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Will your web developer make any of these mistakes? Chances are they will.

Like many people the world over, you may have made the decision to build and develop your own Internet website. If you are creating a website to further a business venture, you need to take particular care in the building and the development of such an Internet venue. Indeed, in the end, the entire success of many an Internet based business venture has hinged upon the effectiveness of its website.

With this in mind, there are 13 major and common mistakes that are made oftentimes when it comes to the design, building and development of an Internet website. Through this article, you are provided an analysis of those mistakes which you must avoid when it comes to designing, building and developing an Internet website.

1) Not Keeping It Simple

Unfortunately, in this day and age many people have signed off on the concept that a website is "no good" unless it is very complicated. In reality, the exact opposite is the case. While many so-called "professional web developers" or "professional web designers" continue to push the idea that you need a complicated and complex set with every imaginable "bell and whistle," these individuals simply do not know what they are talking about. (In the worst case scenario, these so-called professional providers merely are working to jack up their fees needlessly - causing you to spend money that you actually did not need to pay out in the first instance.)

Perhaps the most fundamental and time tested (as well as honored) rule of marketing, advertising and promotion - in both the brick and mortar world and online - is to keep it simple. (In reality, there really is something positive to be said for the "KISS Plan." KISS translates rather vividly to "keep it simple ... stupid.")

You must always keep in mind that the Internet and World Wide Web is a very fast paced venue. The typical online consumer surfing the Net will spend a matter of a few seconds on a website before he or she will make a decision as to whether or not to stay at the site. In other words, if a website is too complicated - if a website is not designed in a clean and simply fashion - consumers simply will not stick around. In the end, you not only need to get consumers to your website, you not only need to attract potential clients and customers, you must keep them at your site long enough to consider what you have to offer to them.

2) Poor Choice of Domain Name

Another common mistake that is made when it comes to building and designing a website involves selecting a poor domain name. For example, many people have erred by selecting a domain name that they think is appropriate, even entertaining and appealing. The problem is that they select a domain name that equates to being an inside joke. You might have a clever idea for your domain name. However, if it does not convey the essence of what you are marketing through your site in an easy to understand and professional manner, you are doomed to fail.

As an aside, in addition to being crucial for the reasons noted a moment ago, the selection of a domain name also plays a crucial role in an overall plan for search engine optimization. In this regard, you will want to closely consider incorporating a major keyword or keyword phrase into the domain name itself in order to enhance the SEO value of that name in the first instance.

3) Errors in Copy (Text, word overload)

You simply cannot underestimate the negative impact that website copy containing errors will have - will have - on your business enterprise. Poorly written copy (including copy containing grammatical and typographical errors) will send the wrong message to potential clients or customers of your business. These consumers will conclude that your business lacks professionalism based on glaring errors in the copy of your website.

As has been discussed, unless you truly are a proficient writer, you likely will want to find a professional to draft copy for your website.

4) Too Many Graphics

Once again, you need to abandon the whole idea that more is better when it comes to your website. Most web designers will welcome your graphic overload, or try and sell you on a complex graphic overload. You need to resist this. Quite often, you will hear people who are passing themselves off as experienced in website design droning on about the importance of "having lots of graphics" on a website.

The reality is that graphics are key to the design and development of an appealing website. However, you simply do not want to flood the site with images. In the end, a few well placed graphics that draw a person's attention are precisely what you will require in order to design, build and develop a website that will prove popular and profitable.

The sad reality is that many online business owners select what can only be described as utterly deplorable looking graphics for their websites - graphics that look as if they have been thrown together by a blind chicken dancing in the dirt.

5) Poor Color Choices

In addition to having appropriate and appealing copy and graphics on your website, you need to take special care to make the best color choices for your site itself. Market research has revealed time and again that people visiting websites initially respond to the color scheme being utilized at a website.

Beyond attractiveness, you also need to make certain that the colors and color scheme that you select for your site is appropriate to what you are marketing or promoting through the site. For example, if you are offering some sort of professional services - if you are an attorney developing a website - using pastel colors probably would not be a solid choice. Earth tones and more conservative color schemes probably would be a better fit.

On the other hand, if you are selling clothing for children, you can utilize more vivid and lively color schemes. Again, the focus needs to be on selecting colors and a color scheme that is appropriate to what you are selling, marketing or promoting at your website.

6) User Unfriendly

Oddly, one of the most common mistakes that people make when it comes to designing, building and developing a website is failing to make certain that the site itself is absolutely user friendly. No consumer (no potential client or customer) is going to spend any amount of time trying to get your site to work. If a consumer visiting your site cannot make his or her way around your site with ease, that individual will be clicking away from your site forever in no time at all.

