Having a website that stands out from the crowd is no longer optional. Businesses lose money every time a customer leaves because of a poorly designed website. This, alas, happens with distressing regularity. To cut costs and retain creative control, many entrepreneurs choose to build their own websites. Sometimes they fall short because they lack an understanding of fundamental web design principles.
The creation of a website is, at its core, an artistic endeavor. In the same way that paintings aim to evoke a feeling in their viewers, websites aim to do the same. In order to create a website that is user-friendly, easy to navigate, and intriguing to explore, web designers must strike a balance between aesthetics and practicality. That can only be achieved by adhering to a set of "rules" that have been established, both formally and informally. Instances like this website are the result of people not following the guidelines set forth. We've compiled a list of common web design blunders to assist you to avoid them. So let's get started.
List of Common Web Design Mistakes
1. Failing to Consider User Experience
When the user experience is a top priority, every effort is made to ensure that site visitors have a good time. This entails making it simple for site visitors to locate what they're searching for, whether that's contact information or a specific product, and feel at ease while doing so. Your website makes it easy to do what you want them to do. Poor user experience design is all that a visitor to a website will remember.
Instead of a streamlined journey to the site's intended destination, they will become frustrated attempting to decipher the site's layout and design in search of answers. Website UX is more than just ensuring sure visitors can find what they're looking for and how to get in touch with you. It's all about catering to your demographic in a way that feels natural and intuitive to them.
2. Poorly Designed and Cluttered Interface
What does a first impression of your homepage look like? A website that seems credible and trustworthy requires only the following elements: a clear value statement, an eye-catching image, and a strong call to action. The primary goal of most companies is to deliver their most important information to potential customers in an easily digestible and visually appealing fashion on their home pages. In addition to being unappealing to the eye, overcrowded websites appear less trustworthy. Overcrowded websites often break the white space golden rule, which is critical for keeping visitors' interest. Our minds prefer things to be simple and organized, so if you clutter up a page with too much information, visitors are more likely to click away.
3. Not Opting for Responsive Design
Choosing a responsive design for your website is essential as it simplifies the management of your SEO approach. Managing a single site with a single SEO campaign is much less work than managing a number of sites with a number of different SEO campaigns. As a marketer, you know how important it is to have your site rank highly in Google searches performed on any device. Another major benefit of responsive design is the time and energy it saves web developers. There is only one website version that needs to be maintained by the back-end developers.
As everything is housed in one convenient location, working on the project is streamlined significantly. The method is preferable to developing several stylesheets, especially for front-end developers. It would be great if you only had to make one modification to your CSS code instead of modifying many files to achieve the desired visual effect.
4. Ignoring Performance Considerations
Developers often fail to consider how their work will affect the site's performance, which can result in frustrated visitors and high bounce rates. It has been determined that users have an attention span of between 0.3 and 3 seconds. In the event that it takes longer than that to load crucial pages on your website, visitors will likely become impatient and abandon the page altogether. Websites that load more quickly benefit from fewer visitors leaving the page immediately, more visitors converting into customers, a higher position in organic search results, and, of course, a happier audience.
Websites that load slowly waste money and damage reputation. In contrast, a faster page load time will have a constructive effect on your website's visitors, returning customers, and bottom line.
5. Not Optimising for Mobile Devices
Customers prefer a hassle-free mobile shopping experience, so giving them what they want by optimizing your website for mobile users gives you an edge over the competition. Your products, blogs, etc., stand a good chance of going viral if your site users are also active on social networking. Additionally, people may begin following your brand's page. Therefore, your website should be optimized so that it is both aesthetically pleasing and functionally seamless on mobile devices.
6. Unclear or No Call-To-Action
The call to action, or CTA, is an essential part of every website since it indicates to the visitor what they should do next. If there is no obvious call to action (CTA), the user is less likely to complete the desired action and more likely to abandon the site. Clarifying the next step for potential customers through a call to action reduces barriers to conversion. If there are several possible next steps for the user to take, the page may feature numerous calls to action. A visitor to a blog post, for instance, is not very likely to stick around and do anything else if there isn't a clear call to action at the end of the piece. But a call-to-action (CTA) at the end of the post urging readers to check out related content or subscribe to the site's newsletter can keep them engaged.
7. Missing a Contact Page
You can't expect visitors to your website to become clients if they can't readily discover your contact information, thus it's crucial that your website have a contact page. If someone is seriously considering purchasing your offerings but is unable to get in touch with you, what's the point? As well as potential customers, investors, and advertisers can use the information provided on your "Contact Us" page to get in touch with you, making this section crucial to the growth of any company.
Wrapping Up
Avoiding these pitfalls will make your first attempt at creating a website much easier. It is essential to have a well-defined purpose for the website, to modify templates as needed, to think about the user experience, to optimize the website for search engine optimization, to test the website, to ensure that it is mobile-friendly, to include a clear call to action, to have a backup plan, to monitor analytics, and to update the website frequently.
Correcting these issues will allow you to build a site that is efficient, welcoming, and interesting for your demographic. Keep in mind that developing a website is not a simple task, therefore it is wise to seek the assistance of a competent web development company with a solid reputation in the industry.