Having the right website can make or break a business.
If you really want to succeed in business — any business — you need a good website. It’s one of the first things your visitors see and it can either lead to conversions or have your visitors running for the hills.
There are many aspects involved in making a good website. All of them are equally important.
However, with so many different elements to keep in mind, web designers often make mistakes that harm a business’s chance to convert or even hold the reader’s attention.
Here are some of the most common mistakes:
Ancient-Looking Web Design
It’s 2018 and web designs from 2008 are just not acceptable anymore — especially on sites that are still up and running. However, some designers neglect to notice that a substantial amount of time has passed and that it’s time to move on.
If a user lands on your poorly designed site, you better bet he or she will bounce. It doesn’t look appealing, current, or credible.
Any respectable designer should stay on top of, if not trends, then at least style and public opinion. Unless your site looks like a blog from the Aughts for a few laughs, fix it immediately.
Poor Website Content
If your overall design is good enough, the user will stick around to read a few lines of what you have to say. Here is where most sites fail. Their content is either stuffed with keywords, poorly written, full of mistakes or impossible to skim through. All of these things lead to high bounce rates. As with your site design, your content has to stay current too.
After all, it’s easy to achieve with simple tools:
Poor grammar signals to the reader that you are not to be trusted. Any quality website should watch their grammar and these tools can help.
Spelling mistakes seem sketchy as well. If you really want to convert – and not come off as a malware, scam site – proofread with these tools praised by Revieweal.
If you want to maintain your audience’s attention, you need modern content. Take a look at these blogs for tips.
Any text should be heavily edited before you hit that publish button. If you don’t have an editor, use these editing tools.
Confusing Navigation
Another damaging quality of a website is bad navigation. Your user should always know where they can go and how to get there. A confusing navigation system will make them leave your website, especially if they can’t find the information they are seeking.
Slow Loading
One of the biggest pet peeves of both mobile and desktop users are slow loading times. Anything over two to three seconds and they will bounce.
This usually happens because website is not Optimize for high loading speed. Too many huge images, excessive use of Flash, broken links, bad coding and so on cause this.
To fix it, you’ll need to optimize your images, minimize http requests, limit 301 redirects and utilize server-side caching.
Unresponsiveness
Any website that is not responsive to mobile devices nowadays deserves all the bouncing it gets. Users want more than pinch-and-zoom. Web design should fit the small screen to a tee. Use optimization techniques to make your website look beautiful and drive conversions on all devices.
Use of Colors
Colors are another issue that some web designers don’t seem to understand. Using all the colors of the rainbow might be a good fit for a magazine but it’s definitely not for a website. You should stick with a color palette that works for the theme and the purpose of the website, as well as the audience.
You can’t use pink and yellow in combination on financial sites — those are fun, childish colors that don’t induce trust. Just imagine serious business people viewing those colors on a site. A blue, navy, and white might work though, or green tones.
“Limit your palette to three colors max or different variations of the same color. It’s not overwhelming on the eyes and it allow for a pleasant experience,” says Angela Brown, a content marketer from EliteAssignmentHelp.
Poor Quality Visuals
Modern readers adore visual media. Your content can only be improved with pictures that prove your point. However, too many websites still use boring stock photos instead of making their own. In the age of super-cameras in our pockets, this is unacceptable.
Rather than buying from the first stock image site — or worse, downloading from Google images — it would be much cheaper and valuable (in many cases, even more legal) to hire a photographer or take the images on your own.
Clutter
Websites are prone to getting cluttered. Banners, ads, pop ups, badges, and so on create an unnecessary mess that only confuses the viewer. Keep your sidebars clean and your design simple.
Over to You
Web sites are tricky. Sometimes you make mistakes and that’s okay — if you fix them as soon as you realize that they exist. Follow these tips to create a premium experience for your users and convert with ease.
Written by: Grace Carter, BOSS Contributor
Grace Carter is a business writer at Custom Writing and Urgent Assignment Help services. She curates business communication and manages team of remote workers. Also, Grace creates educational courses on OX Essays, academic website.
