A common trap for companies taking their business online is to create pop-up ads on their website. After all, if you don’t take advantage of as many internet features as possible, you’re wasting your money, right? Wrong. Pop-ups now have worse press than ever due to their association with spyware, adware, and other intrusive software.These programs manifest themselves as “rogue pop-ups” with no connection to the product or service your business is offering. Although some newspaper sites like The Washington Post and The New York Times use pop-ups to improve functionality for their site users, many people have programs to block pop-ups of any kind. Some rogue pop-ups are also highly inappropriate. Poor security or coding on your website can allow this kind of content in regardless of your intentions, and if a user stumbles across these on your site, they may never return. Consider it from the user’s point of view: if you go to a site looking for a specific piece of information, do you want to have your route cluttered by extraneous or even offensive information? Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »