With over 1.88 billion websites currently in existence, the online space is characterized by nothing less than cut-throat competition. You’ll have to put your best foot forward for web visitors to notice your site in the sea of other websites.
These days having a functional and properly designed website is no longer optional. You risk being thrust into digital oblivion if you have a shoddy and buggy website.
Unfortunately, most site owners are oblivious of the website design errors that hurt their SERP ranking and cost them, visitors. If you run a small business website, these errors mean more than just ranking lower on SERPs. They also mean lots of money down the drain.
Everybody knows that designing business websites is no walk in a park, especially if you’re doing it yourself. Today, we’ll be highlighting a couple of common website design mistakes you should avoid for a high-ranking website.
1. Terrible Navigation
User experience and usability are at the core of proper website design. As such, you need to ensure your website has seamless navigation. That way, your visitors can get to what they want with ease and without frustration.
Your website can have poor navigation if:
- You place the navigation bar in an awkward position
- You hide the navigation bar
- You Place text and items haphazardly on the website
- You include broken links on web pages
These are some of the things you should avoid to make your website easier to navigate. If your users are having a hard time navigating your website, they’ll leave. This translates to a higher bounce rate, which is detrimental to your SEO ranking.
2. Failing To Balance Negative Space
Negative space or white space is the space between items on your website. A skilled web designer can use white space resourcefully to guide the users’ eyes and emphasize specific items. However, you must be careful with white space because failing to balance it gives your website a cluttered look.
A good example of white space imbalance is not having enough white space on a page. This can lead to having too much on the page and can overwhelm your visitors. A proper web page should have white space between subheadings and long paragraphs to enhance the site’s readability.
Use negative space correctly to keep your website organized, minimize reading fatigue, and give it a more modern look. Balancing white space can be a tad difficult, and you should consider getting a bit of professional help.
3. Having Too Much Going on
One common mistake with website owners wants to have everything on one or two web pages. This leads to page stuffing, which is terrible for your website.
Although you have good intentions, page stuffing does the opposite of what you want it to. Instead of capturing your users’ attention, it leaves them confused. When users can’t understand what’s going on, they’ll leave your website in less than 20 seconds. That’s a lot of money out the window for business websites.
What’s more, an overstuffed page takes much longer to load, even with high-speed internet. The slow loading pages are a huge turn-off for web visitors. Ensure you have just enough on your pages for a practical website.
4. Having Low Quality and Irrelevant Images
Images are a great way to garnish your website, but only if you use the right ones. Images help capture the users’ attention and break the text monotony. They easily convey the brand message without having to read any text.
For images to add value to your website, they must be relevant and of superior quality. Don’t make the mistake of using confusing, irrelevant, and low-quality images on your website. Irrelevant images will send the wrong message and confuse your visitors.
Low-quality images paint a bad picture for your company and portray an unprofessional image. There are plenty of websites where you can get superior quality images for your site. If you want to include photos, consider hiring a professional photographer.
5. Failing To Create Mobile-friendly Website
Approximately 50% of web users are smartphone users. Failing to optimize your website for mobile devices is planning to fail. Mobile-friendliness is a crucial ranking factor, and having a website incompatible with smartphones is falling behind the curve.
Don’t let your users go through the trouble of pinching their screens and zooming to use your website. Doing so will discourage a huge proportion of web users from visiting your website. If you’re optimizing for smart devices, remember to consider the following factors:
Navigation: Smartphones don’t have mice, so make your website easily navigable, keeping that in mind.
Readability: Ensure your text is still readable on the smaller mobile phone screens.
Optimized CTAs: Make sure you have a clear CTA that users can interact with.
These are some of the factors you should keep in mind when optimizing your website for mobile devices. It’s a good idea to seek professional help when it comes to smartphone optimization.
6. Haphazard and Confusing Web Design
A proper website is uniform and consistent with its design. Using multiple styles randomly on your website can be jarring for your visitors. Avoid mixing multiple colors, typefaces, images on the same webpage.
Most web users fall into this trap while going for a “creative” web design but fail miserably. If you’re trying something new, tread softly and keep your creativity within acceptable limits. When designing a website, stick to a single theme, color palette, and typeface for the best results.
Alternatively, you can look for web design pros to help you out. Weber & Co. is a web design company with extensive knowledge and experience in web design. Maybe you should give them a whirl.
7. Failing To Include Contact Information
Including contact information in your website seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many websites don’t. Failing to include contact information on your website is a huge mistake. That’s because it leaves visitors stuck when they have queries or complaints.
Visitors get frustrated when they can’t find information to contact you. If you’re running a business website, they’ll look for the next best business, most likely your competitor. Always include contact information on your web page unless you’re okay with losing your customer to your rivals.
Your “contact us” page should be easy to spot and access. You should also have your general contact information at the bottom of the web pages.
8. Improper Ad Placement
It’s hard to miss a website without ads, and yours probably has a couple of them. Advertising is an excellent source of extra income, but that doesn’t mean you should overdo it. Too many flashy ads will frustrate your users.
The first rule with ad placement is don’t have too many ads on your website. The second is you need to be extra careful with ad placement. You don’t want ads that block out your content or interrupt your users’ reading.
Go easy on the ads and make sure they’re not a distraction. Otherwise, the revenue you get from them won’t count because you’ll be losing much more because of reduced web visitors.
9. Failing To Resonate With Your Target Audience
A successful business website appeals to its target audience for increased conversions. Websites that fail to resonate with their target audience don’t do so well. That’s why you need to figure out the best way to attract and retain your target customers.
If you own a law firm, make sure your website retains a modest and professional image. If you run an urban clothing store, you’ll want a hip and trendy website with bright colors and creative typefaces. Simply put, ensure your website design matches your website design to attract the right crowd.
10. Having a Terrible CTA
The call to action or CTA summarizes your website’s message and encourages the user to take action. These actions include contacting you, buying an item, or giving feedback. How well you deliver your CTA determines whether the users will take action.
The CTA instructs the readers on what to do after reviewing your value proposition. However, that doesn’t mean that you should beg for sales or reviews on the CTA. Instead, your CTA should be concise, polite and request the user to take action without sounding too desperate or demanding.
Avoid Website Design Errors and Improve Your Digital Marketing Strategy
Now that we’ve highlighted some of the most common website design errors, you should be good to go. Ensure you steer clear from the above mistakes for a high-performing website and a successful business. If you’re having trouble getting things right, you can always hire a professional web design service to help you out.
For other informative content, be sure to check out the other articles on the site.