fbpx

6 Web Design Mistakes to Avoid

  1. Keeping web design in-house (DIY Website Design)
  2. Poor Content
  3. Not optimising SEO
  4. Large Images & Media Files
  5. Weak Call-to-action (CTA)
  6. Ignoring analytics

Keeping a current website (both design and technology-wise) is not something small business owners think or worry about too often. Just running the day-to-day operations of any small business is exhausting! Sales, inventory, pricing, employees, payroll, bills etc.  should be your daily focus. 

So back to that website. Who designed it? How long has it been since it was updated? Is it producing leads and revenue for your business or is it just there because “every business needs a website”, right?

Any good professional you hire, from an accountant to a lawyer always advises you not only about the short term but the long term aspects of your business. If all you concentrate on is the day-to-day, you will never see the “forest through the trees”. In other words, you need to ALWAYS be thinking about your competition and take advantage of every opportunity to grow and develop your business.

One of the most prominent opportunities for growing a small business is marketing and in today’s day and age, that includes paying attention to two factors: your website and your social media marketing (or lack of it).

If you have already have a website, or are considering hiring a web designer to build one, you should pay attention to these 6 Website Design Mistakes to Avoid:

Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Website Design

We’ve all seen the ads for companies that promise that you can design your own website and save yourself a boat-load of money. That may be fine for a quick personal website or blog, but not for a business that wants to market itself effectively on the web. 

To that end, with time, you could also probably do your own business taxes and legal work, but because you really do not have the time, inclination or experience, it’s best to hire a professional web designer to properly create your business web presence. 

The expertise required to properly design, optimize, create content and market your product or service is extensive. Plus, the time it takes to do all this is considerable, which is why finding a company that will build a marketing strategy in addition to your website is worth the time, energy and expense if you want to remain competitive and grow your small business.

Poor Content

Relevant content is necessary to provide your users with the information they are seeking when visiting your website. If you provide non-relevant content or content with typographical and grammatical errors, then your viewers will go elsewhere. Such errors will also make your business and brand look cheap and not trustworthy.

This is why it is best to have a professional writer create unique content for your website. Make sure they use short sentences and aim for less complicated words and phrases. Avoid hard to read fonts at all costs!  

Not Optimizing SEO

Why-do-I-need-SEOIf you design a great website but nobody finds it then you haven’t accomplished much. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) needs to be a major part of your online strategy in order to maximize your search engine rankings on Google and other search engines.

Search engine algorithms are constantly changing, so make sure your web team has someone very familiar with SEO and follows the industry changes. The tactics that helped your site rank well one year could be very different the following year. 

Large Images & Media Files

Images and video are attractive to the eye and breaks-up text heavy pages for an easier and more enjoyable read. While it is best to use high-resolution, high-quality images/video that are relevant to your website’s theme, make sure your website designer optimizes the images/videos properly as large-sized files will increase the time it takes a web page to load. 

The longer a visitor has to wait for a page to load, the more likely they will just leave that page and look elsewhere. On the web every second counts and there are free tools available to help you determine how fast your site performs. 

Weak Call-To-Action (CTA)

Call-To-ActionA CTA is usually a button on a web page which, when clicked, brings up a “popup” or other page which has some sort of value-based offer to entice visitors to click on it. 

A CTA can be used to offer a special discount on a product or service. It could provide something “free” so that you can collect the name, email address and other information about the visitor so that your business can start a dialog with them. The dialog can be in the form of email communications or direct contact via phone depending on the offer and type of transaction. 

However, If the CTA is not compelling or seen as “valuable” to the visitor,  they will most likely not “click through” and you will have lost an opportunity to pursue that customer further. Design experts know how to create compelling CTA’s that work. Spend time working with your web designer to try out different CTA’s and then have them track to see which ones work best for your business objectives.

Ignoring Analytics

6 Web Design Mistakes to Avoid 1As the saying goes, “information is power..”  A properly designed website that collects relevant and useful data, in tandem with a well constructed social media strategy, will prove immensely powerful when it comes to marketing and growing your business.

In summary, your website’s design is very important when it comes to providing your visitors with a great experience. In order to be deemed as professional and trustworthy, you must avoid the common mistakes discussed above and provide your web designer with clear objectives about what you are trying to achieve with your marketing efforts. 

Jay Goldstein

Jay Goldstein

Jay is the Founder of Orange Energy Media and writes on a variety of digital marketing topics. He enjoys working with growth-oriented small business owners to provide guidance and support.

Share This Post

You May Also Be Interested In

FREE Digital Marketing Courses

Educate Yourself To Drive Traffic, Leads and Sales

Digital Marketing. Done Right.

With over 20 years of online marketing experience, our team of designers, copywriters, SEO specialists, online marketing experts and video editors will provide you with the best quality service, hands down. We are committed to working with you to achieve your online business objectives with affordable digital marketing consultation in a timely manner

small_c_popup.png

Learn how we can help your business Increase Revenue With Digital Marketing

Let's have a chat