7 Common Website Issues That Create Poor User Experience

Poor user experience is the number one cause of abandonment and there are 7 common website issues that you can avoid simply by reading this post.

Image by Firmbee from Pixabay

If you operate any kind of website, and chances are you do, then understanding how to tweak your website to provide the absolute best experience becomes a primary concern. Why? Well, again, chances are, that your website is the hub of lead generation or sales for your business. Here’s an interesting fact;

• Only 1% of users say any given e-commerce website meets their expectations every time.

So, forget about creating a perfect website, but you can avoid 7 common website issues that create a poor user experience simply by reading the rest of this post.

Image sourced from internetdevels.com

The most important thing to remember when building your website is that your customers want to feel safe. Therefore, it is essential that you protect your customers’ sensitive data by ensuring high levels of website security.

If you operate any sort of eCommerce business, you should know how to write a business contract template when you employ someone to work on your website.  That website is your digital base of operations, your castle, and it is where new customers will gain their first impressions of you as a brand. This means that it is crucial that your website is clean and provides a good customer experience every time. 

With over 24 million eCommerce sites out there, you can quickly overtake all of the websites who neglect these 7 common website issues. The reality is that many of those sites are very small, both in terms of products offered, revenue and ability to optimize a website.

A good user engagement strategy should start with good website design and we’re now going to look at seven common website issues you can easily avoid to achieve it. 

7 Common Web Design Issues

1. Poor navigation 

Imagine for a moment that you were left in the middle of a foreign city. You don’t speak the language, and you don’t have a map (or a mobile device to access Google Maps). You want to find various locations, but the only way you can do so is to wander in the hope that you find what you are looking for. 

That’s the real-life equivalent of neglecting navigation options. If you have many products, you want customers to find them easily. Your search and menu options should be clear and easy to use. An easily navigable site will make it easier for search engine web crawlers to understand and highlight your site. 

Problems often arise when an organization leaves its web designer to do everything. While they may be experts at building a great-looking website, they tend to fall short when understanding the customer’s needs or journey or even basic marketing. Some factors you should consider to ensure good navigation include:

• Consistency: don’t mix up how people navigate. Have a clear and consistent navigation map across your site. 
• Categorization: especially when you have a large number of products, have your categorization clear and understandable. Include subcategories where needed. 
• Click, click: ensure any and all entries in your navigation elements are clickable links. There is no point in listing something, but the customer cannot click it. 
• Accuracy: use plain and accurate language to describe all your links. People want to find things easily, so unclear categories will just lead to confusion. 
• ALT: make sure that any images that customers can click on have ALT text. This ensures that customers know what that link is or leads to. 
• Good search options: use an intelligent search feature that works well and allows for people making typos. It also helps if the search results include relevant alternatives and remember that voice search is rising in use, so optimize for that. 

2. Slow loading pages 

It’s almost 2023, so the days of slow-loading sites and pages should be long gone. Sadly, you will find yourself often nipping to the kitchen and making a coffee while a site loads (ok, slight exaggeration). Ideally, a landing page should load in under four seconds, and it is also worth noting that delays can lead to people clicking out of your site, and resulting negatives can include the effects of shopping cart abandonment. 

You also have to remember that more than 60% of searches now come from mobile devices. So, you have to ensure that your site is optimized so that access from these devices is as fast as, or faster than, those from laptops or desktops. If your site or pages are loading slowly, there are a number of possible reasons you can look at:

• Unoptimized javascript: browsers have to load any Javascript files it finds. These may be slowing loading, so ensure to include in the developer contract that complete optimization is covered.
• Lack of CDN (content delivery network): if you have users around the globe, a CDN can help with loading pages quickly. If you are not using one, some users will experience slow loading. 
• Full database: if your database has too much overhead (such as logs or entries from plugins), then queries to the database may be slow. Regularly check and clear any overhead. 
• Unoptimized CSS: this is a similar issue as with javascript. CSS is the code that styles your pages. If this is the cause, then get your IT team to ensure all CSS is optimized.

