Many elements go into planning and designing your website.
A well-designed website will reflect your brand’s identity and plays an important role in engaging users and driving conversions.
However, business owners who are using a website builder to DIY their website, or even the most well-intentioned designers can fall victim to certain common web design mistakes that will hinder the overall effectiveness of your website.
Let's go over 5 of the most prevalent web design mistakes and insights on how to avoid falling victim to them.
Most of those browsing online are accessing websites on their mobile devices, this goes for all kinds of businesses, but eCommerce stores especially need to keep this in mind.
Due to the abundance of mobile users, you have to ensure your website is mobile-responsive.
If you fail to optimise your website for a range of different screen sizes, it can lead to poor user experience, slow loading times, generally bad aesthetics, and lost opportunities for engagement.
To deal with this issue, designers will often adopt a mobile-first approach which prioritises responsive design from the start, ensuring all elements, from images to navigation menus, adapt seamlessly across any device.
Showing your brand personality throughout your website is important, but trying to convey loud personalities with a cluttered and complex website layout can overwhelm your users; as well as making navigation and finding desired information a nightmare.
Overloading pages with excessive text, images, and multimedia elements will eventually lead to absolute chaos, and hinder usability and navigation.
Designers should aim for a clean and organised layout, that intuitively guides users’ attention to key elements, uses whitespace effectively, and maintain a logical content hierarchy.
Simplifying your design can enhance user experience and make your website more aesthetically appealing, while still reflecting your brand personality.
We live in a time that values instant gratification and results, so a slow-loading website will quickly deter users.
Take a look and download our infographic below, which highlights some of the most important website load speed statistics for your business in 2023:
Web designers should optimise images for the website, minimise the use of external scripts, and prioritise efficient coding practices to ensure quick loading times.
You can also use tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights to identify and address speed-related issues on your website.
The choice of typography and its presentation on your website will have a large influence on how users will consume the content they are seeing.
As well as fonts affecting tone, they can also affect readability.
Whether it's using illegible fonts, insufficient contrast between text and background, too small a font size, or improper line spacing, can strain users’ eyes and discourage them from engaging with your content.
A designer should select fonts that align with your brand identity but ultimately prioritise readability.
Additionally, there should be a font hierarchy that is used consistently which uses appropriate font sizes and changes to enhance intuitive navigation and user experience overall.
A visually appealing website is only one part of the equation; it must also be easily discoverable by search engines, which is achieved through search engine optimisation (SEO).
Ignoring SEO principles will result in poor rankings on search engines, and limited organic traffic.
When designing your website, on-page elements such as meta titles, descriptions, header tags, image alt text, and more, should all be optimised.
Integrating an SEO-friendly URL structure and employing proper internal linking strategies can further improve your website's visibility in search engine results.
Conclusion
Web design is a multifaceted endeavour that requires a healthy balance between aesthetic appeal and functional usability.
By being aware of and avoiding these five common web design mistakes- neglecting mobile responsiveness, cluttered layouts, slow loading times, inadequate typography, and ignoring SEO principles- you can create a website that not only captures visitors’ attention but also provides a seamless and enjoyable browsing experience.
This can be difficult to achieve by yourself, which is why working with a managed website provider can allow you to acquire the perfect website for your business.
Remember, a well-designed website not only reflects positively on your brand but also serves as a powerful tool for achieving your business’s digital goals.
Contact us at PageNorth to learn more and get the help you need with your website.
