Having an online presence on the internet is a must for businesses nowadays because everyone is on the internet. A well-designed website shows the quality and credibility of your business. You can create your brand image, interact with clients, marketize, and sell your product using your website.
Imagine that you enter into a grocery store, a clothing outlet, or a restaurant. You are wandering here and there but unable to find someone who can take your order or show you the desired product.
It’s the same case when your website design is not useful enough. Your website is imperative because it acts as your virtual store or office. You can’t afford it to be flawed at any cost. You will be surprised to know that within 0.05 seconds, website visitors make an opinion about your business.
With the advent of the latest tools and techniques, many businesses, particularly beginners, do not wait to hire a professional to create their website. You can make one with a little bit of expertise and knowledge. However, make sure that you won’t make mistakes in your website design and content.
Let’s have a look at a list of web design mistakes that ruin your online presence and conversions. Knowing these mistakes will help you analyze your website and ensure that it becomes more useful for you and your customers.
1. Lack of Usability
Most of the transactions happen online these days. So you can’t afford that visitors are unable to find useful information on your website. Studies show that a well-designed website with high usability influences revisit rates and purchasing behaviors and that 88% of online consumers won’t come back to your site after a bad experience. If the user finds it difficult or time-consuming to access the desired information or place a purchase order, your website lacks usability.
Many researchers also associate it with slow download time, a lack of interactivity, and responsiveness. Thus, make sure that you consider these factors while designing your website.
2. Call to Action Errors
A call-to-action (CTA) influences or calls users to take a specific action such as “Sign up” or “Buy Now,” or “Read my Articles.”
It’s usually present in the form of a button or hyperlink. If the color is not prominent in the call to action button or the button itself is hidden somewhere on the page, you won’t influence the visitor to click, defeating its actual purpose.
Take a look at this screenshot, for example. The CTA buttons are very hard to see both because the color is very faint and the location is very inconvenient.
Use catchy colors such as bright blue or orange to make the CTA button stand out. Another idea is not to put too many calls to action in the same row. There is a chance that your visitors won’t click on anyone. The main one should be more prominent through the appropriate use of colors and font.
This CTA works very well because it shows what the person can expect and how the website can help them by clicking. The color, location, and diagrams are also very well considered.
Learn more about landing pages.
3. Difficulty to Understand Content
You will be surprised to know that users spend an average of 5.59 seconds on consuming written web content.
While many businesses ensure that their website is aesthetically perfect, this will not immediately guarantee visibility. Search engines must comprehend what the website is all about for a website to show up in search results. The critical way to make this happen is to develop clear, concise, and useful content and have the best SEO practices in mind.
However, your key goal should not be to build content for search engines only – it’s also for the people visiting your website. If the content is insufficient, has mistakes, or is irrelevant, you compromise your brand image and contribute to a bad customer experience.
Also, don’t make mistakes to impress the user with difficult to understand words. For example, if you know that your key visitors’ first language is not English and your content compels them to open a dictionary, that’s a big “No.” Make your content easy, engaging, and to the point.
4. Too Many Font Styles
Too many font styles look unprofessional and messy. It becomes hard for people to figure out what is essential. Generally, two to three font sizes are enough to ensure consistency in your website, and anything above can be problematic for the user.
Here is an example of using too many fonts. They end up competing with each other for attention.
Learn why graphic design is crucial in digital marketing.
5. Overly Complicated Forms
Sometimes users are required to fill out a contact form on your website for registration or place an order. An overly complicated form with too much text and requirements may irritate visitors. Make these forms as simple as possible and only ask for sufficient information to proceed with the request.
6. An Image That Affects Readability
Some beginners make a big mistake using images on their website to affect text readability negatively.
For example, with an overcrowded picture in the background, your call to action buttons will be invisible even if you have properly highlighted those.
For this, you can experiment with moving the text to somewhere more visible, changing the image, or finding some blank space in the picture to adjust the text. Use the white space available for this purpose. Also, use a contrasting color to ensure text visibility. For example, on a black background, use white and vice versa.
7 Poor Image Quality
The images that you have on your website matter a lot. If they are not high-quality and sharp, they’ll make your site look unprofessional. At the same time, huge images may be difficult to load. Your users don’t have a lot of time to wait.
8. Not Optimized For Mobile
Half of the total website traffic worldwide is coming through mobile phones, and its rate continues to increase. This shows that most of the online purchases made worldwide are occurring through mobile phones. Therefore, it’s important to make your website mobile-friendly.
Here is an example of a website that is clearly not mobile-friendly:
A mobile-friendly website means your website should be accessible, aesthetically appealing, and convenient to navigate even on smaller devices. It must also load quickly and fit easily on any screen.
A website that clearly represents an excellent mobile interface is HuffPost:
9. Slow Website Speed
Website speed and loading time can impact your sales. There are fewer chances that people will return to your website if they have experienced delays.
Research says that even a one-second delay reduces customer satisfaction level by 16%. When it comes to an e-commerce website, there is a high chance that you lose sales as compared to your competitor’s website if their speed is better.
However, using simple tools and applications can manage loading times and improve traffic and website ranking. For example, “Page Speed Insight” by google and “Pingdom Page Speed” can help you in this context.
10. Poor Grammar
Making a habit out of writing with poor grammar can ruin your company’s credibility. Keen observers might assume that if a company cannot polish basic things such as grammar, how can they provide quality service?
Conclusion
The design of your website can make or break your business. If you are running your whole business online, you have to be very cautious about your design. Avoiding the basic web design mistakes mentioned above will help improve your customer’s experience, eventually leading towards more sales, better website ranking, and a stronger brand image.
About me:
Hi, I’m Bryan Osorio, and thanks for reading. I’m a psychologist, blogger, SEO enthusiast, Content Marketer, and Digital Marketer with three years of experience within the Tech and Digital Marketing Industry.