Obviously, there’s no accounting for personal taste when it comes to anything with a system of aesthetics. However, just as you can judge a band’s talent regardless of the genre, you can also tell when a site has some thought behind it, whether you’re interested in the product or not. Unfortunately, the reverse is also trueif your site is poorly designed, it will show. These are some of the most common pitfalls to avoid.

1. Bland colors: While a hideously loud color scheme is also a bad idea, it can be just as harmful to have dull colors that fade into the background. These sites look unprofessional, since they’re similar to what anyone could create after just a few hours of tinkering.
2. Fancy or tiny fonts: Changing the font style on your page seems like an easy way to make your site distinctive, but there’s a reason most pages stick to Arial or something similar. Fonts that are too hard to read (whether due to style or size) will quickly exhaust any goodwill a new user is extending to your site, and thus this simple mistake can cost you a new customer.
3. Misusing images: Images can be either a booster or a drain on your site. The website MrBottles.com (the Antique Bottle Collectors Resource) has many problems, but the poorly-designed images are one of the most heinous. Even stock photos don’t have to be cheesyyou can find many great ones on iStockPhoto.
4. Navigation issues: Links on your page should always be clear, easy to read, and should let the user know when they’ve clicked on them. That’s why you should never have links in the body that don’t change color. It’s also imperative to always have a toolbar or menu that allows easy access back to the main page if the user ever gets lost.
5. Slowing down browsing: This can happen for a couple of reasons, whether it’s opening new windows when you click on a link or sending the user to a PDF document without warning (which requires Acrobat Reader to open and freezes everything). Bottom line: don’t do it.