Top 10 Web Design Mistakes:

1. Legibility Problems.
2. Non-Standard Links.
3. Flash
4. Content That’s Not Written for the Web.
5. Bad Search.
6. Browser Incompatibility.
7. Cumbersome Forms.
8. No Contact Information or Other Company Info.
9. Frozen Layouts with Fixed Page Widths.
10. Inadequate Photo Enlargement.

There’s not much point me going into lengthy detail about each one of the ten problems as Jakob has already done the job here.

Instead we might as well talk about how small businesses sometimes get themselves into a bit of a web design muddle in the first place. There’s a feeling amongst small business types that the actual term ‘small business’ is only a temporary one; we’ll all be a big business some time in the future. We think one of the areas we can change this is in terms of the way we present ourselves through our websites – think big, act big, look big.

In fact, this can lead us down a very uncertain path of projecting what we’d like our businesses to be in ten years time. The next thing you know you’re paying web designers a small fortune to produce you a fancy site with more va-va-voom than your average multinational.

If you were to develop a web presence along the lines of what mistakes to avoid, you’d be surprised as to how cheap it can be. There are far too many web designers out there obsessed with ‘style’ over content and usability.

There’s also the added bonus that your average user might be happier with it aswell.

And that’s what really counts, right?

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Guy Clapperton at Business Insight is quite right when he points out that most small businesses have been outsourcing things like accounting for many a moon.

On a personal level we all tend to outsource our plumbing, electricity or joinery needs once the toilet, the exploding socket or the new fitted wardrobe prove a project too far.

This is what you’d probably refer to as the outsourcing of expertise.

It’s primary function is to do any given task far better than you could yourself. It may very well save you money in the long run, but that isn’t its focus.

And we’re all very aware of the outsourcing of call centers to Mumbai. It’s not so much that these people don’t know what they’re doing rather than the corporations running them only glancing a cursory nod towards customer satisfaction for the sake of pinching a few pennies.

The Telegraph has an article discussing how small businesses are now the targets of firms which provide various backroom services such as payroll, human resources and communications.

However, the Federation of Small Businesses urges us to be careful:

“People should make sure they are getting the right service for the size of company they are. They should not have to shell out for blanket coverage. It’s about striking a balance,” said a [Federation of Small Businesses] spokesman.

I once worked at a place with only four employees that outsourced its ablution services. In other words, we had somebody come and collect the used hand towels and replace them with fresh ones. It would’ve been infinitely cheaper to buy new every week.

The company I’m currently associated with is often on the receiving end of much outsourcing. Yes, it’s cheaper for the firms wishing to outsource as they don’t have a dedicated workforce to pay on an ongoing basis. But, this is still an example of outsourcing of expertise. Subcontracting is also as old as the hills in the world of manufacturing.

It doesn’t matter whether you outsource to your next building, next town, city, country or half way across the world – we all outsource if we don’t have the in-house capabilty to deal with certain aspects of our business – whether it be a temporary peak in work we can’t handle or certain things we don’t have the expertise or inclination to do ourselves.

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Today sees BBC Radio 4′s Shop Talk dedicate a full half hour to business blogging and even dares to pick the brains of a couple of small business bloggers on the programme – Thomas Mahon of English Cut and Heather Platts of The Soap Blog. (Don’t worry about missing the original broadcast as you can always listen to it again at a later date.)

Then, if you’re so inclined, you can trot along to the Our Social World conference in Cambridge this coming Friday to gain a deeper insight of those new-fangled methods that enable you to communicate your business more effectively online.

Whilst business blogging has been embraced by some of the broadsheets, it hasn’t received any real interest from the broadcast media and hasn’t been the primary focus of a conference thus far.

Now I have a theory or three as to why we’re dragging our feet over in the UK, but I’d be far more interested to hear your thoughts.

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New figures released last week show the largest increase in the UK business population since records began in 1995. Approximately 260,000 more businesses were found to be in operation according to the DTI’s Small Business Service.

The business population totalled 4.3 million last year, compared to around four million at the start of 2003.

The figures also show:

• There were over half a million more businesses than in 1997.

• The increase in the number of businesses is spread across the majority of industries.

• The proportion of national employment generated by SMEs has increased from last year to its highest level in nine years.

• At least 95 per cent of businesses in all industry sectors were SMEs.

The SBS also provides a full statistical breakdown of the Department of Trade and Industry report:

Almost all of these enterprises (99.3 per cent) were small (0 to 49 employees). Only 26,000 (0.6 per cent) were medium-sized (50 to 249 employees) and 6,000 (0.1 per cent) were large (250 or more employees).

At the start of 2004, UK enterprises employed an estimated 22.0 million people, and had an estimated combined annual turnover of £2,400 billion.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) together accounted for more than half of the employment (58.5 per cent) and turnover (51.3 per cent) in the UK.

Small enterprises alone (0 to 49 employees) accounted for 46.8 per cent of employment and 37.0 per cent of turnover.

You can find much more at the U.K. statistical website.

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