In today’s digital age, navigating the world of website design demands an awareness of potential pitfalls. From needing to stand out to engaging users effectively to driving meaningful results, there’s a lot to consider.
Need some guidance on where to begin? By understanding the importance of web design and avoiding common mistakes, you’ll be one step closer to increasing website traffic, leads, and sales. To learn more, keep reading the blog ahead.
What is the importance of website design for your business?
1. Establishing Brand Identity
A good website design aligns with your brand, creating cohesion with all your company assets. To accomplish this, it is essential to incorporate the same tone, colours, and fonts as the ones being used on your social media profiles, brochures, posters, etc. Also, make sure to use editable poster templates and other design tools to create appealing visuals that effectively communicate your brand identity.
By keeping brand consistency across your website, you can begin to distinguish your brand from your competitors and showcase your company’s unique perspective or personality.
2. Setting a good first impression
First impressions matter, and it generally only takes users half a second for someone to decide whether they want to stay on your website or exit. Therefore, having a professional website will help to build credibility by immediately setting the tone of what someone can expect from working with you.
3. Building Trust
A great website design impacts how your audience perceives your company. According to a survey in 2022, 46% of consumers said they would pay more to buy from brands they can trust. That being said, if your website does not look professional, the visitor might view the website as untrustworthy and refrain from interacting with it.
4. SEO
In 2015, Google made “Mobile-friendliness” a ranking signal. Mobile-friendliness refers to the design and optimization of a website to ensure how well it works on mobile devices such as a smartphone or a tablet. Therefore, it’s important to design a mobile responsive website to boost traffic, achieve higher conversion rates, and harness the power of search engine optimization for desired success.
Source: Shutterstock
8 Website Design Mistakes to Avoid in 2023
1. Poorly Configured Navigation Layout
Website navigation is the structure or wireframe that visitors on your website use to interact with different content or pages of the website. It consists of a menu bar, links, and other interactive elements that allow users to easily access the information they want.
A smooth website structure is critical because it directly impacts the user experience. If your navigation layout is clear, it will allow users to easily move through the website. However, if the website has a poor layout, it can cause frustration and can lead to an increase in your bounce rate.
Moreover, good navigation allows search engines to crawl and index a website more effectively. This makes it easier for visitors to find the site with search queries. Thus, making your website rank higher.
2. Missing or Inappropriate Alt Text
When you create alt text for the images on your website, it enhances user experience by providing additional context to those interacting with your content.
Alt text improves accessibility by helping individuals with visual impairments who rely on a screen reader to engage with the content on your website. Alt text also benefits users with poor internet connectivity, ensuring they can read or listen to the alt text to understand the image if it isn’t loading.
Finally, search engines such as Google use alt text to better understand the subject matter of the image and serve up the right search results to users.
3. Ineffective Search Feature
If a user wants to find exactly what they are looking for without navigating through the website, a search bar feature can serve as a helpful solution. However, if the search bar is not easily accessible, it can frustrate website visitors.
The number one benefit of a well-placed search bar is that you can get up to 40% of users searching as their first site action. In most cases, the people who do search also convert into customers at higher rates than people who don’t search.
But a well-placed search bar isn’t always enough. If your search feature can’t handle typos, it will give users a negative experience on your website. Moreover, the quality of a website's search function is taken into account by search engines when determining the ranking of search results. A poor search feature can cause you to lose organic traffic.
4. Too Many Website Elements
In terms of search engines, the more relevant information your website contains, the easier it is for them to crawl and rank your website in search queries. However, users generally only spend time reading a quarter of the text on the pages they visit. If your content is not clear and precise, the visitors might leave, increasing your bounce rate.
Another common website design pitfall is that a number of websites use interactive graphical elements or videos that slow down the speed of their site. Although these are interesting ways to grab a user’s attention, these elements can also be obtrusive and harm the user experience.
Source: Shutterstock
5. Not Optimizing Websites for Multiple Device Types
Users visit websites from many different devices: phones, tablets, laptops, or even TVs. Since websites are generally created in web browsers on computers, it is easy to forget that there are other devices people use to visit your website.
In January 2022, it was estimated that about 38.04% of web traffic in Canada was generated through mobile devices.
If a person is unable to navigate through your website on their mobile device, it will likely cause friction in their experience and lead them to abandon their visit. When this happens, the bounce rate will rise. Therefore, to keep people on the site and stay engaged, it is essential to ensure your design is responsive across all platforms.
6. Not Building Websites for Multiple Languages
If your target audience consists of people who speak different languages, it is essential to build your website in multiple languages. Hreflang is an HTML attribute that indicates the language and regional targeting of a webpage.
Website designers often forget to set up the hreflang attribute. If your website contains hreflang, it will help search engines understand which webpage to display for users based on their language and location preferences. As a result, this will also boost accessibility within your website.
7. Compromising User Experience for Aesthetics
Businesses tend to focus on building websites that are visually aesthetic rather than functional. When this happens, customer experience can be greatly compromised.
If your website looks aesthetically pleasing but you have not considered the desired user flow of your target market, the online experience with your brand will feel disconnected. While some users can ignore small usability problems if the website is aesthetically pleasing, others are certain to lose patience.
While trendy layouts can make your website look appealing and interesting, it is essential to design a website that aligns with your customers' wants and needs.
8. Using an Inadequate Colour Scheme
The integration of your logo colours into the design of your website is essential to establishing your brand. By using a cohesive and strategic colour scheme that relates to the service or product, you can better connect with your audience on an emotional level.
For example, the colour green is often associated with calmness. That’s why brands like Spotify use a black and green colour scheme to appear welcoming, reliable, and trustworthy.
While colour theory is important to your brand, it is equally important to understand that too many colours can overwhelm the viewer and make the website look inconsistent. Use colour strategically and with caution.
Conclusion
A good website can help you provide a positive user experience and get your business more conversions. By avoiding these errors, you can craft an aesthetically pleasing website that also operates seamlessly.
If your website is already up and running, consider performing a site audit to enhance user experience and improve accessibility. If you’re working on creating a website for the first time, consider working with an established digital marketing agency that will build your brand using industry best practices.
As we wrap up with these eight website design mistakes to avoid, remember that the digital world is always changing.
Whether you want to stay informed on the latest website design trends or would like to elevate your own website’s design, we’re here to help. For more information, call (416)-410-7090 or contact us today!
