In the modern-day commercial world, having a well-designed website has become more than a necessity. It is also a fact that nowadays, people judge the credibility of your website according to its design.
Also, if users are finding any inconsistencies in your website’s design, they’ll lose trust in your business. According to a study conducted by WebFX, 75% of your company’s trustworthiness comes only from the design of its website.
That’s why it is important to avoid certain mistakes that could possibly boost your bounce rates and are detrimental to your sales and profits.
In this article, you’ll explore the top mistakes shared by every digital marketing agency in Toronto to avoid while designing your website.
Website Design: Mistakes to Avoid for Better Conversion Rates
Sometimes, mistakes happen when you develop a website. No matter how minimal they may seem to be, even the smallest of the mistakes can cause huge losses. Some of these mistakes include:
- Poor Website Navigation:
Easy navigation is the strongest foundation of website design. It needs to be simple and sophisticated enough to allow users to find information they’ve been looking for very conveniently.
A complex website navigation can leave the users frustrated as they won’t be able to find the relevant information. This will compel users to abandon your site. This further renders all the time and effort you took to develop your website useless.
- Slow or No Response on a Website:
Mobile-responsiveness has now become something that is more than just a necessity. Research has also found that nowadays, 56.96% of traffic is generated by mobile devices, especially smartphones and tablets.
According to experts, users are visiting websites from multiple devices like phones, laptops, tablets, and even televisions. If your content doesn’t look good in any of these screens, visitors will exit your website, thus potentially increasing your bounce rates.
- Improper Placement of CTAs:
Call-to-action quotes are the digital salespeople of your business website. They guide your visitors towards becoming customers. However, random placement of CTAs on your website can lower your chances of conversions and increase the bounce rates further.
However, experts claim that if you place CTAs at a strategic position, you’ll be able to drive up to 120% increase in conversions. Studies further showcase that most users tend to focus on the left hand side of the webpage.
- Large and Unoptimized Images:
The biggest blunder you may end up committing towards your website is uploading heavy, unoptimized images. It will directly impact the performance and user experience of your website.
Unoptimized images often come with unnecessary file sizes. When such images get added to your website, they can slow down your website’s loading speed. This can be really disruptive, especially when your users want instant information while using your website.
Google also keeps a tab on your website’s speed, according to which it will rank your content. At the same time, you can also optimize your images for your website using various compressing tools, which will help you improve the loading speed of your site.
- Disruptive Pop-Ups:
Pop-ups are the most proven way to collect future leads, if implemented correctly. It can further increase your email subscribers upto 1375%. However, pop-ups that interrupt and leave your visitors annoyed can lead to lower rankings on SERPs.
To deal with such situations, you can develop pop-ups that are visually pleasant and highly converting. Furthermore, you can set a time frame for a pop-up to appear on a website, 30 seconds after a user enters it.
- Absence of a 404 Page:
Not integrating a 404 page is a major mistake while designing and developing a website. It can turn a small glitch into a major catastrophe that hampers user experience.
Let’s say a visitor has clicked into a broken link while surfing your website. As a result, the visitor will meet a dead end that displays a generic error message. At such a point, the visitor will be left confused, thinking where to go. This will unfortunately prompt the visitor to leave your website.
However, if you have a 404 page aligned with your brand, you will be able to redirect your visitors easily to the expected destination. You can convert your visitors’ frustration with a smile.
Furthermore, a thoughtfully designed 404 page can work as a roadmap back to engagement for your user. This further retains their interest even when there’s an error displaying on their screens.
- Selecting an Unclear Font:
Selecting a font that cannot be read due to its size, style, or colour, is like hiring a guide who cannot share clear and audible instructions. By using such fonts in your website, you’ll further make navigation harder for the users.
You should remember that even a conventional font can become unclear if its size is too small for convenient reading or if there’s less than enough contrast between the text and the colour of the background.
- Poorly Used Whitespace:
Whitespace is an area on your webpage that isn’t marked. It provides a visual breathing room for the eye, which is a break in the sea of images and text.
A poorly used whitespace can lead to a webpage that is disorganized and totally cluttered. When visual elements and space gets crammed together without leaving enough space to separate and highlight each of them, your website becomes hard to navigate.
- Slow Page Loading Speed:
Even a 100 millisecond delay in loading your webpage can result in lower conversion rates. Google also indicates that if the loading speed of a website goes from 1 to 5 seconds, it will result in 90% bounce rates.
To Summarize
Website design is the foundation of an online business. It involves various aspects like navigation, site loading speed, user experience, and most importantly, user interface. If any of these aspects go wrong, it can lead to severe losses for a business website.
That’s where you need to avoid the abovementioned mistakes that are detrimental to your online business. By avoiding them, you’ll be able to ensure an overall exceptional user experience and drive more sales and profits.
Also Read: How to Get on the First Page of Google Search: Expert Tips from David Aziz