In a digital world where websites are a part of every business’s success, it’s important to understand common web design mistakes. While web design tools are marketed as simple, and user-friendly – and they’ve been made very accessible – they don’t give the user industry experience. Most businesses who are struggling with their online presence and are underperforming have a poor user experience on their website. 99% of the time, this is because the website was not built as an easy-to-navigate sales funnel with an intended outcome. The accessibility of these tools has brought many to sell their own services with them, and unfortunately, a lot of the time, the work that is created does not allow the client to achieve their goals. We cannot stress enough that a familiarity and understanding with how a large marketing firm or a marketing agency operates and sells digital services is crucial to making sure that your website is built properly and does what you need it to do. It’s truly not worth spending the money on a website with a poor user experience, as that will do more harm than good for your brand image. Last, please don’t ever “throw” a website together. Today, a website can no longer be an afterthought. Your website is available 24/7/365, it is the face of your brand and it must be built properly in order to help your business. Your website is your always accessible digital storefront.
Because we’ve networked with a lot of really frustrated business owners who don’t understand why their websites aren’t converting, we wanted to explain that there is no real accreditation to build websites, but ensuring your marketing expert has industry experience is what will ultimately determine how successful your website is.
With all of that said, we wanted to take the time today to identify five of the most common web design mistakes that we come across!
1. Logo
Most people know by now that their business logo is housed at the top of the website, and it is usually the first element of every single page that is loaded. If your logo is blurry, warped or distorted, pixelated, or not easy to read and understand, then you are likely not creating a positive brand image. Another common mistake is that people very often use logos with a background color on them – whether it’s white, black, blue, or one of their brand colors, etc. Your logo should never have a background, it should be transparent, so that it can be used with a variety of different color schemes.
Problem(s):
- Pixelated, blurry, warped, or distorted logo
- Logo has a background color
Solution(s):
- Using a high-quality logo file, such as a professional vector image, to have your logo created is key. A professional vector file allows your logo to be resized to any dimension without quality loss. This means you can get the image to the appropriate dimensions for your website with an image that still looks crisp and clean.
- Using a transparent background allows your logo to create a more cohesive experience with your website and doesn’t make anything look out of place (backgrounds usually leave a square around the logo).
2. ADA Compliance & Colors
Websites also need to meet certain standards for compliance with the American Disabilities Act (ADA). We won’t dive too much into ADA compliance in this article, but it’s important to be mindful of the colors that you’re using together on your website. You’ll want to consider if a color blind visitor can easily read the text, as well as if the average person can easily understand and read elements on the website. For example, a bright yellow background probably wouldn’t be easy to read with hot pink text.
Problem(s):
- Website elements overlap each other, don’t have a clear space in the user experience, usually cutting off words or buttons from other areas.
- Website elements are difficult to read due to the color combinations chosen.
Solution(s):
- Ensuring none of your content is cut off, as well as testing the website for responsiveness on various screen sizes
- Familiarizing yourself with ADA Compliance measures
3. Poor Navigation
Visitors usually expect to be guided by a website, and a best practice website acts as a sales funnel that does just that. Poor navigation on a website leads to user frustration, and thus, drop-offs or exits from the site. This is a bigger deal than a lot of people realize, as it actually affects the business’s sales & revenue. Poor navigation usually occurs when pages are not easily accessible, or the website wasn’t created with a strategy behind the structure.
Problem(s):
- Difficult to navigate website, menu items are confusing, no clear path to go anywhere on the site
- Website is having difficulty generating leads or sales
Solution(s):
- Strategizing the website structure using website best practices and creating predetermined paths to navigate through your sales funnel.
- Strategic use of calls-to-action to guide visitors to certain action pages on your website.
- Implementing a front-end user sitemap, a website usability practice that reduces user frustration by breaking out links to every single page on your website.
4. Legal Protections
Another common web design mistake deals with legal protections for use of your website. Both a Privacy Policy and a Terms Of Service should exist on the website. These pages communicate necessary legal & privacy information to your website visitors. Without clearly communicating this information, you could be vulnerable to legal disputes. Many business websites also lack a copyright year.
Problem(s):
- No legal protections for the website
Solution(s):
- Adding a Privacy Policy communicates with your visitors what information you’re collecting, why, how it’s being handled or secured, and whether or not it is sold.
- Add a Terms Of Service page communicates with your website visitors what agreements are being made by their use of your website or service.
- Adding a Copyright year in your website footer communicates the year your website was published and has the potential to protect your brand from infringement disputes.
5. Tracking
Under no circumstances whatsoever should a business invest their budget in some kind of a marketing effort and not track the performance of that effort, tactic, or strategy. Your business website is no different, tracking on-site performance is crucial to continuing to optimize the user experience, the customer journey, and knowing where your ROI lies. Websites that contain common web design mistakes are very often built without tracking implemented, which means that not only is user frustration a legitimate issue on-site, but there is no way to even isolate the elements of the user experience that are causing that user frustration.
Problem(s):
- No information regarding what pages perform well, what users do and don’t interact with, how long people are staying on the site, what particular products people are purchasing, what products make up what portion of revenue, etc.
- No information on how ads or other marketing tactics performed.
Solution(s):
- Implementing a website tracking or monitoring system, such as the industry standard, Google Analytics. This will allow the website admin to monitor on-site performance and know what elements of their website experience are and are not performing well.
Having an exceptional user experience on your business’s website means that your brand has more trustworthiness, more credibility, and a much stronger brand image. Today’s studies even reveal that the majority of website visitors make a judgment about a brand’s credibility based completely on their website experience. In other words, if your website is built with one of these common web design mistakes, or is lacking website usability and best practices, you are likely missing out on sales, and possibly harming your brand’s image in the process. Always hire a specialized and skilled expert with industry experience who can make sure that your website is built properly, the first time.
Contact New Moon Strategy today for a best practice website build.