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Web design, at its essence, is an art form, and like art, web design looks to give its viewers an experience. It is meant to combine function and form in a way that makes the website navigable, enjoyable, interesting, and usable. To accomplish this, there are certain spoken and unspoken rules that web designers must follow.
In today’s world, almost all businesses require websites to gain new customers while maintaining a smooth client relationship. All effective small business websites generally come with responsive design, minimalism, a user-friendly experience, and attractive content. Some crucial web design mistakes might hamper your business and here are some tips to avoid that.
1. No Call to action (CTA)
Lack of call to action or no call to action as a mistake found on many small websites. A call to action is something that guides visitors and is a gateway to your business.
A good website should tell you what to do and where to go and a CTA should guide users well while being concise and as simple as possible rather than creative. There should be enough information that visitors know what they’re going to get from taking action and what information they need to provide.
On the other hand, there is a fine line between being annoying and helpful and you should make sure your CTA is concise and tells customers exactly what to do. You can try keeping form-filling to a minimum and giving them a few minutes on your page before the CTA shows up.
2. Search Engine Optimization deficiency
Search engine rankings are based on search engine optimization techniques and a good website must follow proper SEO techniques for the business to flourish. Not creating a website adhering to SEO techniques results in poor search engine performance – here are some design mistakes that can hurt your SEO.
Website developers and designers often try to emphasize the outlook of a website and ignore essential SEO elements such as H1 tags. Removing an H1 tag means that the site won’t appear in search engines and you should make sure to use a descriptive tag with the target keyword.
Google reward sites that load faster and if your site contains large media files and images make sure to use tools like Google page speed insights test to identify any problems. You can then re-upload the resized or compressed media files upon identification.
Thin content also makes your website SEO suffer and here are some mistakes that you can make. Not having enough detailed information on your product or service pages is one – there is a higher chance of visitors turning into customers if descriptive content is present on the page. Listing multiple products or services on one page can also be confusing and of course one should make sure that your content is not full of grammatical mistakes, as it hurts the user experience of the website and also affects the SEO.
Pop-ups and infinite scroll also negatively impact SEO and you should reconsider the strategies as visitors may not find it user-friendly.
3. Bad Content Quality
The quality of the content should be the prime concern while designing a website, it tells readers about your business and the products or services you offer. If the content is irrelevant and lengthy it might drive away from the customers and sometimes is not even enough to provide information to the customer.
Pay attention to the fonts you choose and how content is laid out on the page – typeface conveys your brand image, apart from the words that you write, so make sure you pick an attractive legible font. Making good use of white space to bring the eye around your site can make large text look less intimidating. Incorporating too much text into the website is a big mistake many people make.
4. Missing your Target Audience
As a local or small business owner, you understand how important it is to know your target audience – you probably spent hours creating customer profiles and figuring out how to attract consumers. This is just as important in web design and the way your site looks and feels will naturally attract a certain type of consumer.
Some websites are trendy and hip and some are highly professional. Trying to attract too many different types of customers may end up with you having a muddled website. Make sure you identify and profile your target audience and cater to them.
5. Lack of Contact Info
Surprisingly a lack of difficulty in finding contact information is another common mistake. Customers need to get in touch with the business owners often and so providing easily accessible and correct contact information is very important. If a visitor or customer has to search through your site for contact info they will most likely get frustrated and leave.
Provide as many contact details as possible, including your social media links, as that works as a trust factor for your customers too. You can show your contact information clearly in the header of the page or on a separate dedicated contact page. Your “Contact Us” page should always be just one click away, or your information should be present at the bottom of every page.
Always keep your brand image and target audience in mind in every step of the design process from planning to the post-launch analysis. If you can make these two things work, you’ll have a beautiful website that speaks volumes about your business.
There are many other web design mistakes apart from the ones mentioned above – these are the ones that are common and easy to fix. With all the things to juggle as a business owner, you might consider hiring a professional web designer. They can provide an optimal user experience for your customers and help ensure your website generates leads for your business.
Author:
Marina Turea works as Content Manager at Digital Authority Partners