Would you read your homepage if you were a new visitor? The thing about creating a great user experience is that often we need to edit down our grand plan.

Here are 5 annoying things you might be doing on your website:

1. Stop rolling out the welcome wagon

Don’t waste your headline with a “Welcome” to my website line. Your visitors are not here for fake endearment. Instead, tell them the value you provide.

“The biggest selection of Mariachi wear”

“Over 1000 Kale recipes”

“10,000 Halloween Costumes for Your Pet”

 2. Flash graphics or long load times

Do you like waiting? Neither do your visitors. Throw out your fancy flash animation or wiz bang graphics. Let you visitors skip standing in line. Show them your product or service right away.

 3. SEO is a disease of the brain

Repeat after me… Google knows all. Google cannot be tricked.

It’s hard to set aside the dream of the top spot in Google’s search results. The majority of what Google uses to determine where your site ranks is beyond your immediate control. You must ignore the email spam promises and blogger nonsense. You must convey what you know best on your site.

Focus on:

• telling your story
• explaining your products
• provide quality information about the category or niche

4. Stock photos are obvious

I’m not saying that you can’t use a stock photo anywhere on your site. When you use them do not do so when it should convey trust in your image or your products. There is nothing trustworthy about a fit model smiling a mouthful of perfect white teeth faking a customer service call on a headset from 1985. Keep it real. The words “We are ready to help” on a plain background will go much further to instill trust.

5. Don’t treat your site as if the internet needs to explaining.

It’s 2015 and we are all online all the time. No one’s going to need reminding of this new technology when they hit your site. Speak to people in a personal conversation.

Edit any of your text where you added the “http://” or “.com”. Skip explaining your “automated ticketing system” or how emails may get delayed by servers. Simplify tech speak, for example, “128-bit encryption” could be “secure”.

Most of these issues are not things you or anyone added to their sight with any thought given. These are holdovers from the early web. The truth is none of them are capital crimes. I suggest you just take a look at your website with the perspective of an everyday internet user.