There’s a lot to think about as you grow your business. Honing your product or service. Managing employees. Overseeing day-to-day operations.
Sometimes, though, the seemingly little things are just as important, like designing your company’s website.
Too often business owners overlook their bad website design when their website should really be at the top of their priority list.
Your website says a lot about who you are and what you have to offer customers. It’s often a potential client’s first impression of your company.
Here are seven mistakes to avoid when you design a business website.
Confusing Layout
If your website isn’t user friendly, say goodbye to your customers.
In fact, easy navigation is a design quality that shoppers tend to value. It even topped a recent survey about which features are important in a website. Of those who responded, 94% said navigation is most important to them.
Once people land on your website, if it’s too confusing for them to find what they’re looking for, they’re likely to abandon it quickly.
People find your website as they’re searching for a solution to a problem that impacts their life. Don’t make this more difficult for them by putting information in hard-to-find areas of your website.
One easy way to avoid a confusing layout? Simplicity. There are plenty of Web design Tampa companies that will provide you with the best website.
Forget crowded, cluttered, overwhelmed pages. Keep your website clean and clear with minimal text and graphics to make it easier for your clients to navigate.
Missing Contact Information
If your website has interesting and useful information that engages customers and leaves them wanting more, that’s great!
But what if they want to know more about your product and services? Have you made it easy for them to reach out to you with additional questions before they seal the deal?
Too many websites miss the mark by not including a contact form or even simply providing an email address or phone number that shoppers can reach out to.
Your contact page is an important customer service element that can convert clicks on your website into sales.
Slow Load Time
First impressions are powerful. If a new client visits your website and their first experience is a slow-loading screen, what do you think they’re likely to do?
A slow-loading website is one of the easiest ways to frustrate users. As many as 47% of shoppers expect a website to load within two seconds. Even worse, 40 percent of shoppers abandon a page if it hasn’t loaded within three seconds.
That’s a lot of business lost.
Some ideas for speeding up your website? Compress your images and other files. Clean up your database. Update broken links. And use a content delivery network.
Not Mobile Friendly
It’s no surprise that in this modern world your website should be friendly to mobile internet users.
These days, the number of those relying on their cell phones to browse online is quickly catching up with those who use their laptop or desktop computer for internet searches.
Ensuring your website is mobile-friendly means you’ll capture a wider range of clients.
When designing your website, you’ll want to keep in mind that around half of your visitors will be on their phones and other mobile devices. This will affect every facet of your design.
But if your website isn’t easy to access from a phone, you’re losing out on a lot of business.
Text That Is Hard to Read
There are several factors that make the text on your website hard to read.
Maybe the font is too small. Or maybe the contrast on the background behind it is too low? This causes your words to get lost on the page.
Other textual faux pas? Highlighting random portions of text. Overwhelming your words with busy backgrounds and images. Using hard-to-read fonts.
At the end of the day, use your best judgment. If your customers can’t read what you have to say, then they won’t be making any purchases from you.
Read More: Top Tips on How to Build Links Effectively for Your Small Business Website
Information Overload
Who knew that too much information is a bad thing? If you overload those visiting your website with information, though, they’re not likely to retain anything.
Visitors to your site don’t want to read giant blocks of text. They want content that is easy to read and understand.
In fact, they’re likely to abandon your site and move on to your competitor if you throw too much at them. Too much clutter will turn them away.
Consider the content you want to convey. How can you better divide it among several pages rather than including it all on your homepage?
Building It Yourself
There are a lot of amazing tools out there that make it easy for people to design their own websites.
This is great if you want to create a space to display photos from your family vacation or to showcase a low volume of your artwork or other hobbyist creations.
But as a business owner, you need a professional website.
This is why you shouldn’t do the job yourself. It’s likely to look amateur-ish. And depending on the size and scope of your project, consider bringing on an entire design ops team to scale production.
Ready to Design a Business Website?
Now that you’ve learned some mistakes to avoid when you design a business website, let us help you with other areas of your company.
Check out our blog for more useful tips to help your business grow.
