What are the most common Web site mistakes?

No Contact Information

It’s already hard enough to get a potential client to your web site, don’t make it any harder for them to find your law firm. Put your phone numbers, address, and other contact information on every page.

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Clueless Navigation

Ever been to a site with a bunch of pictures and no navigation text? Wait! Suddenly you scroll over the picture of a gavel and – poof! – “ABOUT US” suddenly appears. Then you scroll over the picture of a smiling woman and “OUR ATTORNEYS” appears. This is clueless navigation. By the time you scroll over all the pictures to see what they say, you’ve forgotten the title of the very first picture.

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Bad Flash

Don’t you just love long Flash introductions that have swooshing text, such as “law firm,” “employment law,” “atlanta” and “new york”? Web research shows that 98 percent of Internet users click on the “Skip Introduction” button before the Flash presentation is through. “Nuff said.

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Caveats

This site can only be viewed in Internet Explorer 6.0, Flash 5.0+ enabled, on a 1024 px by 768 px monitor that has a refresh rate of 75mhz, 3.0 Pentium 4 processor, 256mb RAM, and 50GB hard drive, etc. etc. The last time we checked, a web site was NOT a piece of software you buy at Circuit City. All web sites should be cross-platform/browser compliant and should boot automatically.

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Spelling errorz [sic] / Broken Links / Coming Soon

This is rookie-league stuff. Every web design program has a feature that checks for spelling errors and broken links. Further, you should never put a page on a site unless it has relevant content.

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P o o r l y F o r m a t t e d ” ” T e x t”  &” ” ”  G r a p h i c s” ”  &” ”  C o l o r s

Would you put a 48pt title block on a pleading? How about rainbow colors for your letterhead?”  How about a spinning gavel in your courtyard?”  Then why would you use odd fonts, bad colors, and awful graphics on your web page?” 

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Cheesy Music

If potential clients wanted to hear Jimmy Buffet, they’d drive to Key West and listen to him play. Why do web sites love to play cheesy music to entertain us while we learn about the intricacies of a homestead exemption?