Quite often a website developer goes along with the wishes of a client, who wants to lower the production cost, while ignoring certain important components and thus lowering the quality of an end product. In other cases, elements, that just shouldn`t be there are placed on a website. As the result, a client gets an inexpensive, but ineffective website, visitors of which quickly leave it and never come back.

In this article we are going to talk about common website development mistakes.

1. Illogical website structure. Development of the structure is a really important step in the creation of a website, as a high SERP position and usability level depend on the structure. Unfinished connections between pages and sections, messy navigation and an unclear division of levels are going to confuse users and the SERP position isn`t going to be high.
2. Bad domen choice. Special attention has to be paid to the choice of a domen name. A good domen name makes a site more recognizable and attracts new clients, who memorized the domen name from their first time visiting a site. A long, complicated and confusing name, or a name that doesn`t match company`s name is going to create a dead website almost from its launch. Any attempts of promoting a website with a name like this most likely are going to be ineffective.
3. Usability and design imperfections. Overloading a page with various elements, that might include pictures, videos, Flash animations, various fonts, breaking the rules of composition and color matching “rips apart” user`s attention, makes them annoyed, and makes a site uncomfortable to use. That`s why it`s important for a web-designer to correctly balance all the elements on a page, create a harmonious design, pick out a good color scheme and readable fonts.
4. Incorrect work of a website with different browsers. Issues with viewing a site on different browsers make a visitor leave a site and never return to it again. To have a better reach of potential users it`s necessary to make sure that a site properly works with as many browsers as possible, not just two or three most popular ones.
5. Incorrect target audience identification. A client and a developer of a site should understand for whom a site is made. For example, floral ornaments aren`t suitable for a website of a store that sells electronics, just as pictures of footballs and boxing gloves aren`t suitable for a professional makeup website. All elements of a website should fit target audience`s tastes, preferences and needs.
6. The lack of mobile adaptation. Users of mobile gadgets feel uncomfortable using a website that doesn`t fit their mobile screens. Most likely, a page like this is going to be closed as soon as possible. A website without a mobile version quickly becomes less presentable, loses reputation and users. And also websites without a mobile version often do not have high spots within search results with most search engines.
7. Low quality content. No matter how a site looks, content is always going to be its foundation and the most important part. Issues with content are going to cause site to lose its popularity. Another sign of low quality content is a lower SERP position. Some of the other signs of low quality content are:
• lack of a particular text structure (absence of headings, paragraphs, lists);
• lack of uniqueness (copying materials, articles, pictures, videos from other sites);
• irrelevant or outdated information;
• too little or too much text;
• presence of mistakes, typos, messy looking unformatted text.
8. Slow loading of the pages. Site`s optimization and its pages loading as quickly as possible is quite important for its successful work. Waiting long for a page to open annoys users and makes them leave a site. It`s best not to over saturate a website with “heavy” documents like long videos or too detailed pictures. It`s much better to upload optimized pictures and make it possible to open up the full picture with a double click if it`s necessary to see a it in more detail.
9. The lack of useful tags. An absence or a wrong placement of tags doesn`t allow search system to correctly identify the purpose of a website, which lowers its ranking. Besides, N-tags shape the text structure, highlight sections and headings, and make the reading experience more comfortable. Also, the alt- attribute should be used more often, which is going to significantly help with promotion of a site and ranking of pictures, if it`s written with a key word.
10. Complicated registration form. Visitors often stop using a website after facing a too complicated registration form, containing too many fields. Also the need to register before seeing site`s content really pots visitors off. To make users more comfortable, the registration should be easy and understandable. Also it should be done so user accomplishes their target action such as purchasing something or placing an order.