - you will have trouble indexing an Indian domain (eg .co.in) in the UK . Here are come common UK domain suffixes:
.com - ecommerce or commercial website (UK &/or International)
.co.uk - uk corporate website
.net - large network website - often used by hosting companies.
.biz - use for B2B business
.org.uk - group, charity or organisation
.info - informational site
.name - For identity purposes of an individual or organization
.ltd - requests only accepted from ltd companies