Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once. Then, there are a few that you cannot even afford to make once. Website design mistakes are such mistakes that might cost you your customers, your conversions, your site traffic, and much more than you would ever think. Here are a few website design mistakes that can lead to a loss of visitors and as a result, the overall site conversion. There could be some of these that you might be unknowingly making in your own website:
A missing search box or no good search options- If your site does not have a search box or the search box is not easy enough to find, then this could be a big turn off for your users because users like it when they are able to make specific searches in order to directly find things they are looking for, without wasting much time or efforts. Further, it isn’t enough just to put a lame search box with no good filters to enable users to narrow down their searches according to their specific requirements.
A complex navigation- With a good and intuitive website navigation, users will be able to effortlessly find their ways around your website, find things they are looking for, and take actions that you want them to take. If they find the navigation confusing or complex, they wouldn’t be able to figure out how to move between pages and thus, leave your site.
Slow loading speed- Your website might load slowly due to a number of reasons, such as, poor performance of your server, your server is based in a far off location from your place, extra large or unoptimized images, using dense elements in your site, using messy coding, using too many plugins, outdated CMS, etc. The most common reason for people to abandon websites is probably their slow loading speed. Nobody wants to wait for more than 2 to 3 seconds to be able to see a completely loaded web page.
Unresponsive design- In this day and age of smartphones, how could you afford to go unresponsive? If your website doesn’t properly display on mobile devices, you could lose a large number of your mobile users. Proficient web development companies make sure to incorporate responsive design while designing websites.
Poor readability- One thing which could irritate users instantly is poor readability. Why will they even move any further on your website when they are not even able to read any text properly. Make sure your color scheme is not too bright, flashy, or eye blinding. Use subtle and contrasting colors.
Outdated information- Imagine a visitor comes to your website and decides to contact you. He finds a contact number and dials the provided number, only to find at the end that the number provided doesn’t exist or belongs to someone else. Would it make a good impression? Obviously not, right? Any kind of outdated information tends to put users off. Make sure you update your site information on a regular basis.
Requires excessive scrolling- Have you been to a website where you had to scroll endlessly and there was literally no end to it? If you have, then you would know how irritating it could feel. Instead of infinitely long scrolling, you could provide a button that says “scroll for more”, which could help users to scroll down for more content as and when they like. This would also break the monotony of scrolling endlessly.
Absence of any clear Call-To-Actions (CTAs)- CTAs are the ultimate purpose of any website’s existence. With our websites, we want our users to take certain kind of actions, isn’t that our ultimate motive? Having CTAs that are not easy-to-find or ones that are too generic would be a bad idea. Have multiple CTAs on each page of your website. Further, they should contain words/phrases which should instantly tell users what they’re going to get by clicking on them.
Absence of negative space- Negative space is one of the most important aspects of any website. In order to draw attention to an element or an image or even to a piece of content, you can surround it with negative space. This is a good strategy to draw attention to an important subject. An absence of negative space might make your web page look messy and boring.
Sign up or login feature not easily findable- If the sign up or login button in your website is buried somewhere deep under a menu, then the bad news is that your users wouldn’t put much efforts finding it. This could directly have an impact on your conversion because, in order to purchase a product or service, websites normally require signing up or signing in.
