Half of consumers say that their impression of a company is dependent on the design of their website. This is why it’s important that you have a website the fits your company’s brand and is easy to navigate for consumers.
Wondering about website design ideas? Keep reading to learn more about common website design mistakes, so you can avoid them and leave a great impression on consumers.
1. Lack of Clear Call to Action (CTA)
When designing business websites, it’s imperative that you tell the customer where to go, what to do, and how to feel—or the next step for consumers.
The CTA should be a very clear command and attached to a link or button. There is no need to get creative with this wording and keep this CTA succinct and simple.
Examples of strong CTAS include:
- Buy Now
- Sign Me Up
- Contact Us Today
- Add to Cart
- Get Started
- Sign up
- Subscribe
A call to action generates more interaction with customers to increase sales. When a website lacks a clear call to action, there is no possibility of gaining customers because they don’t know what to do.
2. Neglecting Mobile Optimization
It’s also imperative that your business has a mobile-friendly website. With mobile devices accounting for more than 40 percent of transactions, it would be a mistake to ignore mobile device optimization. In fact, people are 60 percent less likely to purchase from a company if they have a negative mobile experience.
A mobile-friendly website has easy to view screens on mobile devices with the right amount of text, images, and fast loading time.
3. Not Having a Fast Loading Time
Speaking of fast loading time, most people will not wait for more than five seconds for a website to load. If you don’t have a fast loading time, prospective customers will bounce off your site and head somewhere else.
Slowing loading times are often the result of poor web design. This happens when sites are overloaded with videos, pictures, and animation that cause them to load slowly.
4. Hard to Read Content
You should not use more than two types of font or at most three. When you choose a poor font size or style, it can be hard to read and content appears scattered.
Stick to simple styles so the content is more readable. You want a clean, professional look on your website.
5. Weak Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
There is more to a bad website than just the front-facing user experience. The content can make or break traffic—and can also help generate leads if done properly because SEO and web design work together.
Great content helps you appear in search engines, so prospective customers can find you. Search engine algorithms have grown over the years and there are a few things you should focus on.
Long-tail keywords are more natural language and will give you an easier time ranking with longer phrases than short ones. For example, instead of “bathroom renovation”, try “how much does a bathroom renovation cost.”
You also don’t want a stale website because it won’t build strong relationships. You need to have fresh and informative content. This means you should seriously consider adding an active blog to your site with informative content related to your business.
You can talk about industry trends and offer your expertise on your blog. Choose useful content to engage customers.
Speaking of engaging customers, you can nurture customer relationships through social medial sites like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. They can help you strengthen your brand and customer service. Encourage readers to share your blog posts on these sites for a double-win.
6. Adding Too Many Pop-Ups
When thinking of website design ideas, be careful not to overwhelm your visitors with models and pop-ups on your page. This can make browsing cumbersome, and readers will bounce. Too many pop-ups can also appear desperate.
7. Lack of Organization
As you compare the best website builders, you should make sure you discuss a way to organize your website so readers can find the information they need with little effort. You need to understand that people are impatient and don’t want to have to search for things.
You also need to remember the navigation when you add new pages. Navigation is much more than just adding additional pages over time. It needs to be planned carefully.
Be sure that you also use relevant images and visual data. Try to use lists and bullet points along with subheaders to help organize content.
White space helps make information easier to digest. People can be overwhelmed with walls of text.
Pages that don’t have enough white space can also look unprofessional. People don’t always read every word on websites—they scan websites, so remember that too much content is overwhelming.
8. Hard to Find Contact Information
Along with a clear call to action, you also need to make sure customers know how to get in touch with you easily.
You should always have a “Contact Us” page that is one click away. You can then include all the phone numbers or a message form. You should also have your contact information listed at the bottom of each webpage on your site.
Customers do not want to work to figure out how to get in touch with you.
Avoid These Common Website Design Mistakes
As you work on your website design, you need to consider your customers. These common website design mistakes can scare customers away. Keep your website easy to read, include clear CTAs, display your contact information, make sure your site is mobile-friendly, and work on fresh content.
Want more business advice? Keep exploring our site today to make the most of your website and other parts of your business planning.
