The design of your website is one of the most important factors you’ll want to think about. If the design of your website is not up to scratch or in any way give your users a negative experience, you’re going to lose that traffic which can affect sales and ad revenue. While there are plenty of mistakes you could make or simply overlook when designing a website, this doesn’t have to be the case. Today, we’re going to explore ten of the most common mistakes people make when designing a website, so you don’t have to.

10 Common Mistakes

#1 – Use a Balanced Design

There are so many designs and ways you can balance the interface your website that your choices are endless. However, the important thing here is to make sure you’re using one at all. Look at your favourite websites and you’ll see them using a grid format, a 2/3 rule or the golden ratio.

Whichever you want to use, make sure you’re using one.

#2 – Clear Fonts

When choosing the fonts to use on your website, make sure you’re using a clear and easy to read font that’s a good size that everybody can read. This is for obvious reasons.

#3 – Implement User-Friendly Forms

If you have any forms on your website, you’ll need to make sure they’re quick and easy to fill out. Try to avoid asking users to fill in more information that you need because long registration processes are a quick turn-off because nobody wants to waste their time filling them out.

#4 – Optimise Navigation

When someone comes to your website, they’re going to want to make sure they’re able to find what they’re looking for quickly, which means making the navigation of your website as easy as possible. The best way to do this is to create easy and professionally laid out menus and to include a search option.

#5 – Use a User-Friendly Colour Scheme

One of the biggest mistakes that web designers make is not using an appropriate color scheme. Although you’ve got to think about branding, if you’re using weak colors that aren’t eye-catching, your users won’t be engaged with what you’re presenting them, and they’ll quickly lose interest.

“It’s important to think about what kind of image you’re trying to create, what message you’re trying to send and what your target audience is. Answer these questions should be able to help you choose the colors that are best for you,” shares Tina Harper, a web usability analyst for 1Day2Write and Academic Brits.

#6 – Consistency Across the Website

When users come to your website, it’s important for ease of use that you use the same design and functionality across the board on all your pages. If your homepage operates in a different way to your product pages or blogs pages, it’s going to be too much for someone to try and learn, and they’ll simply go elsewhere.

“Some of the things you’ll want to include here is using the same fonts, same header sizes, same icons and keep all your navigation features in the same places,” explains Tom Jefferson, a web developer for WriteMYX.

#7 – Clearly Display Contact Information

Regardless of what kind of website or business you’re running, an important thing to think about is letting people get hold of you quickly. Whether they’re a new customer or a returning customer, some people are only going to your website to get hold of you to ask or query something.

This means you need to put your contact information in a place where everybody can access it quickly. As a rule of thumb, have a contact page link in your menu, display your information at the top of the website, and have another link in your footer, since these are the main places people are going to think to look.

#8 – Implement White Space

You may feel like having white space on your website is a waste, but this helps to keep everything clean and minimal; ensuring your users don’t feel overwhelmed and confused when using your website.

When it comes to website design, the phrase ‘less is more’ can never be overstated.

#9 – Fast Loading Times

While you may love to have lots of features and high-quality images on your website, studies show that if your website is taking longer than three seconds to load, your customers are going to leave, and they won’t want to use what you’ve got.

People expect information and data instantly these days, so it’s vital that you’re giving it to them as quickly as they click the link.

#10 – Have a Mobile-Friendly Website

This is a point that should go without saying. We now live in an age where over 50% of all internet traffic takes place through mobile devices, so you need to make sure you’re catering to this demographic.

This means having a responsive website that looks good and operates well on all mobile devices. This includes both smartphones and tablets. If a mobile user has a bad experience, they’re simply going to take their business elsewhere, and you’re going to be missing out.

If you know some common mistakes related to website design just let us know in the comments section below.

Author

Joel Syder is web-oriented IT designer and writer at Origin Writings and BritStudent. He loves to help businesses get off the ground and blogs about his experiences with Australia 2 Write website.