When it comes to making sure that your site is user friendly, you will want to consider seriously engaging the services of a well trained and experienced professional to assist you in designing and building your venue. Once again, as is the case with other providers in business today, there are web designers who lack the experience necessary to ensure that you have the most user friendly site possible. Therefore, you definitely will want to do your homework and make sure that you engage a design professional that understands the demands associated with ensuring that a website is completely user friendly.

7) Lack of Cohesion

Another common mistake that people make when designing websites involves what might best be called a lack of cohesion. In these cases, people literally throw everything onto their websites - including the proverbial kitchen sink. In the end, visitors to such a website end up confused ... and simply do not transact any business, and if you are a service based company, it would mean losing out on potential prospect leads.

Even in instances where you are selling a wide array of products, or in cases in which you offer a variety of services through your online venue, it is important that you maintain a sense of unity and cohesion about and throughout your site. In this way, a visitor to your site will be able to quickly come to understand what you have to offer on your site in a way that is accessible and easy to understand.

8) Too Many Pages

Once again, we return to the endemic problem of more is best when it comes to website development. In this instance, our focus turns to those people who design, build and develop a website that simply has too many pages. As has been noted time and again throughout this article, consumers and people on the Net simply do not have, nor take, the time to closely examine a website on a first visit. And, if you do not readily make all relevant information associated with your operations or venture readily available to a consumer in an easy to access form - and in the fewest amount of pages possible - there will only be one visit to your site and it will be a brief one.

9) No Easy Means to Communicate

Obviously, the reason you want people to come to your site in the first instance is that you want them to interact with you - you want them to do business with you, for example. One common mistake that people designing websites make is that they do not make it easy for potential clients or customers to communicate with them.

So, it is very important that you have a system in place on your website through which you immediately will be in touch with the consumer who contacts you through the site. Many an online businesses have lost a potential client or customer simply because the website in use was not designed in such a manner so as to allow for a quick response to a consumer who visited that Internet venue.

10) Nothing to Push Consumer Conversion

Yet another very common mistake on many websites in operation today involves a failure to include enticements on the site that will compel the consumer to take action. Of course, the ultimate type of action that you will want a consumer to take is to purchase your product or engage your service. However, even getting the consumer to contact you with a question is a positive conversion, and the first step on the road to actually getting that consumer's business.

In the end, consumers that visit a site and do absolutely nothing at all are not likely to return at any point in the foreseeable future to actually transact business with that business venture or operation.

11) Failure to Follow Principles of Search Engine Optimization

Surprisingly, a common mistake that many website designers make when developing a website is failing to follow the basic principles of search engine optimization. In the end, your Internet-based business enterprise depends on your designers ability (and the ability of your site itself) to attract consumers to that website.

In this day and age, search engines provide the doors through which many consumers pass in order to access an online business. Therefore, it is crucial that you make certain that your website is appropriately search engine optimized to ensure a higher ranking of your site on search engine results. A higher ranking translates into more consumer traffic to your site. More consumers at your website results in higher sales, revenue and profit for your business enterprise.

Understanding the importance of search engine optimization - and the mistakes people commonly make in this regard - it is important for you to consider seriously engaging a professional to assist you in implementing a worthwhile, meaningful, and effective search engine optimization or SEO program for your website.

12) Failure to be Distinctive

Activity on the Internet is increasing by proverbial leaps and bounds. One of the common mistakes that is still being made involve websites that all look about the same. Indeed, the Net today has become akin to the vast suburban neighborhoods of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s (and beyond, for that matter) that contained street after street of houses that all looked identical.

If you want to achieve success through your Internet business, you need to avoid the problem of failing to design and develop a site that has a distinctive appearance. While you will want to follow the suggestions mentioned earlier in this article about ensuring that your site is attractive and appropriate in its design, you will also want to make sure that your site has a unique and distinctive look about it.

13) Failure to Get Professional Assistance

When all is said and done, perhaps the most common problem of all, when it comes to designing and developing a website, is failing to seek and obtain professional help. The smart and successful business owner knows when and how to seek professional assistance. From hiring an attorney to hiring an accountant, business owners routinely seek professional guidance and assistance.

In the end, by avoiding the mistake of avoiding professional assistance in designing, building and developing your site, you will place your business and yourself in the best possible position to enjoy strong revenues and increasing profits today and into the future.