In
today’s world, almost all businesses require websites to gain new
customers and maintain a smooth client relationship. As a business
owner, web design mistakes are something that you would want to avoid.
An effective small business website generally comes with:
- Responsive Design — easily viewable and usable
- Minimalism — fewer pages, with simpler designs
- User-friendly experience — comfortable for users
- Attractive content — simple, easy to get and informative at the same time
But
crucial web design mistakes hamper your business website’s ability to
meet the above-mentioned criteria. Some of the common web design
mistakes that small business make are:
1) Terrible Call to Action (CTA)
Lack of call to action or no call to action is a terrible mistake found on many small business websites.
Call to action guides visitors to do something. In a way, it is a gateway to your business. A good website should tell you:
- What to do
- Where to go
CTA should:
- Guide users well
- Be concise
- Be as simple as possible rather than creative
Some well-known examples of CTA are: Get Started for Free, Sign Up, Contact Us, Download Now, Subscribe etc.
2) Search Engine Optimization Deficiency
Search
engine rankings are based on Search Engine Optimization techniques. A
good website must follow proper SEO techniques for the business to
flourish. Often, when you do not create website adhering to SEO
techniques, it results into poor search engine performance. Here are
some design mistakes that can hurt your SEO:
- Missing H1 Tags
Very
often website designers and developers try to emphasize on the outlook
of a website and ignore essential SEO elements. Removing an H1 tag is
one of them. No matter how amazing the site looks, it won’t appear in
the search engines because of the missing H1 tag. Use a descriptive H1
tag with target keyword.
- Large Images and Media Files
If we consider the latest web design trends,
images and videos certainly enhance the beauty of a website, but they
may also affect the site speed. Google rewards sites that load faster.
You can use tools like Google Pagespeed Insights Test and Screaming Frog
to identify if the page contains large images and media files. It is
possible to re-upload the resized or compressed media files upon
identification.
- Pop-ups
Pop-ups can negatively impact SEO. So, you should reconsider pop-up strategies if visitors don’t find those user-friendly.
- Text in Images
Search
engines generally don’t read texts overlaid on images. Some websites
include important titles or headings inside images. This is a bad
practice and you should avoid it. Even if your image contains some text,
restate that text content on your page.
- Infinite Scroll
Infinite
scroll is harmful for SEO. Search Engine robots only see the content
that is primarily visible on the website. It doesn’t see the remaining
elements that would load through infinite scrolling. Hence it has
effects on SEO. But one can also make infinite scrolls search-friendly.
- Thin Content
Thin contents makes your website’s SEO suffer. Common thin content related mistakes are:
- Not having enough detail information on your product or service pages. There is a higher chance of visitors turning into customers if descriptive content is present on these pages.
- Listing multiple products or services on one page confuses the search engine regarding what the page is about.
- Search engines do not like plagiarized content. Also, content full of grammatical mistakes hurts the user experience of your website, which in turn affects the SEO.
You need to keep these critical SEO elements in mind while working on a new website or redesigning one.
3) Difficulty in Finding Contact Info
It is well said that, “If you are hard to connect, people may not connect at all!”
Customers
need to get in touch with the business owners often and thus, providing
correct contact information stands of importance. You can show the
contact information clearly in the header or footer or on a dedicated
contact page.
Providing
as many contact details as possible (including your social media links)
works as a trust factor for your customers. All the contact information
it should be convenient and easy to find.
4) Poor Mobile Site Experience
Poor
mobile site experience is another mistake that people make often.
People today are dependent on mobile devices and use it a lot to access
the internet. So, with the number of mobile site visitors increasing
with each passing day, you should take the responsive websites seriously
to reach more people.
67%
of users prefer buying products from mobile-friendly sites. 40% users
have changed to a competitor’s website due to facing poor mobile
experience.
So, if your small business website isn’t mobile responsive, it’s high time to change that.
5) Lacking Content Quality
Content quality should be the prime concern while designing the website. Some key concerns might be:
- Sometimes the content is lengthy and irrelevant. It drives away the customers. Sometimes it is not enough to provide information to the customer.
- You should use images should to create better content. But irrelevant images also ruin the quality of the content instead.
- It is important to take care of Poor use of whitespace. Ads in wrong places are also a matter of concern.
The topic and tone of your content must be suitable for your target audience.
Conclusion
There are many some other web design
mistakes apart from the ones mentioned above. The above ones are very
common and easy to fix. You can handle them in the first place by taking
care of the small things.
There is no better time to look at your web strategy than right now. Start fixing the errors today and attain greater success!
