94% of consumers state that a poor website design is one of the leading causes of distrusting a brand. This means you’ve got seconds to convince people to stay on your website using the design of your site.
Most of the people you’re competing against for clients have functional websites that look even better. This is why it’s crucial to understand the different web design mistakes out there and the best ways to avoid them.
Read on below and learn more about designing business websites that are affected.
1. The Problem: A Slow Loading Website
If your website doesn’t load within 1-3 seconds, it increases the chances of a person leaving your website by 32%. When people are on the internet searching for information, they want to receive it as quickly as possible.
This means they don’t have time to waste watching your website’s loading speed. Having a website that takes too long to load will impact the experience that your website visitors have when interacting with your company.
Common causes of pages loading slowly would be having too many elements on each page. This could mean the graphics and images and the content you’ve embedded into each page of the website.
Having too many plugins on your site and modules can also be features that affect the speed at which your page loads.
The Fix: Rethink the Website Page Design
The best way to fix the loading page issue you have is to rethink your website design. The first thing you can do is update your website.
Often when people are sent website notifications, they brush it off as something they don’t need to do. However, your website needs to be updated to ensure you’re using the latest version of all products and features on your website.
Because you’re using the latest model of your website, it can help increase website speed. The next thing you need to do is ensure you rethink and reconfigure page elements.
This means reviewing the sizing and types of images you use on each page. Once you create a layout, you think works for you, test it out before launching it for consumers to use.
When you’re testing it, make a note of how long the overall website takes to load and then test each page. If things are still loading slower, it means you need to go back to the drawing board and work to continue simplifying your website design.
2. The Problem: Poor Website Layout
Sometimes the layout that you think works doesn’t work at all. This could mean the elements you’ve put on each page of your website aren’t cohesive or confusing about how they should be used.
People that visit your website shouldn’t get stuck in a loop of clicking through the website menu to find the different pages on your website. This is referred to as the clickthrough rate of your website.
The point is to get customers from point A to point B in as few clicks as possible. When the number of clicks people use to navigate your website increases, it means their experience is on the decline.
The Fix: Rework Page Layout
If you’re unsure of how to rework the layout of your website pages, it’s essential to call in professionals and use their web design service. Not only will they have insight into what works, but it’s also something they specialize in.
Often businesses can get caught in creating a unique layout for each website page, but it’s not cohesive across the website. When the company you hire begins to rework your layout, they will ensure that they start with the menu.
The website visitors use the menu to find everything they’re looking for on your website. If the menu is confusing, the website will be confusing to them, which leads to increased frustration for everyone.
The pathway used on your website should seek to make things as easy as possible for everyone. Take some time to look at the current formulation of your page.
By doing this, you can provide a list of the fixes that need to be changed before you meet with the company you’re hiring to work on your website design.
Most companies that specialize in designing business websites have various web design tools to create a comprehensive and effective webpage.
3. The Problem: Having No Call to Action
Many people don’t understand the power of using a call to action. When you’ve finished creating your website and review it, you’ll notice that you’re giving your website visitors a large amount of information.
90% of people who take the time to read the headline of something are more likely to continue reading until they’ve reached the call to action. When you don’t have a clear call to action, it can confuse the next step for everyone visiting your website.
This, much like a poor page design, can increase the chances of people leaving your website altogether. You’d be surprised how not having a strong call to action can affect your website’s ability to convert people into paying customers.
The Fix: Re-Create Your Call to Action
While creating a call to action might seem easy, it can be one of the most challenging aspects of the overall website design process. You need to answer one specific question when creating your call to action.
What do you want the reader to do next? Do you want them to reach out to one of your team members for more information? Do you want them to move forward with making a specific purchase?
