3 Common Mistakes Made By New and Old Website and Blog Owners

I spend a ridiculous amount of time online. When I am not working, I spend time reading blogs and websites about topics which interest me, such as business, politics, entrepreneurship and financial planning among others. However, many things bug me about how websites and blogs are often presented.

So, I decided I would create a list of 3 common mistakes that I seem to constantly come across. There are definitely dozens more than these out there, but these are the three that annoy me the most. Both new and experienced website and blog owners make them; although I think newer ones probably make them more frequently.

Try to avoid these mistakes when making a new site or blog and you will be way ahead of the game. Moreover, you will stand out from everyone else who is making them.

1. The biggest problem I run across are websites that have too much advertising. I find that this is problem with sites big and small, old and new alike. In fact a great example is super Blogger John Chow whose blog is filled with ads. But he makes great money with his blog so I should just copy him, right?

Wrong! John Chow and other owners of authority websites, can put many ads on their sites because people know and trust them. People want to read the content on the site and thus put up with the ads. Unless, you are an authority site you should not even think about putting up a ton of ads that get in the way of your content.

Work towards building up a solid base of people who like your site and then slowly put more ads on. However, you never want your ads to make your site more difficult to navigate. Again using John Chow’s site as an example you can see that even though there are a lot of ads they do not make it that much more difficult to navigate his site (see point number 2).

Furthermore, this is why I have relatively little advertising on this site. I only include AdSense units inside the posts themselves. I do admit that having the large rectangle does make the posts look a little ugly and I may even change it at some point. Once this site gets more popular I will probably try and put a few more ads up, but until that time I will try to keep it simple.

2. The second mistake I hate are websites or blogs that are difficult to navigate. To my mind this is even more annoying than a website with too many ads. You need to have a clear and recognized way for people to find other content on your site. This should be easy and intuitive.

To my mind there are a few ways you can go about this. You can put a navigation side bar on either the left or right hand side of your site. You put one at the top or bottom of your site. You can link to related content from each of your pages. And finally, you can include a search engine for your site. Ideally, you should use some combination of these methods, but again don’t make it too complicated

For website navigation simpler is usually better. You want to direct people to your most profitable pages and then once people are there, take action. This is how almost every single successful website should work. You don’t want people to leave your site before they have done what you want them to do (e.g. Buy your product, sign up for your newsletter, click on your ads etc.)

3. Finally another mistake I really hate are websites that require you to register before seeing any content. Now I am not talking about joining newsletters or mailing lists to get something of extra value. What I hate are websites that require you to register, just to read their content. The reason many website owners do this is because registration information is valuable, and they can use it to market to you later.

Websites big and small have been doing this for years. From the website of the New York Times on down. In virtually all cases when a website requires me to register I just hit the back button. I am sure my information would have been valuable and nice to have, but instead they get nothing. Moreover, if I know a website requires registration I will probably just avoid it in the future.

The only possible exception is a website whose content I really really want to have access to. For example, I registered to use the Economist online because I already had a access to a print subscription and I knew I wanted to read what they had online. However, I only did this because I knew I was going to read the content anyway. If you require me to register before I have seen your content I will just leave and probably never come back.

The lesson is that it is valuable to have people’s name, email addresses etc but it is more valuable to have people actually visiting your site. You can usually get this information anyway, if you want, by offering something extra such as a Free report that people can get, only get if they register. You have to build trust before you can do this. At least that is my opinion.

What really annoys you about website and blog design? Share your thoughts in the comment section below. (Note comments held in moderation due to the huge volume of spam received)