Does your website annoy people?

No business builds a website designed to annoy visitors. You’d be surprised at how often that’s what ends up happening, though.

Or maybe you’re not surprised—because you can think of a couple examples of frustrating websites right off the top of your head.

It can be difficult to keep up with changing best practices for websites if it’s not part of your day-to-day responsibilities, though. If you want to make sure that your website doesn’t annoy people who might want to do business with you, it’s a great idea to know what drives people crazy so you can avoid it.

When people talk about websites they’re frustrated with, it usually boils down to an issue with usability or content. Knowing what people are usually annoyed by on other websites can help you avoid making the same mistakes with yours.

Usability

You’ve probably had these frustrations at a website you visited recently. Did you power through it or figure out what you needed to know from a different source?

• Missing or hard-to-find contact information, like business location and hours
• Autoplaying video or audio content
• Disruptive ads, especially irrelevant pop-ups that cover the website’s actual content
• Complicated or confusing navigation
• Not mobile friendly
• Takes too long to load

Content

These issues are annoying as well, but they’re harder to spot. However, they can make visitors to your website reluctant to trust you, so they’re worth avoiding as well.

• Unclear information about what a business does or who their audience is
• Clickbait headlines: It’s always a bad idea to promise something you don’t deliver.
• Unexpected call-to-action results, like signing up for a newsletter in return for an ebook but not receiving it, or not realizing you’re signing up for a newsletter when you download the ebook.
• Keyword stuffing to improve search engine rankings, making content confusing for actual people

If your website has some of these frustrating features, don’t worry. Some of these annoying website quirks are a quick fix. Others are more about a shift in the way you think about your website.

Ultimately, your website should further the goals of your organization, and a big part of that is probably getting your target market to know, like, trust, and value you. Don’t put unnecessary barriers in the way!