Do you want them to subscribe to your newsletter? The call to action you use will help direct them towards the next step in the process of creating a relationship with your company. For example, if the goal is to reach out for more information, a few of the call to actions you may use include:
- Reach out using this number to gain more information from one of our reps
- Want more information? Don’t hesitate to contact our reps
- Subscribe to our mailing list for more information
These are just examples, but your call to action can be personalized to ensure it fits the specific needs of your business. Remember that you don’t have to stick to one form of a call to action; you can use multiple variations based on the results you’re looking to achieve.
4. The Problem: Ignoring SEO
70% of marketers say that SEO is more influential than PPC when it comes to generating online sales. SEO is gaining more popularity right now, but it’s been around for a while.
Half the battle of getting people to visit your website is to appear in a search engine when consumers begin to search for specific products or services. SEO stands for search engine optimization.
It can help you increase the rankings within the search engine and increase the number of your website pages that appear in search results. SEO can also be used when you want to create strong backlinks with other companies to your website.
The other issue with SEO that is beyond ignoring SEO is not taking the time to choose the right keywords.
The Fix: Take Your Time and Perform SEO Properly
When done the right way, SEO can be beneficial for your company. The first step in using SEO to optimize your website is to perform SEO research.
This means noting the keywords that rank the highest and are used frequently by consumers when searching for something like Yahoo or Google. One thing to be mindful of when optimizing your website using SEO keywords is not to overdo it.
Overusing SEO keywords is known as keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing might seem like a good idea, but it can negatively impact your website. When search engines review websites to show consumers, they choose quality over quantity.
This means if they deem your website has been using keywords to show up in rankings, they will penalize your website, and you’ll fall lower in search engines. There are several areas of the website that you can optimize and content.
These areas include:
- Alt images
- Subject lines
- Meta descriptions
- Blog titles
- Body of content
It’s essential to select a few quality short and long-form keywords and use them in your content. The better the quality of your content and the keywords you use, the better your content will perform.
5. The Problem: Outdated Website Information
After you’ve done the work of reworking your website and gotten people to the point of contacting you, the last thing you want is to have outdated information on the website. When the information you provide to people on your website is outdated and not correct, it sends several wrong messages to your website visitors.
The first thing it tells people is that your company doesn’t care enough to keep all the information on the website updated.
It also tells people that you only care about money and not giving people relevant information they need to move forward with making specific decisions such as working with your company.
Another common issue is embedding buttons to your social media or social media that don’t work. It tells people that you’ve opened social media accounts but had no intention of keeping them updated.
The Fix: Review Contact Information Frequently
You don’t often need to change the contact information you provide to people to reach out to you or your team, but it happens. Every so often, someone on your team should go back to ensure all contact links, numbers, and emails are current.
Not having current contact links for customers will lead to them not working with your company, which means they won’t refer you to others that may require the products and services your company offers.
The person in charge of your social media accounts should carefully review the policies for including contact information in your bio or captions. This will ensure that they work for everyone who clicks on them when they embed them.
Remember, you want people to be able to contact you or find what they need to reach out in as few clicks as possible. When this doesn’t happen, you risk losing a potential loyal customer.
6. The Problem: Old Content
You’re wrong if you think people don’t search your website for older content. Many people will read the content you’ve created recently and take the time to dive deeper to find other forms of content you’ve created.
People like to know the history of companies before they agree to buy from them. This is to ensure the values of your company align with their beliefs.
When people visit your website, they want to see current content that follows the latest trends. This is because they want to be kept in the loop and be able to offer insight about specific things to their family and friends.
The Fix: Keep Content Fresh
Before you continue to produce content, you need to sit down with your team and research current trending topics and make them a part of your existing content calendar. This can be done by surveying your competitors’ writing and how they deliver the content.
When creating your content calendar, ensure you leave enough space between each content topic. The reason for doing this is so you can make changes based on what’s popular if need be.
Content is a long-term investment you must prioritize if you want to leverage social media for your business.
Web Design Mistakes to Avoid
There are several web design mistakes you should do your best to avoid. These mistakes include having outdated information on your website and having a poor page layout.
Are you in desperate need of web design services? Contact Latitude Park for help today.
