1) Not Posting hours and phone numbers

If you sell things, provide services, or interact with human beings in any way, they may need to call or stop by your location as part of the transaction. Provide them that information on your website. Take a look at this site from Custom Automotive.

Nice looking, tells me all about what they do, but not when they do it or how to call them. I just want to know what hours they’re open so I know if I can pick up my truck after work, or if I need to get over there before 5:00!

There’s a nice contact form, but I don’t want to send them an email to find out whether or not my car is done! I want to use this radical new device that allows realtime voice transmission— perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s called the telephone.

This destroys trust by not giving me the information that I need where I expect to find it (on a contact page).

2) A design that only makes sense to company insiders

This page from Missouri Cotton Exchange makes perfect sense to me: A big dollop of thick ink. But the truth is that many customers have no idea how screen printing or embroidery works, and pictures of thick screen printing ink is lost on them.

Think of things the way your customer does— they’re not looking for screen printing and promotional products— they’re looking for t-shirts. There’s not a single item of apparel on the entire page to let the user know they’re in the right place, but there are plenty of pictures of machinery that their customers never come in contact with.

This site’s imagery would be better suited to a screen printing and embroidery supply store, rather than the general public.

Put images and text on your website that are more than key-words, but care-words in your site and your users will thank you for it by trusting you.

3) Abusing the caps lock key

Here’s a rule of design:
When you emphasize everything, nothing is emphasized.

Here’s another rule:
All caps is hard to read because there’s no shape left to the words. Willie’s new web presence breaks this rule.

If you really want people to read your content, write good content and be grammatically correct. This isn’t just the anal retentive designer in me saying this, it has search engine optimization implications as well. Google does detract from your score for misspelled words.

Take the time to invest in writing that solves your customer’s problems. Think about what it is they’re looking for on the site! They didn’t come there to “browse” the web, they came there to solve a problem. There is something they’re curious about that they think they can solve by visiting your website. Write text that answers those questions.

All caps shows that you don’t understand your customers.

4) Leaving pages “Under Construction”

If it’s under construction, don’t even let me click on it. Don’t waste your potential customer’s time!

D Sport is supposedly concerned with design and promotions, yet, their own website isn’t finished? Hello? There are images marked “Replace Me” and many links are broken. If it’s not ready, don’t publish it and don’t waste your customers’ time looking at a blank page. What’s worse, this happens on their customer testimonial page that’s probably intended to bring them that trust.

Wasting a customer’s time is not a way to build a relationship with them. If I came into your shop and asked you a question about your product, and you just stood there or shrugged and said “I dunno… uhhhhh” I’m not going to be impressed.

5) Using Templates

Let’s look at this local example: Does someone shopping for eyeglasses have the same problems to solve as someone who has lost a loved one? I don’t think so.

It sounds like such a good idea— why pay a designer for a original design when you can use a template for a fraction of the cost? I’m not saying templates are never called for, and in a low budget sitution, it may be the best solution. However, the problem is that templates force you to shoehorn your unique business into someone else’s idea of what your business should look like— someone who has never seen your business or your customers.

When you use a template based site, it’s like buying a house from an agent who doesn’t know how many rooms you really need and what your lifestyle is really like. Sure, you get to see a picture of it before you buy, but living in it may be a headache.

Using a template runs the risk of getting caught, and the risk of trying to fill a website with content based on the pretty template, rather than what your customers need.

It all comes down to trust, even on the internet

Doing these things destroys the trust you have to build with your customer. We don’t do business with people we don’t trust, and we don’t spend time on websites we don’t trust, either.

If you gain their trust, you can gain their business.