As you read through these 10 Red Flags of Web Design, see if your business website fails one or more of these and my specific thoughts are in read after each in the list:

1. Clever site names (clever and cute does NOT translate into more business because you will confuse your potential clients)

2. Cluttered, busy layouts (simply designed sites that have lots of white space and are easy to read are the best)

3. Navigation Problems (navigation should be in the same place on every page and it should be obvious on how to find all the content on your site)

4. Boring web design (be interesting, use photos on as many pages as is possible, but make them count)

5. Pop-up ads (DONT DO IT!)

6. Slow load times (around 5-7 seconds or your visitors will leave)

7. Small fonts (larger fonts are becoming a ‘must’)

8. Too much text (use images and video to break large sections of text – use paragraphs with headers appropriately as well)

9. Corporate Look and Feel (you can show your personality, it’s okay and it helps your clients get to know you before they buy)

10. Poor search functions (people need to find the content they are looking for on your site or be able to search for it easily)

Original Source – 10 Red Flags of Web Design

• Links – check your links to ensure that they are still live.    This would refer to both links that point to other pages within your web site and then also links that point to pages that are not on your web site.   Hopefully your internal links will not be an issue, but linking to external sites could be problematic because other web sites might change their site structure periodically and your links might need to be updated.

• Mobile Phones – since just about everyone has a mobile phone, you should be checking your site on a regular basis on multiple mobile phones to ensure that your site is visible and functions properly in the mobile environment.

• Analytics – this should be done at least every 30 days.   You should always be looking at analytics so you know where your site visitors are coming from and how they are finding you.    I know that approximately 40% of traffic to design850.com and I can see how that is changing every month (or week in my case).  I also can know what other sites are driving the most traffic to my site.

• Newsletters/Forms – you should be testing your forms on a regular basis to ensure that the emails are getting through to you and to also know what the end user receives if they sign up for your newsletter or send a request through your contact form.

• Images – the last item that you should check on a regular basis is that the images that you have on your site all load correctly.   This is especially true if you have any sort of online store where the images are a necessary part of your ability to conduct business.