In this article we’ll explain some of the main mistakes that are made in website-design, especially when carried out by inexperienced individuals. These mistakes are often overlooked by many, what they don’t know is that they will likely impact business and visitor-customer conversion rates.
Slow load times
A common issue with many websites that many people overlook is the loading times. Does your page seem more bulky and slow compared to other sites you visit? Take a stroll through all the pages, does it seem slow and frustrating when simply just navigating the site? Slow loading times can have more of a negative effect on a site that you might first think – many people will leave the site or get frustrated, and find a faster alternative, meaning you’ve just lost a potential customer to quite possibly a competitor. To overcome this you want to check how much content is simply on your homepage and other pages? Is there lots of images and graphics, or effects and animations? The key task of your site is to get the message out in an effective manner consisting of what you do, or what your business does. Clear all unnecessary content and only keep the relevant information. Try to keep the page as simple and bold as possible, making it highly clear what you or your business does. Is your page still slow even after cleaning it up a bit? You might want to get in contact with your hosting service, or potentially consider transferring to another.
Cluttered pages
There’s nothing worse than a cluttered homepage. Firstly, it often slows loading times (as mentioned above) and secondly your visitors may not know what they’re looking for – it’s too much content in their face at once. You need to ensure your homepage once again, is simple, clean and boldly describes what you do and what you offer, so your visitors quickly grasp information about your business, thus deciding what service they require. Remove unnecessary images and graphics, make sure there is not paragraphs of long text and no graphics/images, as visitors will get bored rather quickly. Keep a good balance between different elements of content, include some images and not too large blocks of text.
Poor quality images
Always make sure you are using high quality images consistently across the site, ensuring that are representing the relevant information in a good quality manner. You may choose to use royalty-free stock images on your site, keep in mind whilst you may find some decent quality free images, many are rather poor and ‘cheap’ compared to those when using a paid service. Also make sure images and graphics appear ‘pix-elated’ or blurry. This can have a negative effect on visitors, with them likely thinking that your site may be out-of-date or never updated. It will also affect the quality of the user experience.
Bad logo design
A factor to consider when starting up your business or site – ensure that you are using a high-quality logo that appears relevant to your business. Consider your site’s overall theme including colours, graphics, fonts, etc. Does the logo appear to blend in well? Also ensure it does not appear pixelated or blurry like mentioned above, and that all text related to it is clear and easily readable.
Using hard-to-read, unprofessional fonts
Easy-to-read 123
Make sure you use professional and easily readable fonts that appear clear and pleasing to the eye. Using fonts that appear too small, hand-written, symbolised or crammed can degrade the flow of the web-page and turn visitors away. You also want your business to appear professional to visitors, so using a suitable font is key.
Difficult to find contact information
When designing your site, a key factor is to ensure that your contact details for you or your business are readily accessible. Remember, at any point when browsing your web-pages, a visitor may decide they want to contact you for any reason, which is potentially a sale. Having contact information hidden on your site, or difficult to find may be frustrating to many visitors who are interested, and therefore turn them away.