12 Common Website Design Mistakes You may Have Made
Was your website designed with these common mistakes?
Websites are necessary components in today’s business world, and you’d think that businesses would’ve perfected their design by now. The truth, though, is that many companies still struggle with creating a good user experience for their website visitors. Luckily, we’re experts in this very field (amongst others), so we’re going to share with you some of the most common web design mistakes that you may be making right now.
Unattractive Design/Layout
Nothing will turn off a potential consumer more quickly than having an ugly website. Whether you have too much going on or too much white space, this can be the death knell for new or established businesses. Even the use of an unattractive font or having a font that’s too small or too large can be very off-putting.
Pages Loading Slowly
As bad as an unattractive website can be, one that loads slowly may be even worse. This often happens because the site hasn’t been coded properly or because it’s bogged down by tons of images, video clips, ads, etc. This can be a real problem, especially when dealing with young customers who may not have the patience to deal with it. It might sound crazy, but if any of your website’s pages takes more half a second to load, then it’s time to clean it up.
Outdated/Impersonal Images
Many years ago, no one really cared if you used a bunch of stock photos on your website. Although you see them here and there even today, the truth is that they’re not nearly as commonplace as they once were. if your site uses a bunch of stock photos or uninteresting images, switch some of these out with high-quality, professional photos of your office and personnel.
Stale/Uninteresting Content
Stock photos are bad, but stale or uninteresting content can be even worse. Whether it’s your About section or the description of a product, you need to have engaging content on every single page. You also don’t want to fill up every page with paragraph after paragraph. If you have a lot of information to convey, split it up into sections with a short header for each.
Broken Links / Dead Pages
We’ve all visited a website at one time or another where a link didn’t work properly. Very often, you get the dreaded “404 error” page and then you have no idea where to go after that. This does happen quite a bit and it looks extremely unprofessional. If you delete a page or change the URL, have a quick look at the entire site to make sure that any links to that page are changed, as well.
Lack of SEO Content
The goal of every company is to achieve a high ranking on Google and other search engines because that’s basically the lifeblood of Internet marketing. Unfortunately, many businesses don’t consider SEO (search engine optimization) when creating their website. If this isn’t something you’re familiar with or confident enough to do on your own, turn to marketing experts that specialize in improving rankings by seamlessly integrating effective keywords into each page.
Bad Mobile Experience
It seems like just yesterday, that many consumers were hesitant to do a lot of business online. Thanks to increased security and familiarity, many companies now get more business online than they do any other way. Now, consumers have evolved again and are browsing on their phones, which means that your website must be mobile-friendly. Even if your site looks great on a computer, you need to test out its appearance and functionality on phones and tablets as well.
Hard-to-Find Contact Info
Consumers often don’t trust companies that are difficult to contact. If you don’t want to place your contact information at the top of your home page, at least make sure that it’s at the bottom. You also need to include all of your contact information — such as your physical address, phone number, and email address — in your Contact Us section so that people will have a variety of options if they need to get in touch with you for any reason.
Lack of Calls-to-Action
It often seems that companies are under the mistaken notion that calls-to-action are for things like emails and flyers. This certainly isn’t the case. Every page on your site should have some type of call-to-action that will hopefully entice the consumer to click on a button or link that will lead them to ordering your product or service. Just be sure not to be too overt about it or that may turn them off.
No Social Media Links
If you’ve been fighting the trend of being part of social media, it’s time to put that out of your head and get to work. Just remember that having social media and interacting on it is all well and good, but if you don’t link everything, then it’ll be harder for consumers to get the full picture of your company. If you don’t want to put your Facebook and Twitter links on every page or at least your homepage, then create a Contact Us page and include everything.
Confusing Navigation
A huge part of proper website design is having navigation that works. Too many websites these days continue to have confusing navigation and it’s absolutely bewildering as to why. What we mean by this is that even when the consumer knows what they’re looking for, the design of certain sites is so bad that visitors have no idea how to get to the right page. Make sure that your navigation is orderly and that you haven’t overdone the number of pages.
Ads in the Wrong Places
Although advertisements can be somewhat annoying for consumers, most people understand that sites often rely on them. However, they’re not so forgiving when the ads are either constantly popping up or are covering pertinent areas of the page. This is especially noticeable — and troublesome — when someone is viewing your page on a mobile device.
Contact P3 Agency for Professional Website Design and Marketing
P3 Agency has over 30 years of experience in business marketing, website design, social media management, and many other areas that are needed in today’s rough-and-tumble business world. If you’re in need of web design in Clearwater or have any questions, give us a call at (727) 474-9064 today to get your free website assessment.