Building a website is a daunting task and the challenge lies in making it usable. Hundreds and probably thousands of websites are designed every day. However, the web designers give priority to their creativity over the practical usage of the website. Eventually, they fail to see from the user’s point of view.
When it comes to website designing, even an amazing idea can become a total failure in execution. Using creative fonts, loud music and videos may sound interesting, but it can shoo away visitors from your website. Even professional web designers make mistakes. Web designing is an art, which is difficult to master. Your website is your business’s first point of contact. It boosts conversions and sale. It has to be simple, elegant and appealing.
It’s common for business owners to look for interesting and creative web designs. The business owners and web designers should focus on websites that convert. It might sound simple and silly but it can do a lot of damage to the traffic and conversion.
Know your web design mistakes and stay away from the blunders that your competitors make. Fixing the web design mistakes take a longer time. It needs steady efforts but it’s not something that’s not achievable. With slight modification, you can add a lot of value to the business and bring in more traffic, which in turn leads to sales.
Frequent Website Design Mistakes
Design Mistakes
1. Failing to create responsive designs
Over 50 percent of searches are from smartphones and mobile devices. Having a website, that displays properly on different devices is important for the business. Right now only 17-20 percent of the websites are optimized for mobile devices. If the websites are not optimized to fit every screen resolutions, it’s going to be a major problem to generate leads online.
2. Load time of website is too slow
What must be the actual speed of your website?
It must be fast, quick and instant.
Well, websites that take more than 4 seconds to load are slow.
Websites that load within 3 seconds are the best.
As per the research conducted by Google, more than 70 percent of the websites take more than 7 seconds to load. The bounce rate of slow websites is high and it can affect the website ranking.
3. Response time for the service is slow
Web page speed and server speed are two different parameters to consider. When the webpage speed is great and the server speed is slow, the overall website will be slow. You need to enhance the server speed for smooth function of the website.
The best server response time is 200 ms or less.
4. Usage of search box
A search box is essential for professional business websites and blogs. Usage of search box helps the user to find a product or content easily. The website design should look simple and the users should understand the concept at their first glance. Do not make it complicated for the visitors to navigate throughout the website. If the visitors are not able to navigate, you’ll simply lose them.
5. Designing without favicon
Favicons also knew as the ‘Favorite icon’ appears next to the URL of the web page. This little icon appears on the new bookmarks you save. With the usage of Favicon, you can earn a sign of trust and differentiate your website from your competitors. Finally, your website looks complete, professional and the users can recognize it easily.
6. 404 Page not found
A non-descriptive 404 page is a traffic killer. Visitors are least bothered to resolve the problem and they move away to other websites.
Layout and typography mistakes
7. Unreadable fonts
Readability is the crucial element of every web design. Though a great interface is essential to attract the attention of users, the text on the web page should be readable and it should provide information to the users.
Avoid symbols, cursive fonts, calligraphy, and handwritten scripts that are difficult to read. Using different font styles and sizes can make reading painful.
8. Dumping too many fonts
Confusing fonts decreases the level of understanding.
Do not distract the visitor with your website presentation.
Make it simple and use the same font throughout the website to deliver the messages. Do not overdo your website’s design with too many fonts.
9. Poor spacing
- Kerning – Space between two characters
- Tracking – Space between every word
- Leading – Space between every line
In order to make your contents readable, you need to follow the right spacing. If the characters, words, and lines are close, it becomes difficult for the readers.
Clarity of information on the web page is highly important for effective conversions and sale.
Content Mistakes
10. Useless contents
The contents of the web pages should focus on the needs and demands of the visitors. It is essential to speak about the business but it should not ignore the benefits and goals of the visitor. Use engaging contents that will compel the users to buy the products or services.
11. Unorganized content layout
The website receives traffic based on the quality of content. Readers are likely to spend minimum time on the web pages so the contents have to be scalable. A poor content structure can ruin the look of the website.
Elements of best content
- Proper heading
- Descriptive sub-headings
- Short paragraphs
- Proper Grammar
- Bullet points and lists
- Proper Formatting (Bold, Italics, Underline)
- Use of White Space
Do not minimize the amount of content but ensure you follow a proper formatting that delivers the messages in a single glance. Write contents that are free of grammatical errors. Poor contents are a way to lose customer’s trust and engagement.
Usability Mistakes
12. Not meeting the requirement of the visitors
Why would a visitor arrive at your website?
All they need is information on certain products and services.
Ignoring the purpose of the website is the major mistake that leaves the visitors unhappy.
Major questions of the visitors
- How to talk to the sales or service executive
- What is the cost of the product and service?
- What is the shipping policy?
- What information is required?
- How the privacy policy works
- How to manage refund and exchange
- What is the physical location of the company?
- What makes the company different from other competitors?
Your website should make your visitors content with enough information about the product and services. It creates trust and leads to immediate conversion.
Navigation mistakes
13. Color change of visited links
Make it simple for the visitors to know if they have visited the page or not. Enable the color change option of the visited links and you are all set to go.
14. Placement of website logo
It is a bad idea to place the website logo in the center. This leads to a lot of confusion and the visitors may find it difficult to get to the homepage.
15. Navigation menus
Make it more visible.
Navigation menus of the website should guide the visitor to reach the right page. Do not make it a mystery for the users.
Picture and graphical mistakes
16. Use of images
You can get pictures and images from many websites.
Do they add value to your website?
Generic pictures do not convey the need for your website in a powerful way. Using original photos are the best way to tell the story of your product or services.
17. Poor image sizing
Images and graphics on the website should be scaled properly. Poor image settings can ruin the load time of the website and the overall experience of the website becomes poor.
18. Alt Texts and metadata
Do you have an interesting original picture?
Change the file name of the XXXX.jpg or XXXX.jpeg to a relevant name that is search engine friendly. Images with the right name make more sense to the users and for the search engine.
These are the most common mistakes that are ignored even by professional web designers. The bottom line of this article is to keep your website designs simple and usable. Do your research and come up with the best design idea that is engaging, informative and user-friendly.
Contact us today to know more about our Web Design Services
Distributed by Web Brain InfoTech
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