Web Design – Common Mistakes to Avoid

Is your website up to the task – delivering the utmost for your business?

As we’ve consistently stated, in the 2020s businesses and other organisations must have a robust online presence to have any opportunity of success in our modern economy.

Moreover, with more than 200 million active sites online and more than 250,000 new websites[1] created daily all over the world, the digital marketplace is, for practical purposes, infinitely competitive. For most sectors, consumers are spoiled for choice in terms of who to give their patronage to.

Your website is your digital shopfront – and standing out and distinguishing yourself amongst your competitors is imperative. The right approach to website development and web design is critical.

The Importance of Great Web Design

What is web design? At its core, it strategizes, conceptualises, and presents information and business functionality online in an on-brand way that captivates and engages its target audience.

It incorporates both visual and functional components:

Visual: logo, colours, fonts, written content, images, spacing, layout, and elements including icons, buttons, etc.

Functional: site navigation and tech architecture, site speed, mobile optimisation, animation, user experience (UX), interaction, SEO, responsiveness, cross-device design, functional consistency, and more.

Why is Website Design so Important for Your Business?

4 top reasons:

Branding – your brand is everything – and there is no better way to support and help define this than through the design of your website. This includes everything from conveying your brand identity and values to visually standing out from your competitors.

First Impression – most consumers now find most of the solutions they seek online. Even if they ultimately patronise a physical store or other premises, most will at least take their journey of discovery and research products and services online first. As the first point of contact a prospect has with your business, you want your website to deliver the right message and compel them to convert. Great web design delivers a positive first impression and helps build trust.

Mobile-Optimisation – most people now access the internet from a mobile device. Your website must be optimised across browsers and devices for both iOS and Android to suit diverse screen sizes to improve the user experience.

Support SEO – search engine optimisation to rank highly in search engine results pages relies on both onsite and offsite considerations – and unless your website is SEO-optimised, you simply will not rank highly. Your website’s design and development underpin your SEO outcomes – from layout to written content.

So, what does “getting it right” look like?

It’s important to first understand what negatively impacts the user’s experience and SEO outcomes…

In a Nutshell – 10 Web Design Mistakes to Avoid

Failure to Communicate Business Purpose – your site must convey your business’s mission and purpose for existing from the outset. For example, is the site there primarily to inform, entertain, sell, drive bookings, or generate donations? Clarity in business purpose supports strategic decision-making, branding, marketing, and aligning stakeholders. You also need an optimised URL and a clear call to action.

Poor Navigation – a great user experience requires that your site has a well-configured navigation layout and menu. Poor navigation will only frustrate users; most will move on quickly – to your competitors.

Slow Speed – also incredibly frustrating for users; a page that doesn’t load properly within just 2-3 seconds is likely to lose audiences (digital audience attention spans are notoriously limited). Page loading speeds can be compromised by everything from server issues to file sizes and the volume of HTTP server requests.

Poor Colour Scheme – colour psychology plays an important role in branding and web design. Colours influence our emotions, behaviours, and attitudes, and the right choice to complement your brand (and logo) is essential. (For example, red represents strength, energy, and excitement; green is fresh and depicts quality, nature, and healing. Purple is the colour of spirituality, luxury, and royalty, while browns are rugged, dependable, and trustworthy.) Excessive or random use of colour can be off-putting and overpowering for users. Consider the effect of specific colours and using complementary or contrasting colours/hues.

Lack of Written Content – too many business owners want a website that is image-based and sparse on written content (“copy”). This is a huge mistake in terms of both SEO and user experience. People want information; search engine algorithms need written information. Copy should be unique and original (for every landing page – no copy-pasting), relevant, and keyword-rich (but not stuffed) with ideally 500+ words on the Home page and 350+ words on landing pages. (Keyword optimisation is also very important here.)

Content Overload – just as too little content is damaging to a website, so is content overload. Too much or cluttered content on a page is difficult to consume and can be overwhelming to users. Less can be more. Break your site down into smaller components via landing pages of hierarchical content accessible from drop-down menus. Break up written content on each page with subheadings (H1, H2, H3 tags) and numbering/dot points where appropriate.

Lack of Security – website security is imperative and should be prioritised in web design and architectural development. Critical business data should be placed behind authentication walls; HTTPS should be utilised; strong passwords should be required for designers; and user authentication should be implemented. Backup and recovery procedures should also be in place.

Non-Responsiveness – the omnichannel experience is essential and web design, functionality, and appearance must be consistent both compatible and responsive web design across browsers and devices.

Poor Visual Design – the aesthetics of your website matter enormously in terms of user experience. Your visual design should be fresh, on-brand, and easy on the eye. This means considering your layout; image quality, size and optimisation; fonts and font size; font colour versus background; the amount of “white space” on your pages; and more.

Inefficient Features – these include large image and video files, bloated code, complex animations, and intrusive pop-ups and auto-play media. Also, broken links and a lack of 301 redirects may harm your business’s reputation, deter users, and diminish SEO results.

These are just a sample; there are many others to avoid as well – and an experienced professional web developer with SEO expertise can help you meet and conquer the challenges of web design to achieve the ideal website for your brand and audience – and meet the demands of search engine algorithms.

Choose SEOcycle for a Great Website!

SEOcycle is an Australian web design and development agency. We design and build high-quality, stylish, affordable websites for clients across all industries and sectors throughout Australia and internationally. From a single-page brochure-style online presence to larger e-commerce sites, we work with everyone from sole traders to larger businesses…

We aren’t your average web designer, either! As an expert SEO provider, we have the knowledge, experience, and distinct insight to understand the nitty-gritty of what makes an SEO-optimised website, and we build our sites with SEO principles at their foundation.

Focused on web design and development and search engine optimisation, Australian-owned SEOcycle knows our aspect of the digital industry inside out – and our clients benefit from our commitment to our niche. We also offer high-quality content writing services for website copy and blogging, researched and written by our co-owner who is Australian-born and tertiary educated, with over a decade of experience exclusively writing for hundreds of diverse clients.

Contact us today for a brand new website, a site update or refresh, website expansion, re-branding, or to optimise your existing site for SEO.

[1] https://siteefy.com/how-many-websites-are-there/