Your website is the face of your business in the internet world. So having a beautifully designed website is a must-have. Even though your website might look nice and feel nice, there could be so many details that can actually hurt your business. Here is a list of 5 common mistakes that I often see businesses make.
1. Too Much Clutter
There is a simple rule in modern website design: “Less is more”.
If there is too much going on people will give up on your website. No one wants to read a block of text, it’s boring and just painful.
Most people nowadays scan through pages, so naturally you would want to make your text scannable. Include short paragraphs, highlight the keywords, add bulleted lists and make sure it’s easy to read.
Some questions you might want to ask yourself:
Does my website have a lot of visual noise? Do I have enough images to break the text? Is my navigation clear? Is my content organized in a logical way?
2. Not Answering User’s Questions
People go on your website to get answers. And if they don’t find them quickly or don’t find them at all – they will go somewhere else.
The first headline that people see should be clear and have a unique value proposition. Is there a question that people ask all the time? Include the answer above the fold. The quicker you can get to the point the better. Make sure you have the right information that people are actually looking for.
3. Slow Page Speed
I don’t know about you, but I get so frustrated when the internet speed is slow. Nowadays everything is so fast, that waiting for a page to load seems like eternity. And I’m not the only one who thinks that way.
Slow page load directly impacts user experience, Google ranking and your bounce rate (the percentage of visitors that leave a webpage without taking an action).
There could be many reasons why the page speed is slow. Maybe your media files are too large, or you have too many extra elements, bad hosting, etc.
There are a lot of tools on the internet that can help, such as Google PageSpeed Insights. It actually analyzes your website and gives you suggestions on how to make it faster.
4. No Clear CTA
Call-to-action is the most important button on any website. Everyone wants their users to take action whether it’s to learn more about the company, buy a product, or enroll in the program. So naturally CTA has to stand out.
It’s very tempting to make it blend in, so everything looks visually appealing, but no one is going to click it if it looks the same as everything else.
The color should be different, it has to grab attention. The words you use should be strong and clear. And there has to be a good explanation of what value visitors will get by clicking it. There are a lot of things that could be done to improve CTAs, but it’s always important to test and see what your visitors react to mostly.
5. Having a Mobile – Unfriendly Website
And the last mistake but one of the most common ones is not having a mobile-friendly website.
There are more mobile phones than desktop computers and it’s a fact. “The average American spends a little above 5 hours daily on their mobile phones”.
So you have more chances to be discovered through mobile devices.
Your website should look nice on the phone, be accessible for all the thumb tapping and work seamlessly. And let’s not forget about SEO. If Google doesn’t consider your website mobile-friendly, bye-bye good traffic, hello decreased conversion.
So Remember…
Any website is a work in progress. It’s important to experiment, try new things, analyze and see what brings results. Things are changing all the time and your website should too. Keep it updated because even small things can make a huge difference for your business.
