When learning how to make a website there are certain mistakes that are easily avoidable that will lead to the overall websites success. You can have the best website software, get the best hosting, which is always Hostgator, but there are other issues that need to be addressed for the best possible visitor experience and a lower bounce rate that keeps visitors on your site longer.

4 Common Mistakes in Design and Website Promotion

Avoiding these mistakes is crucial for the overall success of the site. Don’t let this happen to you!

1. Link Building/SEO

One of the cornerstones of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), is link building, which is where links from external sites leading to yours leads to higher Search Engine Rank Page Results (SERP) rankings.

The most important part of the link is always the anchor text. The anchor text must contain the keywords the website wants to rank for. The keyword rich anchor text is what provides relevancy to the search engines for the terms the website wants to rank for. If you have a web business and you want to brand your business name, then you can also use that in your anchor text.

Many webmasters just add the URL of their site when building links, like this:

http://domain.com/

or even worse irrelevant anchors which results in the search engine bots associating their site with the wrong keywords.

The Proper Code for Anchor Text Links:

<a href=”http://www.domain.com/”>KEYWORD GOES HERE</a>

2. Design

Another common mistake that webmasters make is to have a bad website design.

a. Colors- Colors are important, not only for the look of the site, but because if the background color makes it too difficult to read the text then the visitor will quickly leave your site.

A good example of this is the websites that use a black background and red,  pink or even white text; this is so irritating on the eyes and will just frustrate any visitors that come your way.

The best-case scenario is white background and black text, or at least a very light color background and black or very dark text. Remember there are plenty of other sites that are optimized to keep visitors around their site.

b. Navigation – Another big mistake is to have confusing or worse non-existent navigation of all the content on the site.

The website should provide clear navigation in the forms of menus, either in the left sidebar, right sidebar or top navigation bar form.

Also, the fancy and complicated drop down menus should also be avoided, as many people are not too tech savvy, and the average visitor is not a web designer and so the easier you make it for them, the more they are likely to stick around and surf your site.

The visitor must be able to find all the content of your site and quickly. The Internet crowd has a short attention span and if they cannot easily navigate around the website, they will leave.

3. Content

Another mistake is either a lack of content or content that is irrelevant to the topic of the site.

a. Irrelevant Content – Visitors coming from search engines are usually coming because they clicked on something related to your site that was of interest to them, if your link or website topic says “Laptop Guides” and when they get to your site you are trying to sell Cell Phones or Diet Plans, or or some other irrelevant topic then they will leave.

These kinds of tactics are also considered “black hat” by the search engines and your site will get penalized and de-indexed. Just ask many of the web SPAM folks, whose sites are permanently condemed from the search engine page results and that means NO traffic!

b. Lack of Content - Deep websites, those that have lots of pages, will usually keep visitors on the site longer. Also, search engines feed on content and so your site will be more favored in the SERPS with lots of fresh and original content.

The more content you have the more opportunity you will have for exposure to the ads, affiliate links, blog RSS buttons and whatever other actions you want visitors to perform.

4. Banners and Ads Overload

The biggest mistake that many make when making a website is too have way too many ads and banners. These should pepper the content on your site and not be the main theme.

First, overall the Internet surfer has become immune to ads and banners. Second, it takes away from the credibility of your site, and makes it appear as just a page of advertisements. If a visitor has to swim through endless ads just to find some valuable content they will quickly exit.