4 Things That Seem Cool But Are Bad for Your Site

A website has become a must-have for a lot of businesses today. Even small ones in local communities are starting to see the potential that a website brings to the table when it comes to driving traffic to their brick-and-mortar stores. For this reason, many of the websites you see through Google search are business-owned.

Website operations have also changed throughout the years. What used to be the norm back then (like the use of HTML codes and more) are now considered to be the basics. Web design has also changed a lot, and now we get to see contemporary and interactive websites all over the web.

Even so, not everything is roses and butterflies. Web development might have changed over the decade, but there are still some things that are not as pleasant to the experience as other innovations are. To the average eye, these things may seem cool and fun, thinking that if they add them to their site, the visitors will come. Sadly, that’s not the case, and they could be harming the website’s performance instead.

Here are four things that may sound cool in the past, but are only harming your website now:

1. Music That Automatically Plays

Adding music to a profile page on Friendster or MySpace used to be the thing back in the early 2000s. If someone lands on your profile and your favourite music start playing in the background, you’re considered as one of the cool kids in school because you knew how to implement it. 

Today, doing the same thing to your website will not only cost you so much time, but you’ll also be losing a lot of visitors. It’s a high risk, low reward (if not zero) because no one wants to have blasting music playing as soon as you visit a site’s homepage. That is also applicable to videos, but only if the content is irrelevant to your site. It seems cool, but it’s not hip anymore. If your website has your favourite Metallica song playing in the background, just disable it immediately.

2. Flash Banners

Flash banners were a common sight in the early days of web development. Most websites used them, and it was pretty smart to implement them because they take a lot of horizontal space, enough to house a decent ad, without sacrificing vertical space. Back then, most displays were square-shaped, so these ad formats actually made sense.

Today, however, using flash banners can make your site look and feel outdated. Because desktop displays are pretty wide now, adding a flash banner will only take away some vertical space unnecessarily. Additionally, most users are browsing the web through their mobile devices now, which means that having flash banners will only ruin the experience for them.

3. Having Too Many Features On-Screen 

Web development was hard to get into during the old era of the internet. The technology wasn’t that advanced yet, and only a few minds understood and knew how to implement certain features on-screen. Back then, having many features means you have the budget to hire someone who was extremely good at web design.

Today, a screen bombarded with too much information is likely to get less traction than the most minimalistic websites online. That is because people have changed the way they perceive information. We are becoming more selective when it comes to finding information. If your website is overloaded with too many features, the visitor will easily get annoyed and turned off.

Instead of handing out everything and just letting the visitor figure out how to use your site, today, the most effective way of keeping visitors navigating through the website is by redirecting them from one page to another, showing the steps they need to take to get what they want.

Conclusion

These things may have worked for various websites in the past, but nowadays, they’ll only harm your conversion rate. If you want to gain more visitors, use modern techniques and adapt. The old ones are now a thing of history and are not as effective anymore.

Hire a web design company to keep your site sleek and professional. Bolt Marketing offers digital marketing services for businesses in London, Ontario. Get in touch with us for your website needs!