3. Site is not mobile friendly

The need for optimization for mobile devices has already been briefly mentioned, but it is a factor that needs emphasizing as it is one of the most common web design mistakes. In fact, there were more than 15 billion mobile devices in use around the world in 2021, and that figure will continue to rise. So, ensuring your site is fully mobile-friendly has never been more important. 

Optimize your website for mobile devices and ensure a smooth service that is quick to load. Customers need more patience for slow-loading websites, and many will leave if made to wait. By creating a website that is easy to navigate, you are one step closer to a customer making a purchase.

If you want to make sure your website is on-point, checkout this downloadable website checklist.

You also need to recognize that you don’t just want people to visit your site; you want them to take action and make a purchase too. That means you need to ensure actions such as contact and search work well from a smartphone. You also need to make sure that it is as easy to buy a product from a mobile device as it is from other device types. 

4. Overdone media

Ok, it is perfectly understandable that you want your site’s media content to stand out – to have real pizazz that makes you stand out from your competitors. Suppose you do not approach this area with caution. In that case, your customers can experience issues when trying to access certain pages where any media files, including images, are simply too hard to process.

If you are putting together a website that uses a lot of media files, it is worth using Google’s page speed tester on any page where you have large files. If these tests highlight certain pages running slowly due to file size, then you can resize images or compress files and then upload them again to your site (and retest too to ensure the issue is solved). 

5. Neglecting Your Title Tags

To access your site, people need to find you. And to find you, you need to have a credible ranking regarding SERPs (search engine results pages). While SEO is a major factor in how well you perform in any search results, your H1 tags are also crucial, as this is what search engine crawlers use to get an idea of what your site is about. 

A good H1 tag is of particular importance on your home page, and it not only keeps the search engines happy but also helps your visitors quickly identify what a site, or a page, is about. People either neglect to use a distinctive H1 tag, or they don’t use one at all. There are three things you should always think about when writing an H1:

• Always include your primary keyword (or phrase) in your H1. For example, “signature software” 
• Does your H1 pass the five-second test? Would a new visitor simply know what your site is about by reading that H1?
• Try and always position your H1 prominently so that visitors see it before scrolling down a page. 

6. Complicated pages

If your website pages are complicated your website users are not going to like it. They can be messy and can put visitors off if there is a lack of clarity, and they need clarification and help finding what they are looking for. A simple page needs to be clearer for customers and web crawlers, potentially leading to lower search engine rankings. 

The golden rule is to have one keyword per page, thus making things simpler for both customers and search engines. If, for example, your primary keyword is “legal contract management software,” then it makes sense to break down pages into subcategories with a relevant keyword per page such as “contract generator software,” “contract generator free,” and so on. This helps improve your SERPs visibility.

There are many different types of landing pages and they all should be designed for a specific purpose. To avoid website issues caused by landing page design take a look at these posts:

7. Pop-ups

Pop-ups can be a great tool; they can personalize content, target people when they are about to leave a site or present calls to action at appropriate times. But used wrongly, they can be very annoying and can put customers off. If a pop-up interrupts a customer’s browsing, it irritates them and can affect your SERP ranking.

Think carefully about how you use pop-ups and where and when you use them. Don’t have them appearing as soon as a visitor lands on a page, and don’t have them appearing too often. Make them as appealing as possible and always appropriate to the content the customer is viewing. Suggesting related products is fine, but suggesting a solution that offers standup meetings when the customer is looking at laptops may be off-putting. 

The takeaway

Managing remote employees, having an effective process map, and maintaining outstanding customer service are all aspects of running a successful website. The 7 website issues listed above are the primary cause of low site traffic, poor user engagement and lack of conversions. Now that you know what they are you can avoid them.

If you are considering choosing WordPress, consider hiring expert WordPress developers. Removing the stress of the potential mistakes listed means you can concentrate on other areas of your ecommerce business, such as utilizing cloud pbx phone systems to market your brand.