Web design mistakes can have a dramatic and lasting impact on your business, especially if you run a small business. Small businesses usually rely on doing things themselves leading to the top web design mistakes being so common in small business websites. There are plenty of web design mistakes to avoid, but here are six common web design mistakes small businesses make and that you need to avoid for long-term success.
List of Common Web Design Mistakes
Confusing User Experience Elements
User experience (UX) is the way in which people interact with your website and with the information you provide. To provide a good UX, you must ensure that your site is easy to navigate and that the different elements on your site provide the information people need without any confusion.
Unfortunately, this is something that many small businesses that do their own web design fail to do correctly. While it may seem like a minor problem to the designer, it is a much bigger problem to users. These are some of the top web design mistakes involving UX design.
Lacking Visual Hierarchy
A visual hierarchy is simply the order in which you display certain elements on your website. You need to make sure that the most important elements are displayed first and are therefore easier to find.
Lack of Clear Navigation
There are basic design conventions that define how navigation elements should be used. If you stray from these conventions, it becomes more difficult to use your website. Many small businesses create navigation elements that are too difficult to use because they have too many options or are hard to use on specific devices. Navigation choices should be clear and easy to use so that your users can efficiently find what they need.
Failing to Understand the Target Audience
As a business owner, you will be very familiar with your products or services, but a website visitor is likely to know very little about them. Before you design a website, UX/UI design agencies need to know who your target audience is so that you can design the site in a way that will appeal to them..
You will have to do some research to come up with a profile of your target audience. There are online tools that can help with this. You can also do the research yourself by finding similar companies, products, and services, and analyzing their customers to see who is likely interested in your products and services.
Unoptimized Content
If you don’t optimize the content on your site, it will be difficult (if not impossible) for people to find the information that they want. There are a number of things you can do to optimize your site’s content.
Create Relevant and Quality Content
The quality of the content on your site is the first thing people see. If it is unorganized, full of errors, or just plain irrelevant, you will turn visitors away. Always write quality and relevant content for your site.
Use Appropriate Keywords
If you want your site to rank well in search engines, you must include keywords that people are likely to search for. You don’t want to include so many keywords, however, that you mistakenly sound spammy and unrealistic.
Incorrect Use of Color
Poor use of color can leave your site looking unprofessional and can even make your content inaccessible. Color choices must focus on more than just looking good. You need to understand how your viewers are affected by your color choices. There are a few things you can do to make sure you are using color correctly:
Choose Your Color Scheme
You need to choose the colors that your site will use. A good rule of thumb is to use two or three colors and make sure that they are used throughout the site. Sticking to this limited use of colors makes it easier to create pages that look good while being easy to read.
Use Color Theory
Color theories are based on a few simple concepts that help designers use color effectively. It helps designers choose colors that work together. You need to make sure that you pair colors that contrast well with each other. Otherwise, content and elements on the page will be difficult to read.
No Lead Magnet or Call to Action
A lead magnet is a piece of free content (such as an ebook or a cheat sheet) that you provide to visitors in exchange for their contact details. By giving away something of value for free, customers are more likely to buy from you later when they need other things.
A call to action is a statement that encourages visitors to take a specific action. This could be purchasing a product, signing up to your mailing list, or any other action that you wish them to take.
If you don’t clearly state what you want people to do, they are unlikely to do anything. If you want to increase the number of visitors to your site, you need to make it as easy for them to find what they are looking for and take the actions that you want them to take.
No Responsive Design
A responsive design is one that looks just as good on a desktop computer as it does on a mobile device. If your site isn’t responsive, it will appear small and difficult to navigate on a phone or tablet. This can result in people abandoning your site before they even have a chance to look at it.
By not having a responsive design, you are turning away many potential customers. Having a responsive design doesn’t just mean that the site looks good on mobile devices; it means that it also works well.
Get Help With Your Website
At KitelyTech, we work with small businesses to build modern websites that avoid these common mistakes. Let us help you build a website that drives business instead of hurting your small business. Call us at (800) 274-2908 to set up an appointment.
