Website Design Mistakes

You may be one of the many people who are trying to create their own website. You’ve put hours into designing, coding, and managing it. But you may not know that there are some mistakes you could be making without knowing. Here, are 10 mistakes that might be affecting your website design that you should watch out for.

Investing in a website redesign

Too often, people overlook investing in a website redesign. They don’t do it, because they don’t see the big payoff. They see that their website isn’t being used for what it’s supposed to be used for, and they start searching for a new website that would allow them to do the same thing.

“I can invest the time now and put my business in the top percentile.” – Michael Rhodes, Founder and CEO of PlanGrid

When you’re struggling to get customers, it’s tempting to say, “Well, there’s no use in spending money, it won’t help anything!” But it does. When you redesign your website, you not only make it easier to use for customers, but you also take away a lot of the resistance that your customers have when you offer them a great service. And guess what? They’ll want to keep coming back to you.

Not designing for mobile users

There are nearly 3 billion internet users around the world. In the next three years, there will be close to another 1 billion users. To cater for these additional users, it is important to design your site and site content to be accessible to all. To do this, consider using mobile-friendly design or responsive web design. You can also consider designing your site with an accessibility checklist in mind.

Poor page hierarchy

There is a strong need for certain information to be accessible to users on mobile devices. If there are several pages on your website that contain information, use a logical hierarchy of linking to get all the important information out to them. However, you should also note that the order that you place your links matters.

Forgetting to design for SEO

You may have designed a nice website with a few unique features, but this is all pointless if it’s not designed to match search engine optimization. Creating content that is too long or that doesn’t fit in a sidebar, with no search engine optimization (SEO) associated with it, means that you will likely fall victim to spiders.

SEO means traffic, and spiders won’t pass by a website with no content that hasn’t been optimized.

Consistency

Consistency is an important factor when designing a website. You want to create a unique style for your website but at the same time make it easy for your visitors to navigate through your website. It’s best to have many different templates to choose from, but there is nothing wrong with creating a single one that is customized for each website.

Failing to test your website

Almost all the designers in the world know that one of the top first steps to ensure a website is working is to ensure you’ve tested it. How many times have you created a logo and then spent the next few weeks trying to work out how it works? Not only does this slow you down, but also create a website that may or may not be compatible with the rest of your site and, therefore, slow you down even more.

Exposing too much

Unless you’re one of those rare individuals who is both good at design and good at sales, you have to add in some content to your website. Most people know that this is a good thing, but too much design can take the focus away from the content, as it’s so hard to read at times.

Not finding the right fonts

One of the most important things to keep in mind is the correct fonts used. You need to ensure that you’re using the right fonts and that they’re also legible. Here are some of the best fonts you could use on your website designs.

Arial Black

All schools and public libraries use this font. It’s attractive and easy to read, which is why it’s one of the most popular fonts used. You could use Arial Black or any other font you prefer.

Bullet Head

Bullet Head is a great font that comes in different styles. There are several popular variations, including round ones, oblique fonts, and wide fonts.

Orbit Magazine

The Orbit Magazine font has a contemporary design that’s known for its similarity to Times New Roman.

Overusing images and videos

Your website shouldn’t be overfocused on graphics and animation. Yes, you should keep your site user friendly, and visually appealing. However, that doesn’t mean you need to pack every webpage with visual elements.

Make sure that you are using graphics and animation to highlight points, add clarity, and provide an overall aesthetic. Keep the focus of the website on your text. This will keep you from clutter and bring a clean and efficient user experience.

Not packing enough content

This isn’t so much of a mistake as it is a subtle lack of understanding about the direction you should be taking with your website design. There’s a reason why WordPress is the most popular platform for WordPress website owners.

Not paying attention to user experience

When you’re designing a website, you’re thinking about what you think is important, but your customer can also see it from a different perspective.

Not keeping your content fresh

One of the biggest mistakes you’ll be making is not making your content fresh. One of the reasons why people don’t keep coming back to your website is because there isn’t anything new there. You should always be making content updates. You should also make sure to use images when possible.

Not thinking of social media

Social media is very important to your success with your website. But you must keep in mind that you can’t just jump right into social media. You have to take your time with it.

Not spending enough time working with your current users

At first, people will be happy to hear you’re redesigning your website. However, a majority of them will turn away when they find out that you’re going to be developing it again.

Ignoring the importance of design

Yes, design is a vital aspect to all websites. You can’t expect to promote your business online without first creating a good first impression. You can do this by creating a beautiful site that people will be sure to come back to.

However, you have to remember that design is an afterthought in the beginning. You should set it as a priority because you don’t want to get a bad impression of your site.

Taking your site’s appearance too far

In today’s fast-paced world, you need to keep your site as clean and neat as possible. There are far too many websites that look like an old computer manual. While that’s not the look you want, you still want your site to be able to match other sites. But you can’t go overboard either. If you start adding too many elements, your site may become bloated.

Making mistakes with navigation

Every website that has been designed has a navigation bar. Navigation links are a part of every website. When a site has navigation links, it can be confusing to visitors. While most people are sure of what they are looking for when visiting a website, not all visitors are so prepared. The navigation links and the drop-down menu design can get people off track and cause them to not complete their tasks.

Not making use of a good font size

A font size matters a lot on a website. You can give a distinct look to a website by using a good font size. A small font size can give the impression of a web page being a bit dull and bland. It can also make your font size difficult to read and difficult for your visitors to see the finer details.