9 Common Web Design Mistakes

It can be disappointing to run your own website. You invest all your effort, money and time only to reap disappointing results. The millions of site visitors you expected was merely a handful. Plus, those who checked out your site ended up leaving without clicking on any links.

In situations like this, most people would look at their marketing strategy, SEO or their content. What most people forget is that the website’s actual design might be the culprit. Your efforts can be hurt by bad site design. To avoid this, we put together nine common web mistakes for you to nip it in the bud and finally get the results you were hoping to achieve.

Your Website is Hard to Navigate

Primarily, guests are going to use your site menu to navigate where they need to go. For this reason, making it easy to understand and usable is going to be beneficial for you. If you look at WordPress, you will see how the site makes it easy to navigate for viewers. Check your site and see how easy it is to navigate. A rule of thumb is, the easier, the better.

Bad Content

You may have all the bells and whistles as well as all the trendy new developments in web design, but if there is not much substance, guests will immediately go somewhere else. Most people need value above everything else so if something looks very shiny but don’t have the information they are looking for, they will attempt to search it somewhere else. Instead, focus on the content and make sure that it provides the value that people need. Good content is king. In fact, even if you need minor tweaks on your site, viewers will tend to be a lot more forgiving if the content you provide them is exactly what they need.

Your Website Looks Outdated

New trends on the web are constant and keeping your site looking fresh and up to date will garner more viewership. Pay attention to new developments, particularly if you are a tech company or are selling gadgets. No one is going to want to deal with a technology website that looks like it is still in the nineties.

Responsive Design Doesn’t Exist

If your website is not available to view on a mobile gadget or a different format other than on a desktop, you might as well close your business. More and more viewers view sites from their phone, and if this is something you simply did not spend time doing for your site, your efforts would be futile. Instead, make sure that your site has a responsive design for those who do not surf the web on a desktop computer. This way, you can cross this one off the list as your culprit and focus on other stuff instead.

Bad Call to Action

The call to action is the focal point of all websites. In fact, the goal and purpose of your site is to move viewers forward. When your call to action is hard to find, or when it is nowhere to be seen, this will cause viewers to become confused. Instead, prominently display calls to action. Remember, this is not the time to play hide and seek. Make it easy for every guest on your website to say yes. The more obstacles that stand in the way of your viewers and your goal, the less likely they will hit the YES button.  Rather, making it easy for your viewers to click YES will make a tremendous difference in terms of website success.

Uninterrupted, Large Text Blocks

Quick scanning is the norm today and when you have one large text block on your screen, without paragraph breaks in between; this will turn viewers off immediately. Remember, a website is not a page of a novel and viewers find it easier to scan information if this is broken down into chunks rather than presented with no paragraph breaks as one giant piece of text. Using different colors, font sizes and fonts will make a huge difference in becoming more appealing to the viewers. When you include subheadings, this divides your text into smaller chunks, making it easier for the viewers to sift through all the information they need.

Clutter and Inconsistency

When it comes to web design, less is more. A good site design’s objective is to provide content hierarchy, focus, and guidance. Pages cluttered with too much stuff will cause the viewer to put too much effort trying to find the correct link or may cause confusion about where they want to go.

Your Websites Loads Slowly

One major factor that contributes to viewers leaving your page quickly is when it loads slowly. Slower response times to page loading increases page abandonment, for obvious reasons. People are simply not going to wait to find out what time of day your entire page fully loads.

Your Site Makes A Bad First Impression

When it comes to web design, first impressions are everything. You know the saying that you never have another chance to make a great first impression? Well, the same can be said for websites. Guests tend to decide at lightning speed whether your site is worth their time or not. Thus, making a clear, positive first impression is something you want to do. Everyone that visits your site should want to stay there.

Avoiding these nine common web design mistakes will help your site turn one-time site visitors to frequent ones. Remember that in the ever constant world of changing trends, keeping yourself on top of things and doing periodic revamps of your website to tweak it to make it more attractive and easier to use will enable you to reap the rewards of your efforts. After all, with so many people online these days, things can only look up from here.

Does your website need a makeover? A refresh might be the thing you need to push your visitors to customers, call us today 480-970-4688

Photo by Julian O’hayon on Unsplash