7 Common Website Design Mistakes

Image representing common website design mistakes

Today’s post is by guest blogger, Victor Daily.

7 Common Website Design Mistakes That Drive Customers Away

Have you committed one of these common website design mistakes? If you’ve been wondering why website visitors are  bouncing out of your site after only a few seconds rather than becoming customers, then perhaps one or  more of the website design flaws are reason. When designing a website for your product or business, it helps to stand back and think like a customer. Not only are you a business owner, but you have been a customer as well. Think about what you find attractive and what makes you click to another site. Mistakes are easily fixable once you recognize them. These are seven of the most common flaws made on websites.

Too Flashy

Everyone wants a website design that attracts customers and keeps them entertained while imparting a message. That message can get lost in a sea of flashing text, bouncing photos and moving parts that will only confuse a visitor. Instead of trying to figure out what the site is trying to say, the visitor will click away from the site. Pare the site down to only the most necessary images and stay away from flashing text and graphics.

Too much information

It’s extremely tempting to list point after point of why a customer should sign up for your service or buy your product. Lists and lists of content won’t get read. Customers can’t care about twelve pieces of information packed into one website. Pick two or three main points and focus there. Find out where your company is better than the competition and hone in on those points.

Readability

Visitors want easy-to-read pages. Avoid dark fonts on dark backgrounds. A customer won’t stay if they must strain their eyes reading your site. They will click away from it. Reading online is different from reading a newspaper or a book offline. The website shouldn’t be heavy on text without paragraph breaks. It needs to be neat with plenty of paragraphs and lots of white space.

Too much clutter

Pages filled with promotions and advertisements will not be attractive to customers. They won’t know where to settle their eyes for the information needed to find out about your product and service. The advertisements are confusing, and if the customer can’t tell the difference between ads and your site, he or she will leave.

Lack of contact info

Not everyone gets their information online. Some customers navigating your site are only searching for offline contact information. Other customers might have questions, but if you make it difficult to contact you, they will move on to a business that is available to answer questions. Make sure there is a way for customers to contact you offline. At the very least, there should be a phone number and email address.

Slow pages

Some graphics-heavy websites take forever to load on even the fastest machine imaginable. Most customers don’t have the newest, flashiest machine capable of loading heavy graphics in an instant. Even if you haven’t committed the faux pas of having flashing, crawling, rainbow-colored graphics, large photos can slow down a page load. A page that loads too slowly is a big turn-off for customers, and they will instantly go elsewhere.

All devices

Websites need to look great on all browsers and all systems. You can’t assume that it will. Check all browsers and systems before going live with your site. More customers than ever are going mobile with smart phones and tablets. Be sure your website looks fantastic on those devices, too.

Have you noticed other common website design mistakes? What are your experiences with making changes to convert website visitors into customers? Comment below!

This has been a guest post from Victor Daily, experienced tech blogger and writer, with help from Ninefold from Australia.

By Wanda Anglin

Wanda Anglin has a passion to help businesses and non-profits reach their goals by attracting more of the right website visitors. Her empathy and understanding for small business challenges comes from a background in project management, sales support, accounting, and business ownership. When not helping clients, Wanda is traveling, fixing her home, or tending to her 900 trees (really).

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