What makes you scream when you stumble upon a website? For me, it is cheesy music with no “off” button.

Signs of Webmaster Newbies

All of us have been “newbies” at one point in our webmastering lives.We spent hours at dhtml, javscript and graphics sites looking for copy-and-paste stuff that we thought would make our sites look impressive.

First timer’s websites are easily spotted with their smorgasboard of javascripts, animated gifs, sounds and other components. Unfortunately, this only makes a site look amateur.

Creating an Amateur Image

You might have a brick and mortar business that’s been around for the last decade, with tons of satisfied customers.On the net, however, your visitors do not know who you are.A professional online image will inspire trust.  When designing your website, here are some things to avoid so that your business does not look amateur or like a fly-by-night operation:

• Dark, heavy backgrounds with hard-to-read fonts – For a business website, it’s best to use a plain white background and black text so that your visitors can read it easily. Some first timers are tempted to have “fancy” backgrounds with different colored text. Not only is this hard to read, but if you have a product line, it is difficult to make pictures of your product line blend in with the background.
• Pages that are larger than the browser screen – There’s nothing more irritating that trying to read a web page that scrolls across the screen. Most web usters have their desktop resolutions set at 1024 x 768. Try to stay within those confines.
• Sound effects – Everyone has different tastes when it comes to music, but even if you discovered music that appeals to every single person alive, don’t make it automatically load on your site. With a music site, there are scripts that allow the user to click play and listen at his or her free will. This goes with audio advertisements or other background sound effects — provide a way to pause the sound or shut it off.
• “Cool” effects – About 8 or 9 years ago, it was real “cool” to have a flash presentation on the index page. Everyone was doing this. This does not establish your online reputation. Flash introductions involve a lot of effort to create and when it is all said and done, many look silly. These introductions can take a long time to load and generally, people will not view them. Another thing that beginners think is “cool” are page fading effects, animated images and scrolling text. When I first started designing pages, I added these things, thinking it made me look like I was adept with web design. However, the cold reality is that these effects are a waste of time and a turnoff. I’ve seen some sites, designed by supposed design specialists, where the links scroll by really fast and you have to “aim and shoot” just to be able to click a link. Do not bother with these effects. People visiting your site are looking for products or information, and are not there to look at animations that will give them a headache.
• No clear navigation scheme – Many people enter a website by the interior pages, not at the home page. You should give your visitors a way to easily click through your site. Menus that are on the left side of the page or on the top of the page are the most popular. Regardless of where you decide to place your menu, make sure that it is in the same place throughout your site. A missing or confusing navigation menu is a sign of amateur web design.
• No search feature – Particularly if you have a large product line that you are selling or if you have a content rich site, always include a search box to help your visitors. If you don’t know how to do this, try free services like FreeFind or Google search.  This makes your site “user friendly” and shows that you care about your visitor’s experience on your site.
• “Secret” prices - If you’re selling products, include the price. Don’t force your visitor to click through the shopping cart just to find out what the cost will be — many of them will not do it, anyway.
• Policies – An amateur site will not include privacy policies, terms of use and, when selling products or services, returns and shipping policies. It’s a good idea to provide contact information, particularly if you are selling products or services.
• Under construction pages – “Under construction” or “coming soon” pages are a surefire way to announce that you’re an amateur. If you are not done with a page yet, do not link to it. Add a link to your menu or sitemap at such time as the page is completed.
• No online shopping cart – If you are selling a product, provide a way for people to purchase your product online. If a web surfer is beyond the ‘research mode’ and ready to buy something online, he or she wants to be able to buy it immediately. Chances are, they do not want to send you a fax with their credit card information or mail in a check or money order. If you don’t have a merchant account, consider Paypal or, in the case of digital products, consider using a service such as Clickbank.  There are other quality shopping carts available for people who already have a merchant account, such as Mals-e.com, which also givesyou the ability to offer an affiliate program.

What’s Your Top Gripe?

Newbie or pro, you can voice your opinion about what makes a stinking website at the NotGuru’s survey about poor website design.  If you’re looking for software, giveaways and other things to help your fledgling online business, the NotGuru blog provides plenty of resources.If you have a couple of seconds to spare, take the site design survey and feel free to comment – the results are interesting.