It’s as the saying goes: first impressions are what count.
Think of your company’s website as your introduction to the world. Your potential clients will form an idea of who you are and how you work based on what you communicate through it. If your website is difficult to navigate, contains spelling mistakes, or has outdated content, all you’ll achieve is conveying an unprofessional image of what you have to offer.
If you’re thinking of creating your own site or simply looking to improve the one you already have, here are some of the most common web design mistakes I’ve gathered:
- Missing or poorly organized information There’s nothing more frustrating for a user than searching for something on a website and not finding it. Sometimes, the information is there but hidden or categorized incorrectly.
Pre-planning is key. Before starting to design your website, ask yourself the following questions:
- What information will my users want to see?
- Of that information, what is most important and what is least?
- What is the most logical path to reach that information?
Let’s take an example: if you have a section called «About Us,» it makes sense to add subsections like «Our History,» «Where to Find Us,» etc. Now, if your business has a blog discussing industry news or offers many diverse services you want to explain in detail, would you add them under the same tab? Wouldn’t it be better to create a separate section?
- Texts are long and difficult to read Did you know we take twice as long to read on a screen as on paper? Screen light strains the eyes, and websites are often filled with visual distractions (banners, ads, etc.), making concentration difficult and pushing us towards skimming.
If you don’t want your users to feel fatigued, don’t fill your website with long, cumbersome blocks of text. Be concise and use white spaces to break information into easily digestible chunks.
- There are fonts and colors that are hard to read It’s pointless to fill your website with useful and attractive content if it’s presented in a font and color that hinder reading. As you can imagine, the safest color combination for readability is dark text on a light background, like black on white.
- The text is justified Once again, not everything that works on paper has to work on a screen. Justified texts, although they may seem tidier at first glance, hinder web users’ readability. Opt for unjustified text and you’ll hit the mark.
- The design is not responsive Today, 90% of web users browse through their smartphones. Not having a website adapted for mobile or tablet screens is a colossal mistake that will make your users uncomfortable browsing your site.
- There is no original content While the internet offers us plenty of resources to easily create an attractive website (stock photos, «copy and paste» information, etc.), it’s advisable to create our own content to give our site personality.
Templates or excessive use of stock images can give your website a generic, unmemorable, and poorly crafted look. Also, Google penalizes text duplication, considering it deceptive practice for boosting rankings.
- The content adds nothing Sometimes, we come across websites with sections containing barely one or two lines of text that could easily be removed. Everything on our website should serve a purpose and be useful to the user. Like in the previous point, Google penalizes the creation of «blank» pages, as they don’t add any value for the user.
- Links are broken, and information is outdated It’s normal for things published on your website initially to change or become outdated over time. However, many forget to update this information on their websites! This results in users finding useless information that doesn’t reflect reality.
The same applies to broken links. Always verify that the added link works. And if it doesn’t, change it!
- There are no quality images An image is worth a thousand words. There’s nothing worse than coming across a website that neglects its visual material. This includes blurry, pixelated, or simply poorly chosen photos.
- Images are too heavy Similarly, when using high-quality images, consider the final file weight. Uploading overly heavy images can slow down your website’s loading speed, which is disastrous for any user (no one wants to wait five minutes for a page to load!).
Additionally, Google will also penalize this slowness, causing your rankings to drop.