Your website design can help your company meet or exceed its goals. However, it can also take a toll on your company and prevent you from making a positive impression and generating valuable leads online.
Since most users stick around a website for less than 15 seconds before clicking away, you have a fraction of a minute to capture their attention. This means, you cannot afford to make any website design mistakes.
Let’s take a look at 10 web design mistakes that can prevent your site from thriving.
Table of Contents
Keeping Contact Information Hidden
If you’d like users to contact you via phone or online form, your contact information must be clearly visible. Keep it across the top in the site navigation or in the footer. I recommend including your phone number, address, and email address.
Remember, if a user can’t find your contact information, they’ll likely become frustrated and could wind up contacting one of your competitors instead of you. Make sure they can contact you!
Using Heavy Images
Having images in your web design is a great idea to help sell your products and services, however, if these images are not properly optimized it can ultimately cause more harm than good. Heavy images can increase your websites page load times, reduce your rankings, and take away from a positive user experience.
If you have a WordPress site, there are a number of solid image optimization addons that can be used. My recommendation is Imagify!
Poor or Thin Content
Content truly is king when it comes to your website. If your site is loaded with thin, duplicated, or irrelevant content, your users (and Google) will be confused and your rankings will suffer. By investing in your content and ensuring it positions your company in a positive light, you’ll drive more traffic to your site and increase conversions.
Cluttered Website Design
If you come home to clutter, you are likely to feel stressed and overwhelmed. Your website users will experience the same feeling if your website is cluttered. Work to create a clean, professional looking website that is free of clutter, easy to navigate, and allows for an exceptional user experience.
A Lack of Social Media Links
Since social media is more popular today than ever before, including links to your social media profiles on your website is crucial. If you forget to incorporate social media into your website design, you’ll be missing out on fans and followers that can eventually turn into customers or clients and grow your business. You can’t afford to exclude your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn profiles from your website if you want to connect with your customers or clients socially.
Minimal or Nonexistent SEO
Although search engine optimization (SEO) is constantly changing, it is key to your website’s success and allows customers to find your business online. A strategic SEO strategy can bring relevant users to your website, boost your brand awareness, and help you stand out from your competitors. Looking for a quality SEO? Find out more about my SEO services.
A Non-Responsive Web Design
There are over 4 billion people right now with access to the internet and 82% of those people use their smartphones to research purchases they are about to make. If your website is unresponsive, looks strange or doesn’t work properly on a smartphone or tablet, you’re out of luck. Users will likely get frustrated and close out of your site if you do not have a responsive design. Any quality web designer these days is going to include responsive website in the site they build. Responsive web design is critical for smartphones and other devices.
Poor Website Navigation
Navigation refers to how people understand and move around your website. If your navigation is confusing and users don’t know how to get to certain pages, you can miss out on revenue.
Believe it or not, 50% of potential sales are lost because users can’t find the right information. The good new is you can depend on me to create a logical, intuitive, and accessible navigation.
Not Securing Your Website with HTTPS
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is a method for securing communication between a users browser and the website they are connected to. It protects your users from attacks where an individual might try to intercept logins or credit card details or other confidential information that is sent to your website.
By securing your website with HTTPS, you can increase Google rankings, improve security, and increase customer confidence. This is a pretty standard feature and fairly easy to implement at this point through most hosting providers.
A Long Load Time
Approximately half of web users expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less and tend to abandon a site that doesn’t load in 3 seconds. If your site takes a long time to load, you’ll miss out on conversions. While you can optimize sites on cheaper servers to some degree. To really get your website loading at lightning fast speed, you’ll need a quality hosting provider.
As a professional website designer with the goal of providing each and every customer with a superior website that generates meaningful traffic and revenue, I make it a top priority to ensure every website I build is free of these mistakes. Contact me today for more information. I’d love to work with you!