1. Disabling Right-Click

Many people are afraid to publish content online, and rightfully so. There are plenty of visitors who will come to your website and steal content. However, disabling the right-click on a mouse, while it may seem like a quick solution, creates usability issues and ultimately does not solve the problem at hand.

If someone wants your content, they will get it. If a website has disabled the right click of a mouse, the user still has many ways they can get that content. If they would like to take an image, they may simply take a screenshot of the page. If they are on a Mac, taking an image is as simple as drag-and-drop. If they really like your textual content that much, they will just retype it by hand.

There are many other things you are preventing when you disable right-clicking on a mouse, and most of them will irritate web site visitors. Many people will right-click a link to open it in a new window or tab, or right click to click on “back” to go back to the previous page. If the usability of your site frustrates your visitors, they won’t be likely to return.

2. Using Images from Google Images Without Finding Out Their Copyright

This goes for using images that come up in any search results. Even in Flickr. Make sure you check the Creative Commons license to ensure that the author allows the image to be used in the way you intend to use it.

If you’ve found an image on Google, always make sure you know what your rights are to the image. In most cases, someone else has licensed that image for their use alone, so taking an image off of their site is infringing upon a license of use and violating copyright. A website does not need to list copyright information for its content to be copyrighted!

Here’s a great article about finding and using photos from Flickr.

3. Copying Someone Else’s Design

This is a great way to cause your business to fail. Someone will find out about it, and you’ll either be asked to change it or may receive a Takedown notice. Of course, there are also some who may just take you straight to court. In many cases, though, designers and other companies will not be too happy that you used their design, and they will probably let others know about it. Expect your name to be dragged through the dirt, and forget about anything you may have established.

If you really like a design, ask your designer to take inspiration from it and use a similar aesthetic. But never, ever ask them to copy it. If you have found out that your designer has copied a design without your knowledge, you should immediately fire them and take action to change your design as soon as possible.

4. Navigation That Doesn’t Make Sense

If your navigation doesn’t make sense or is difficult to decipher, your visitor will leave. People come to your website to get information, and get it fast. If the way your site is designed is slowing them down or making them unable to do that, they will find a competitor’s site that doesn’t. Users are becoming more and more adept at finding their way around the internet, and they don’t have the patience to figure out why and how your site works differently than others.

Make sure your navigation is obvious, and take the time to organize it so that it makes sense and everything is easy to find in an appropriate hierarchy. Your web designer will be able to help you with this (and in many cases, should help you with this) if you have troubles. If you provide the pages that you need to have on your website and describe each page, your web designer should be able to help create a flow chart demonstrating a navigation that makes sense.

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