A website is a businesses primary branding and marketing tool. The design is incredibly important, but equally as significant is the navigation and functionality of the site – both must come together to create the ideal site for the user.
We’ve put together five of the biggest mistakes many companies make when designing their websites. Whether it’s your business’ first ever website or you’re creating something new for a re-brand, make sure you don’t fall victim to these common blunders.
1. No Calls to Action
You’ve attracted potential clients or customers to your website – now they need guidance. There is no point having an attractive website if it doesn’t serve its purpose of selling your products. Call to action buttons will grab attention, and are crucial for increasing conversions. Think about the size, colour, shape and position of your call to actions to make them effective.
2. DIY Templates
Most small businesses try and cut costs wherever they can, and we can’t blame them if they are just starting out. This is your most powerful selling tool, therefore it is not the place to be scrimping and scraping! Also, it’s probably better to be spending your time building your business, not tripping over webpages and code. Web templates are often not purpose built for your specific business needs (read our template VS. bespoke website guide). Additionally, templates aren’t designed with SEO in mind so you might not be able to climb up the rankings. Rather than risk it, trust a professional web designer to design a custom creatively designed website which will be dual purpose; it will be targeted at your customers and be optimised for search engines.
3. Giant Walls of Text
We’re talking about design here rather than content, but how your content is displayed is more important than many realise. If users are overwhelmed by a page, they will leave. Split up large chunks of text with images, headers and page dividers and ask yourself – is all of this information necessary? Could it be split into two or three pages? Considering font style and size is also an important web design task.
4. Not Mobile and Tablet Friendly
More and more people are using mobiles and tablets to make purchases, so small businesses really should make a mobile-friendly experience a priority. Offer a consistent, easily navigable experience across all platforms and you’re bound to secure more conversions.
Does your website work well on all tablet orientation formats? Vertical, horizontal?
5. Too Flashy
You want the information on your website to be clear and users to find their way around your site with ease. This will not be the case if your website is too complicated and the home page includes flash animations, fancy graphics and music. Plus, complicated designs such as this take much longer to load and can leave some users feeling it’s just not worth the wait – and heading straight to your competitor’s much simpler website.
We hope you found this article useful & that it helps your website design process in some way. Need a hand with your website or brand? Talk to Bapple
We are a UX and Web Design Agency based in Sydney, Australia. If you wish to discuss a project, please email or call us on the details below and provide a detailed brief of your project.
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