Web Design Mistakes to Avoid – Top 5 Most Common

Web design is very important for a number of different reasons, but there are a few main things you should avoid with your web design.

The main point of web design is that in most cases, it will be your first impression of your business to your customers. And it’s a matter of if you want that impression to be good or not. Customers trust a website that is easy to use, up-to-date, and looks professional.

There is a matter of looks, as a nice design will keep your customers on your site for longer. This gives you more opportunity to sell your product or service, as well as it’s important for ranking with SEO that you keep people on your page for longer.

If your web design isn’t up to the standards of your competitors, your company can quickly get left behind and overlooked.

The following common web design mistakes are entirely avoidable, and knowing what not to do can give your website the upper hand against your competitors:

1. Not Having a Clear CTA

The CTA (call to action), is one of the most important parts of your website. Your CTA is the key and final takeaway of your site; it’s what you want your readers to do or remember when they leave your site. A CTA is at its best when it is concise and completely clear and understandable.

Here is an example of Apple’s homepage:

On this Apple homepage, you can see a beautiful product with the clear message “Buy Now” or “Learn More”. That pattern is repeated throughout their site. They have a beautiful shot of their product, then they go right into what they want you to do, which is “Buy Now” or “Learn More”.

Then when you get to their “Buy Now” tab, it’s clearly laid out, ready for you to enter some credit card info and your address.

The same goes for when you go to their “Learn More” tab, whereby it keeps the product on display and goes in-depth on its features, while also keeping it fun and entertaining to get to the bottom of the page. Then what does it ask you to do next? Buy the product, clearly.

While not everyone is selling an Apple product, the same goes for any website. It needs to be clear what the CTA is and simply laid out to “buy now”, “contact now”, etc.

Having a mixed message or bad cta

Having too many CTAs with too many words will only bury what should be a clean, simple, and direct message. Keep your CTA short and clear, and you’ll see more results.

However, you don’t want to suffer from a lack of information. So you need to have a good balance here. Keep thinking of the Apple example above, it’s clear and the message is to “Buy Now” or “Learn More”. Not any other routes. Just those two options, which have the same goal in mind. Buying their products.

They want to learn more about your company, how they can contact you, what you can offer them, and why they should choose your goods or services over any others. You might have a beautiful, highly functional website, but if it doesn’t offer your viewers the information they need it’s impossible for your website to do its job properly.

2. Web Design Clutter

Overly cluttered design elements on your site might look cool in some aspects, but you have to think about keeping things simple and straightforward. A simple look will make it easier for your readers to see and understand your message, which is the entire purpose of your site. A cluttered site can conceal your message and turn viewers away.

Apple’s homepage is a great example of doing it well. Now let’s see a bad example:

There are too many messages crammed into one spot here. It’s not visually pleasing like the Apple homepage, and the message isn’t clear like the Apple homepage. There is too much friction for the user to get a specific message across, which is where this cluttered example falls down on.

3. Website Speeds

It’s a good idea to keep your website up to speed in more ways than one. If your website can’t operate at high internet speeds, viewers will click away before the page even finishes loading. Google provides a tool for checking your site’s page load speeds here. People expect instant information when they access a website, and if yours can’t provide those speeds, it’s an unfortunate fact that many viewers won’t bother waiting to see what kind of content you have to offer.

4. No SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

If you’re not using SEO or search engine optimization, you’re wasting a good opportunity. Good SEO can dramatically improve your web traffic by placing your website much higher up on search engines. People who are searching for topics related to your site will be able to find your page much more easily with SEO which puts you on the map with Google’s Search Engine.

5. Web Design Issues

Web design is important even down to the seemingly small things like font choice, and color usage. As mentioned earlier, your general web design will give your audience an unchangeable first impression of your website and your company overall. Make sure your website uses attractive, current design choices, so your viewers will feel as though they can trust your website immediately and will have a good experience clicking through to see what else you have to offer. Those factors also matter to your SEO efforts. So these things all go hand in hand for your entire marketing efforts. Feel free to reach out to us for a consultation on your own web design.

Conclusion

With all these tips in mind, you’ll find that it’s much easier to create and maintain a highly interactive and useful website that will benefit your newer viewers and regular customers alike. By making sure that your website has all these points above—aesthetics, information, CTA, and more—you’ll have a website that is easy to care for and easy to use.

I hope you enjoyed this blog, please let me know in the comments below if you have any questions and if this helped you at all in your marketing efforts, feel free to check out my other blogs, thank you!