When creating a website it’s easy to hurry a little too much and make mistakes. These mistakes can appear minor, yet they impact how customers view your business. They can make it harder for visitors to use your site or even for search engines to index your website.

Here are some of the more common mistakes:

1. Spelling and grammatical errors.
These are so easy to make as you type up your content, product descriptions and so forth. Do yourself a favor. Start out by typing in a word processor rather than in your blog, content management system or HTML editor, unless you take the time to use whatever built in spell checker these may have. Then read the text out loud, ideally to someone else. You’ll catch most other errors that way.

2. Poor color choices.
Color really matters online. Read up on how color makes people feel when online. Also consider how you mix your colors. Light text on a dark background is almost always a poor choice, for example. Other color combinations can be almost headache-inducing.

3. Writing strictly for the search engines.
Yes, you need the search engines to index your website and rank it well in order to get visitors. That doesn’t mean they should be the focus. Balance the work you do for the search engines with the needs of your visitors and potential customers. It won’t matter if the search engines love you if you don’t earn any money.

4. Inconsistent design.
Customers need to be able to find their way around your website. You need to have a consistent way for them to do so. This means be consistent in what different colors mean and in the placement of your navigation.

5. Unclear payment or shopping cart availability.
One of the most frustrating things you can do to a potential customer is make them search for how to pay or add items to their shopping cart. It’s a great way to make people give up on buying from you and buy from someone else. Buttons for these should be easily visible and consistently placed.

6. Inaccessible design.
All kinds of people use the internet. This includes people who don’t see as well as others do as well as blind people. Keep your site as accessible as possible. Don’t use images for navigation. Use CSS to separate design and content. Use ems or % to declare your text sizes - this allows your text to be resized by most browsers, so those who don’t see as well can adjust your text size to meet their needs. Also avoid mixing colors such as red backgrounds with green text, as people who are color blind have trouble with such combinations.

7. Ignoring user feedback.
Users can provide you with amazing feedback in areas you may not have realized were problems. Take advantage of that. You may not always agree with what they suggest, but sometimes they have amazing insight.

I’m as guilty as anyone of making these mistakes at times. They are easy to make and it takes time to fix them. But when I think of it I do try to fix previous mistakes and always try to avoid making them over again.

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