Web design can literally make or break the reputation of your website. Even if you offer the best content on your pages, your readers will have difficulty to take you seriously if your web design is done incorrectly. Let me show you some mistakes that people make when their designing their web pages.

First of all, your site’s layout should be clear and free of unnecessary clutter. Your users should be able to know your site’s subject instantly. Over crowding your site with music and badges will not only make your site look messy, it will also hinder its performance.

If you absolutely want your users to enjoy music while they’re navigating on your site, make sure you let them control it. There’s nothing more annoying than having to listen to unnecessary theme music when you’re browsing through a site. You should clearly display a media player that will allow your user to play, stop or pause the music at all times.

A mistake a lot of people make when they’re trying to integrate Adsense to their site is trying to blend the ads with the content. While it may improve your click trough rate on a short term, your readers will catch on to it and you’ll lose followers. They will start to see your site as a blatant advertisement tool and they will lose their trust in you. Trust is capital when you’re trying to gather a following, so it’s better to have a lower click through rate I the beginning, but more visitors in the long run…

I personally use Firefox, but I know that a lot of people are still using Internet Explorer or new platforms like Google Chrome, so you’ll have to make sure that your site is compatible with all these platforms. Not all browsers interpret CSS the same way, so you’ll lose some followers if they can navigate your site. You should also avoid JavaScript links since they can cause problems to some of your users.

Web design should never be taken lightly. Your site’s layout is what will make your site easily recognizable and stand out from the rest. So if you manage to stay away from the mistakes I just listed in this article, your readers will be pleased with what they see and you’ll start to get more and more traffic.