We look at websites all the time and when we review them, similar things came up, so we're sharing these as real problems we observed.

Whatever your website challenges, at least make sure you're not doing the following.

Five mistakes

1. Poor Content

   This includes:

   • Content that is clearly out of date.
   • Content that includes grammatical and/or spelling errors. We sympathise with this one, but try and avoid it!
   • Content in a pdf - if you don't think its worth converting to html content, what makes you think it's of use to your visitors. And if it is valuable, you are making them work harder to get it by making them open and read a pdf.
   • Content that is all about 'me', or rather, you. Visitor want to know how you are going to solve their problem. They don't want to read about your latest exploits, awards, upgrades, your new office or the technology you use (unless it is relevant to them).
   • Related to the one above, include clear benefit statements and a call to action
   • Coming soon messages - if you don't have the content ready, don't mention it until you do.

   It's true what they say - content is king. On your website content acts on your behalf, so it needs to make you look good!.

2. Being a tease

   Quite a few sites have links or sections that seemed to offer information only to tell the visitor to 'contact us' to get the information. This included prices, product overviews and benefit statements.

   If you've got this information - publish it or don't make a big song and dance about it then fail to deliver at the last minute. People see through obvious ploys that lead them up a virtual path, and it only leads to mistrust. If you want to encourage people to contact you, give them a reason why it's worth their while, or why you really need to talk to them.

3. Text crimes

   • Small fonts are hard to read as are pale font colours on a white background are hard to read. Don't make your visitors work harder than they need to by squinting at your content.
   • Multiple font types make your site look confused and fragmented. You want it to look cohesive.
   • Headings that are images. Without using under-the-hood CSS, this is a long-abandoned technique that is generally unattractive and invisible to the search engines.
   • Underlined text that is not a link. Most people think (rightly or wrongly) that an underlined word or phrase means it's a link. Find another way to make your headings or text stand out (like using bold)

4. Old news

   • Latest news sections that are ...oops - empty
   • Newsletters that are a year old
   • News that's not dated
   • Blogs that haven't been added to for months

   All of these make it seem like you don't care about your site or are too disorganised to update it. If you can't commit to updating your news section or blog, don't include one.

5. A website that's missing in action

   This is about not having a website at all when you publish an email address that is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. People will assume that your website is www.mycompanyname.co.nz. If they try and find your website and fail, they may be put off contacting you.