When it comes to maintaining a website, the first thing that should come to mind is website design. This involves the font, the layout, the colors, and the overall look and feel of the website.
Being a web designer is not an easy task. A person must have enough experience and creativity to create a website that is influential to each website visitor. They must also know exactly what the business owner will want, as well as what will get the website visitors to take the plunge and engage with the call to action.
With all of that being said, mistakes do happen. No website design is perfect, and oftentimes a web designer is working on several different websites at once, leaving more room for mishaps while developing a new website or app.
If you are interested in learning more about these mistakes, read further.
Slow-Loading Websites
When you visit a website, the last thing you want to do is weight more than 5 seconds for the website to load. Oftentimes, if a website is too slow, the website visitor will likely jump ship and move on to a faster website. This is quite literally, leading your potential customers to your competitor. Unfortunately, this will leave you with a higher bounce rate and a lack of business, in general.
This often happens due to inexperienced website developers or designers. If the website was built and designed with too many photos, too much animation and too many videos, it will be too much to load. Keep things simple and minimalistic in order to build and develop a successful website.
Video Over Text
Keep your site interactive and engaging in order to keep your bounce rate low, and to keep your website visitors coming back for more. You also want your website visitors to be able to access the information they are looking for, to buy your products, or react to your call-to-action. However, if you are displaying a ton of different videos and no text, it will not appeal to your audience. You must reach your intended audience with written content.
Non-Responsive Websites
Nowadays, having a responsive website is crucial to the success of your business. It is fantastic if your website works well on a computer, but if it does not work well on a mobile device or a tablet, you will likely lose a large portion of customers or potential customers. Pay attention to how your website is displayed on mobile devices. If it loads fully then great, but if there are some parts that cannot be opened or links that are not clickable, you might want to rework your website. The majority of people will access your website through a mobile device rather than laptops or computers, therefore your website needs to be responsive for all devices.
Lack Of Header Tags
Do NOT avoid the use of headings. They have a positive impact on a users’ experience because it makes it more simple to navigate through your website, as well as access data sooner and scan the content faster. However, you must ensure that your headings are organized within different layers, based on the purpose that they serve.
No Contact Information
This one seems like a given, but you would be surprised how many website designers skip over this step. Obviously your website services a particular purpose, whether that is to raise money for a charity, sell a product or service or share thoughts and emotions through a blog. You will need to receive feedback from each of your website visitors, and you will need to be reachable. This is why it is essential to place your contact information in a visible location on your website. This includes your phone number, email address, and a link to your social media accounts.
Color and Contrast
A huge part of your job as a web designer is to make the website visually appealing. If your website is unattractive to the eyes, 99% of your website visitors will leave in the matter of seconds. Do not use colors that are too bright, such as a bright red and a bright orange or yellow. Additionally, avoid using text that is grey with a black background. You want the text to be readable, and the color of the text will be a determining factor. If you are having trouble with color combinations, feel free to contact our crew at Eternity for advice.
Disorganization of Content
Content is key! We’ve all heard it, thought it, and now know that we need to eat, sleep and breathe it too. If your website contains too much text content, no one will read it. However, if your website does not have any or enough content, they will not know what the purpose of your business or brand is.
Ensure that your website visitors are getting the information they need, as fast as possible. People are lazy, and they do not want to have to put in an effort to find what they are looking for. Utilize tables, pie charts, and other display options to get the information across in an organized and simple manner. Provide bullet lists to reduce the number of words on a webpage. There are many ways to work with content and to make it easy on the eyes but also digestible.
Lack of Call-To-Action
Again, your website should have a purpose. Your purpose should be clear and concise to your website visitors. If your website is trying to get people to purchase a product or service, then that call-to-action should be easy to find on the homepage and on every other page throughout the website. For example, placing a ‘Buy Now’ button in a very precise location is the surefire way to get someone to buy a product or service.
Weak SEO Efforts
More and more people are realizing the importance of SEO (search engine optimization), especially with the most recent global events. If you want your website to show up on search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. then you must use different SEO tools. Keywords have the power to move your site up higher on the search results pages across different search engines, therefore making it easier for people to find your website.
Links Do NOT Work
Do NOT rush the launch of a website! Make sure that links are properly linked to their destination or landing pages. If you have website links that do not work, a user will likely bounce from your website because they will assume that your product or service is a scam or is unreliable. Take your time before launching a new website, and ensure that it is exactly how you would want it to be if you were the website visitor.
