1. Using Images That Are Too Large
Picture paint a thousand words but if you’re using high resolution pictures on your homepage and just merely pulling the corners to shrink it, you should be aware that these may take a while to load depending on the connection of your readers. And in this age of quick results, the 10 or 20 seconds required to load your gamut of pictures may mean the difference for people to stick around or move on to the next site.

2.  Creating Pages That Are Too Large
Be conscious of the size of the page. You may have selected or designed a site with an unusually large resolution, meaning that people who visit your site won’t get the complete picture of the site initially. People would then be required to scroll left to right just to view the complete site, something most people won’t be willing to do if they’re in a hurry. Be sure to choose a resolution that can be viewed by most monitors, say 640×480 or 800×600.

3. Forgetting to Update Content Regularly
If you’re site has been around for a while, be sure that you update the information on the site, this includes the contact information, areas under headings such as “latest news”, and especially the copyright information, if you have one. If you’ve got items in this section which are 5 or 6 years old, then these are no longer news, they’re history so file them in your archives. Readers want to be kept abreast about the latest activities in your business or site, so make sure you post the most recent articles, items or information.

4. Creating Unfriendly Navigation
Don’t let your visitors get lost within your site, make sure you have user friendly navigational tools, such as buttons, clear links or drop down menus to make things clear and easy to understand. If you’re hiring someone to do it, treat your site like an outline and give web designer a written outline of how you want your site to be and what topic falls under which category.

5. Putting Up Blank Pages
Avoid blank pages, they’re a waste of time, space and money. Additionally, this would give readers the impression that you don’t maintain your site regularly. If you find yourself with a blank page, either fill it up with additional information or discard it, it deserves closure and you need clients.

6. Self-Designing Without Having the Required Skills
Unless you’re truly web savvy and know your HTML for your Java, it would be advisable for you to hire a professional do your site. Getting the services of a small business web design company saves you time when your site could be running and the frustration of figuring out how things are done. What is important is you know what you want and you can clearly articulate this idea to your designer then all you have to do is tweak the site based on the output. Be conscious of the fact that a professional looking website reflects on your company.

1. Don’t bother with splash pages on your small business web site.
A splash page is typically a page that people put on their web sites as an introduction. The page commonly holds some sort of picture along with a large click here to enter sign, or sometimes people don’t say anything and just hope you will click on the picture to enter their web site. Splash pages are somewhat senseless and it’s just producing a lot work for your visitor as they have to click the mouse button an extra time just to see the content of your small business web site. By getting rid of the splash page the visitor can get to see the better parts of your web site immediately, without being forced to wait for a worthless page to load.

2. Keep your web site navigation simple.
To put it plainly if your navigation is too complex and visitors do not understand how to get around your website this is a big web design mistake. If a visitor doesn’t know how to navigate around your small business web site they will get disappointed and end up leaving. Keep your navigation plain and try to avoid enforcing scripts or complicated flash supported menus, not all web browsers support scripts, therefore a lot of your visitors could be missing out on important.

3. Keep paragraphs short and readable on your small business web site.
Although bearing lots of relative and informative articles on your small business web site is great, it’s a terrible idea to have the blocks of text too big. Not everybody likes reading and too much could discourage a visitor. Whenever you retain your paragraphs in moderate lengths, it’s much simpler for a visitor to read and absorb.

4. Use CSS for styling and fonts.
Be sure your text is clear and readable by using a basic fonts which are compatible with different systems. Although a lot of fonts may appear good on your computer but other visitors may not have that font installed. It’s a good web design practice to apply cascading style sheet (CSS) when building a website for your small business. CSS is a flawless way to set up and adjust your websites font and size settings. The good thing about applying CSS is that you are able to convert the look of your whole website just by editing the one file.

5. Check how your web site appears on different web browsers.
When you are building your website and still in the Web design stage it is significant to check how it looks on different browsers, just because it appears fine in Internet Explorer doesn’t mean it looks good on Firefox or Opera. A lot of visitors use secondary browsers and, if your web site appears like a complete mess, you will lose those visitors. You can check the web site design for your small business to make for sure it complies with the World Wide Web criteria at the w3.org web site. Validating your Web page will help to assure it functions decently on different browsers.