Website Design: Common Mistakes to Avoid
Every business needs an online presence to evolve and succeed in the 2020s. This means having a website.
The digital marketplace is incredibly crowded and competitive. Just consider the fact that in 2023:
- There are roughly 1.13 billion websites on the internet globally; only 18% of these are active.
- More than 250,00 websites are created daily.
- 71% of businesses now have a website.
- 28% of all business is conducted online.
Having a website isn’t enough, however! You need to stand out and get seen – and this means not only appealing to a target human audience but also to the Google (and other search engine) algorithms.
The design of your website is of utmost importance. It needs to be aesthetically pleasing and highly functional. It must also convey relevant information.
There are a lot of things you must incorporate in your website design, but in this article, our focus is on what you should avoid.
6 Web Design Errors to Avoid
1. Non-Hierarchical Content – you need to strategize in terms of the visual hierarchy of your website content. The user journey should be simple, logical, and easy to navigate. It should not be overwhelming for your audience – though you must have adequate textual content for SEO purposes and to inform your audience.
2. Failure to Optimise for SEO – this is a fast track to a failure to rank. You need to consider keyword analysis and use, SEO titles and descriptions, H1 and H2 tags, and URL structure, and avoid duplicate and AI-generated content. (An SEO specialist can help with all of this).
3. Poor Use of Color & Font – the font style should be consistent across the website. Understand color psychology and influence, design your site to suit your branding and logo, and ensure that our use of color doesn’t make your site difficult to read and visualise.
4. Unclear Call to Action – you need to make it clear and simple for your audience to understand what you want them to do and act upon it accordingly. It should be a single action and clearly but unobtrusively placed “above the fold” on every page of your site.
5. Slow Load Speed – most people form an impression of a site within 0.05 seconds of landing on a page, and a page that does not load properly within 2-3 seconds at most will usually be abandoned. You can avoid this by reducing the number of HTTP requests, minifying files, and addressing server performance issues.
6. Failure to Implement Cross-Browser Optimisation – mobile optimisation across devices and for both iOS and Android is imperative, as well as for desktop computers and laptops.
There are many, many other errors to avoid – from poor navigability to lack of security, substandard user experience to failure to communicate the purpose of your business effectively, missing or incomplete contact information to having irrelevant or annoying pop-ups, non-converting features, not using the appropriate analytics, failure to optimise images and animations, ignoring Custom 404 pages, and more.
The right approach to website design delivers an array of benefits:
- A great first impression
- Conveyance of brand identity
- Captivating content
- Improved visibility and ranking via SEO
To get the very best results for your business, it’s highly recommended that you hire a professional, experienced, expert like a creative Orange County website design agency. The right provider for you, your brand, and your business will work collaboratively with you to understand what you do, who you are, who your target audience is, and your goals. Using this information, they will be able to design and develop a highly functional, visually appealing, optimized website that attracts visitors and encourages engagement. Doing so is well worth the investment.
