We have all visited websites that have made us go for the back button on our web browser so fast it would make your head spin. But have you looked at your own website and asked does your website annoy potential customers?

Here are some of the main hates that people have when visiting a website:

Background Music:

It amazes me that in this day and age the amount of people that still have background music on their website, this might have been really cool back in the 90s but nowadays if people want to hear music they will be playing it from their own files or from an Internet radio station Your music will only interfere with this. If your website is music related like say, for instance you have your own band and are publicising your music you should give visitors the option to turn it off. Better yet an option to turn it on instead of playing it automatically. (A volume control might be nice too).

Your music might sound great but if it comes unexpectedly at full blast to somebodies speakers when they are browsing the web at three o'clock in the morning you might give them a heart attack.

Flashing Graphics:

I'm sure you've seen those jumping and flashing banner ads almost all of which say you are the one millionth visitor to the website (Wow I must be very lucky to keep winning). If you deliberately put graphics like that on your website, shame on you. It may attract attention to your call to action but will really annoy visitors.

Spelling mistakes:

If you cannot spell your copy on your website correctly it gives the impression that you are sloppy and unprofessional. A simple spellcheck could save you from losing valuable customers.

Bad colour combinations:

This can include colours that are very hard on the eyes or background colours which make the actual font colour difficult to read.

Not optimising your graphics for the web:

Not everyone has broadband so make sure that you have optimised your web graphics so that they download quickly. Particularly now that people are using mobile broadband on their smart phones, if you go over your download limit it can be very expensive.

Pop up windows:

Another throwback from the 90s that some Webmasters insist on using despite the fact that pop-up window blockers come as standard on all web browsers.

Masthead animations that play music:

These are very popular with websites created from downloadable templates, it might sound great the first time you hear it but as you click through each page it will slowly drive you bananas.

Page that scroll on forever and ever:

These seem to be very popular with web marketers these days but do people really read them?

A caveat on this, if so many marketers use this tactic, it must work on more people than it annoys so use your own judgement on this.

The list of things that annoy potential customers is endless but if you can keep whats listed above to a minimum you should be well on your way to happy visitors and hopefully happy customers.