6 Web Design Mistakes Every Beginner Makes
Even the pros make web design mistakes, but think of these 6 common web design mistakes as unforgivable in your design.
In today’s digital sphere, having a website is inevitable for every business. It acts as a digital storefront where people can scroll products and shop instantly. Hence, as a growing brand, you should invest sufficient time in web development and design. You have to pick an appealing theme and add stunning images of your products to improve the aesthetic appeal. Similarly, invest in colors and fonts that resonate with your brand so that people can relate to your website.
Every novice web designer needs to remember that web design can make or break branding. All web design elements must work harmoniously to represent the brand. These elements include the layout, negative space or whitespace, navigation, background, theme, etc. Moreover, website visibility is crucial in building a long-term, excellent online presence and establishing a powerful brand. If you’re a start-up or a small-scale business and want to learn more about these elements, you can get the help of a small business website design company.
Despite spending a ton of time on web design, many marketers fail to direct visitors. Often, the webpage isn’t visible on the search engine result page, leaving entrepreneurs clueless about what went wrong. Sometimes, your web design can also be the reason why your site is not generating any traffic. You might have added large images, impacting the website’s loading speed. Likewise, the theme could be too fancy for visitors to find products and services.
Before these things start impacting your sales and profits, try to turn things around. Here we are listing six web design mistakes every beginner commits and tips to avoid them.
1. Non-Responsive Design
Is your webpage accessible on every device?
Even in 2021, many companies target desktop users because their webpage isn’t accessible on mobile devices.
- In 2021, mobile phones generate 54.25% of the traffic, desktops – 42.9%.
Responsive web design (RWD) pertains to a web development approach, creating website modifications based on the screen orientation and size of the user’s device to view the website. This concept is based on web design and development alignment to the user’s behaviors, including device choices, navigation, and other online activities.
Having a non-responsive design is simply unforgivable. With a non-responsive web design, you’re excluding the majority of potential customers. And just in case you haven’t heard, Google has fully switched to mobile first indexing. You may want to take a look at your Core Web Vitals, if you’re not taking mobile first seriously.
Now is the time to start optimizing your website for mobile devices. If you don’t have the prowess, look for a reputable enterprise landing page builder to help you create a responsive design. Google takes every landing page on your site into consideration.
Optimizing for mobile devices to close doors for zoom in and out problems as well as user experience and speed should be top of you list. Click here to learn more about mobile responsive design.
2. Unclear Call-to-Action
Websites that have beautiful images of products, social media and service offerings but no call to action (CTAs) are a colossal waist.
What is the point of dazzling your customers without directing them to an action?
A lack of a clear call-to-action leads to higher bounce rates, lower time on site and ultimately a lack of sales. Instead of losing potential leads and conversion prospects, create a clear call to action.
Your call to action should tell visitors what to do and where to go. In simple words, you have to write a persuasive command and attach it to a button.
Some examples of CTA include the following:
- Buy it now!
- Avail of this limited-time offer!
- Click here to get your 50% discount!
- Get your freebie item here!
- Download this link to learn more!
- Sign-up now and get all these features!
CTAs work by feeding off the attention that you have hooked earlier, whether it’s through an email, a landing page, a video, or an ad. That means you need to craft each stage of your marketing funnel to suit the actions that you want to be taken. Slapping a cold CTA will not work these days. An effective CTA should:
- Be compelling
- Have obvious benefit
- Relevant to the context it’s in
- Trigger actual action
Check out this visual guide to creating the best call to actions.
3. Vague Branding Message
Unsurprisingly, sending out a vague branding message could be the worst web design mistake you make.
Many brands create websites with a theme and design that doesn’t align with their brand identity. Likewise, owners even use different fonts and colors on the webpage, distorting the brand image. In addition to sending an unclear message, people face difficulty in recognizing the brand.
You have to coordinate the colors and theme with the company’s logo so that people can recall your brand readily. Moreover, ensure the brand message originates from your company’s values and beliefs. You have to address the target audience’s needs and talk about the value you bring to customers. It will differentiate you from the competitors while building customer loyalty.
For instance, you can publish articles, photos, and videos of your social activities and advocacies representing your core values and principles. Some examples include tree-planting, social work, sustainable manufacturing or packaging practices, and helping victims of natural calamities.
Branding is so much more than just matching fonts and colors, find out how brand experience is shaping the future of online marketing.
4. Content Overload
Having too little information on the website is a total fail.
But what if you have a lot of content, but fail to deliver the solution your brand is offering?
Don’t be that website owner who out of sheer desperation, overwhelm their visitors with a lot of content that says really nothing at all. It leaves the visitors confused, increasing the bounce rate. To avoid this, you have to maintain a balance with content.
Before adding information, you have to build a scalable small business web design that distributes information strategically. You can follow the “divide and conquer strategy” by dividing the website interface into different pages. For instance, you can create a separate section for product listing, information, user profiles, etc. Likewise, categorize content into blocks and components to make it easy for the visitors to consume content.
5. Irrelevant Images & Graphics
With the rising popularity of visual content, images and graphics have become an integral part of web design.
Photos convey a message quickly without reading the text, but unfortunately, not many brands understand this. They inexplicably use irrelevant and low-quality images on the webpage, only for the sake of adding visual content. Well, such images ruin the webpage and turn away visitors. After all, when pictures don’t relate to your brand offerings, it will only confuse the visitors.
You can overcome this problem by spending some time on content creation. Firstly, add graphics explaining what your brand offers. For instance, if you sell leather products, add pictures of your products on the home page. Remember, one photo of every product category would be sufficient. Next up, talk about the value your products will deliver to customers. Perhaps, you can emphasize durability or quality.
6. Disruptive Popups
Do you use popups?
Often, web pages force the visitors to accept cookies, giving them no other option to leave the website. Alongside driving potential customers away, it can hurt business sales and profits. It doesn’t mean you have to remove popups from the webpage; instead, you have to use them smartly.
According to AWeber, popups can increase subscribers by 1,375% when used correctly. Therefore, start building popups that your target market will like.
For instance, you can offer something in the popup to captivate the visitors. Likewise, you can time a popup to appear once a visitor has spent at least 30 seconds on the website. Someone who likes your content would be more willing to sign up and accept cookies than a random visitor. Most importantly, play with words to convince people but always give an option to reject the cookies.
Final Thoughts
Believe it or not, a website is your business’s most critical asset which means, it has to be flawless. And for that, you have to avoid absolutely stupid web design mistakes that will prevent your site from working.
You have to add graphics and visuals that contribute to the web page’s theme. Likewise, you have to create a responsive design, improve loading time, and create a clear call to action. A competent web design will go a long way, helping you increase sales and profitability.
