Given a chance to rate your website out of 10, how will you rate it? Well, if it’s anywhere less than 9 then you better read this guide to the end.
How effective is your website? Can visitors easily navigate, or will they leave in the first few seconds? These are questions you should ask yourself as a site owner or a web designer.
Many good practices can boost your web design and those that improve your ranking on the search engines. But in this guide, we focus on the 7 web design mistakes that every site owner must avoid.
Let’s take a look
Cluttered Homepage
A prospect takes about 5 seconds to decide whether the website satisfies their needs. If you need to keep your visitor long enough to explore the content in your site, then you need to optimize the homepage. This means the site should be well organized, and the background clear of images and advertisements.
Make it clear on what the business offers, else you risk losing a lead. If your clients can’t communicate with you, find the products or service they need easily, then your website. needs improvements.
Poor Navigation
If your website is complex to use, most visitors will find it hard to locate the pages they need. One of the ways to make it navigable is using a navigation bar. The navigation bar helps the visitors to visit any section within the site easily.
Additionally, you can consider having a sidebar placed vertically on the left side of each page; a sticky menu that maintains position as you scroll down a page; a mega menu particularly for magazine-style blogs. If you can’t make the required adjustments, then you can rely on web design experts from a web design agency.
Slow Loading Time
A well-designed page should take not more than 3 seconds to load. According to Google, 47 percent of internet users will leave a page if it fails to load within the first 2 seconds. So, if your site contains images or videos, then you need to optimize it to ensure it loads fast less you lose potential clients.
Some of the tools you could use to check website speed are:
- Pingdom Tools
- GTmetrix
- Google PageSpeed Insights
- Having Social Media Icons on the Top of Your Page
This icon is a direct invitation for prospects to leave your site, as social media can be distracting. Social media icons are essential; you have to consider where you place them. It can be at the bottom or middle.
Small Font
Web users find reading contents in sites with small fonts quit straining and stressing. If your visitors get irritated, then there is a high chance that they won’t even finish what they are reading. To ensure that your visitors stay longer on your site, make sure you use standard font sizes that are easy to read.
Your Site is HTTP (Insecure)
One of the main concerns for all users is online security. This is because today, many internet users take the security of their data seriously especially due to the rising cases of hacking. If your site is HTTP instead of HTTPS, then it means your URL is not secure. Google issues a disclaimer for insecure sites which can damage your reputation. You can request an SSL certificate from your hosting provider.
Your Website is Not Mobile Friendly
The mobile phone is one of the most used devices in accessing content online. Recent statistics show that more than half of the global web traffic originated from smartphones. This is why you need to ensure that your site fits the needs of mobile users. Otherwise, you’ll be losing potential clients. Make sure that your web is well designed to fit use with any device easily.
Conclusion
Unlike before, many people are online today looking for information. As a result, there are several websites, and thousands are being launched every day. With such high competitions, if your website is not optimized or well designed, then it’s hard to succeed. Besides, search engines are updating their algorithms each day, which means your content must use the latest techniques to stay ahead of the competition and rank high.
Although there are plenty of resources online that you can use to help you in coming up with a user-friendly website, some things can be complicated, and you might need the help of an expert. Avoiding the above mistakes will improve the experience that your visitors get and possibly convert them to customers.
