What NOT to Put on Your Website
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If content is king, then your website is a castle -- there are some things that just don't belong in it. If content is king, then your website is a royal court. And just like a royal court, there are some things that don't belong on a website. Here are a few "peasants" that you should keep outside of the castle gate:
- Disorganized navigation: You need to group your navigation in a way that makes sense for the user. Our data show that 80% of site visits begin on a subpage, not the the homepage. That means your pages need to link logically to cross products and services that your customers might be interested. If your navigation is not organized logically, your users will get lost -- and then leave.
- Images that are too big: Large images take up too much space and make your site slow to load. With Google testing out new "slow to load" labels, over-sized images are a surefire way to be banished form Google's court -- forever.
- Images that are too small: If you take an image that's small and make it bigger, it will be grainy, which looks really unprofessional. MOreover, thumbnails that don't expand when clicked on can really frustrate users.
- Poorly-written content: Bad grammar, incorrect punctuation, wonky syntax, misspelled words -- these are the unwashed derelicts that wouldn't get anywhere near the town square, let alone the royal court. Proofread and copy edit carefully.
- Irrelevant images or content: This applies to personal things that aren't relevant to your business: your family (unless it's a family-owned business), your wedding photos, stories about your first tricycle, etc.
- Anything that autoplays: Nobody wants to land on a site that automatically plays videos or music. Searching for the button that shuts the music off is a pain, because that button is always hard to find.