Web Design Mistakes that are easy to avoid
Web Design Mistakes
You’re a new business, you’ve got a great product, and you are ready to sell it online. You’ve spent thousands of dollars on search engine optimization and you’re getting traffic to your site. Unfortunately, no one is purchasing your product. What’s going on? Many businesses make simple web design mistakes that can cost them when trying to convert traffic on their site. Here’s a list of common web design mistakes and how to avoid them:
Web Design Mistakes | What am I doing here?
The most common of the web design mistakes that can suck the profits from your website is not having a clear call to action. Let’s make this simple: If you aren’t leading users to commit to an action, then you will not generate any revenue from your site. Your call to action can be to purchase a product, or sign up or subscribe to a newsletter. According to Mashable.com, it’s important to keep the following best practices in mind when creating an optimal call to action:
- The design of a call to action can be broken down into 4 simple elements — size, shape, color, and position. Each plays a vital part in determining how effective the call to action is in directing the user.
- Don’t make your users work or think, or they’ll leave. It’s not that they aren’t smart, it’s that they want access to information quickly without spending unnecessary time searching for it.
- Don’t overdo it with multiple, competing calls to action on every page. Decide what your primary target is and then define a clear objective per page. Your content should have answered, “What’s in it for me?” and your call to action should now answer, “What do I do now?”
Web Design Mistakes | Content is king
People will visit your site to get educated, so having valuable content is paramount to you establishing credibility in the eyes of the reader. This legitimacy will play a part in the person taking the desired next step on your website. One of the common web design mistakes is making the content unreadable. You can have the greatest information in the world on your topic, but if it isn’t eye appealing, then the reader won’t read it and your message is lost. Simple things like breaking up your pages with headers,using bullet points, putting in pictures and videos, and leaving white space available on the page will go along ways to having people read your content. Simply putting up 2,000 words on a bland page in small print is one of the more common web design mistakes that cause potential customers to go to a competitor’s site.
Web Design Mistakes | Lost in space
Another common of the web design mistakes is failing to take into consideration the user’s experience on navigating the site. Potential customers will visit your site for specific information, and if they cannot find quickly and easily, then they will go to another website. An effective navigational structure will keep visitors on your site longer, which should lead to a higher readership, increased subscribers, and more sales. The Mashable.com article lists the following suggestions to avoid these web design mistakes that cause you to lose customers:
- Use icons to aid navigation. They’re both visually appealing and easy to use and understand.
- Create logical groups of related links, with the most important links on the top-level navigation bar and functional (dashboard, account, settings, etc.) and legal (copyright, privacy, terms) located elsewhere.
- Provide location information so users know where they are on any given page and how to proceed to another area of the website. This can be achieved by using Breadcrumb navigation. http://mashable.com/2011/04/10/5-web-design-mistakes/
Web Design Mistakes | Conclusion
In summary, making a profit from a website will occur if your site gets heavy traffic and is designed to convert this traffic. To avoid common web design mistakes, have clear call to actions on the site, reduce clutter, and make it easy to navigate.
Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net