You’ve only got 10-20 seconds to make an impression with your website. That’s how long users take to decide if your website has what they’re looking for.
This means it’s important for your business website to make sure it’s got all the necessary information clearly available without being too crowded. Finding the right balance for this can be tricky. That’s why good web design is vital.
Keep reading to learn about 7 common business web design errors and how to avoid them!
1. Making the Pages Too Busy
Any web design service will tell you that clutter is a red flag to users. When there’s so much information, too many images, or anything that feels too busy, your users get overwhelmed and exit. There are a lot of websites on the internet, so they’ll try another one.
To avoid this, your business site needs to streamline its layout. Make sure it’s clear where you’re trying to draw the eyes. While there is room for creativity on company sites, it’s better to stick to conventions.
Make sure the landing page is simple and uncluttered, with clear links for where more in-depth information can be found.
2. Confusing Navigation
One of the ways people try to clear up their clutter is with lots of pages. This isn’t a problem itself, but it becomes one if the navigation isn’t clear. When users can’t figure out how to get from one page to another, they give up and exit.
To solve this problem, navigation bars are helpful. There are a few types of navigation bars to choose from. If you’ve got even more pages than what fits into those, categorize your pages and incorporate drop-down menus.
This keeps your site navigable. Your users should easily be able to get from one page to another, regardless of which pages they were on.
Another important part of the navigation process is a search bar. This is especially important for e-commerce websites. Even with a great navigation system, if your users want to jump to something specific without going through menus, it should be possible.
The bottom line is that you want to make sure your users can always find whatever they are looking for.
3. Slow Load Times
Unfortunately, a lot of website improvements actually end up making your website slower. And a slow website loading speed can irritate users and chase them away.
This is why it’s important to make sure you’re always keeping loading speed in mind. There’s no point adding exciting features to your site if it’s lagging the loading time because people aren’t going to stick around to see it!
There are online tools you can use to analyze your loading speed and advise you on how to improve it.
4. No Call to Action
Business websites exist to serve a purpose. If it’s an e-commerce store, the purpose is to get sales. If it’s a service, the purpose is to make appointments.
But since a business website typically ends up as a base point of information about the company, it can lose focus. And it’s fine for a website to end up serving a few purposes, as long as the main one is always prioritized.
This means your website should have a clear and consistent call to action.
For example, if your site is an online store, you might have a page with policies or information about the company. But there should still be a button to check out your purchase, reminding users why they’re there.
5. Not Mobile-Friendly
Most internet users are accessing your website from their phones. This means a mobile-friendly website is vital. If your website is only designed to look good and be easily navigated from a computer, you’re shutting out a huge percentage of your users.
The best way to solve this problem is to build your website with the mobile layout in mind. This is because it’s easier to adapt a mobile-friendly layout to a computer layout rather than the other way around.
If figuring out the mobile design is confusing, don’t worry! There are lots of online web design tools that can help you out.
6. Outdated Content
Your business website content needs to use search engine optimization (SEO) principles. This means the content is set up in a way that search engines will prioritize it when users customers with search results. If you don’t do this, then new customers won’t be able to find your site in the first place.
Good SEO boosts your website’s result ranking, meaning it shows up higher on the search results page. But SEO isn’t simple – it requires a lot of research and specialization.
For example, SEO for a dental website is very different from SEO for other industries. The way users search, and the keywords they use, are very different. Good SEO understands this and adapts accordingly.
7. Lack of User Testing
If the only people ever testing your site are the ones building it or invested in it, you’re going to have problems. The people who are used to seeing the website all the time, or are looking at very specific issues, will sometimes miss some of the more obvious stuff.
The best way to ensure your website is error-free is by user testing it. This means getting people who have not used the website before to try it out. With their fresh eyes, they can find problems you didn’t even consider.
User testing gives you feedback that helps you fix your website before your customers see it. This means your customers are likely to have a better experience on your site and will come back again.
Avoid These Business Web Design Errors
If your company is guilty of some of these business web design errors, don’t panic! Now you know what the problems are, and you can begin fixing them.
You improve your website efficiency and business success when you avoid these errors.
If you enjoyed this article, please check out our blog for more content!
