75% of consumers admit to making judgments on a company’s credibility based on website design. It stands to reason then that website design mistakes will have a negative effect on your business’ bottom line.
You’ve probably experienced bad website design. It’s not too difficult to find these days given that there are a lot of misinformed website customers being sold inferior websites. We know what it feels like to land on a poorly developed site and when website design mistakes happen, we don’t like to be on the receiving end.
Neither do your customers.
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8 website design mistakes that will cost you customers.
You only get one chance to make a good first impression. Don’t blow it by making these avoidable website design mistakes.
1. Your website doesn’t immediately convey what the company does and why they should choose you.
It takes about 50 milliseconds (that’s 0.05 seconds) for users to form an opinion about your website that determines whether they’ll stay or leave.
This mistake is probably the biggest offender. Why? You can get everything else right, but if a user can’t make a justified decision about why they should choose your business over a competitor, they’re going to click away.
46% of buyers will immediately leave a website if it’s not clear what the company does. Keep your visitor interested by immediately conveying what’s in it for them.
2. Your website is not mobile-friendly (aka: “Responsive”)
Recent Google studies confirm that ANY business—whether you’re small, medium, or enterprise—needs to have a mobile-friendly website if they want to gain a competitive edge now and maintain it later.
- 57% of all US online traffic now comes from smartphones and tablets (BrightEdge)
- 69% of smartphone users also say that they are more likely to buy from companies with mobile sites that easily address their questions or concerns (BrightEdge)
- 50% of B2B search queries today are made on smartphones and will grow to 70 percent by 2020.
- 3 out of 4 smartphone owners turn to mobile search first to address their immediate needs (Google)
Today’s consumer is much more connected and impatient than five years ago. What does the modern consumer want from your website? They want it to be fast, secure, immediately accessible from a mobile device, and full of great, mobile-friendly content.
3. Your website takes more than three seconds to load
39% of people will stop engaging with a website if images won’t load or take too long to load. (Source)
Pages with a longer load time tend to have higher bounce rates and lower average time on page. Longer load times have also been shown to negatively affect conversions.
In July 2018, Google rolled out “The Speed Update” for all users, desktop and mobile, indicating that site speed is an important search ranking factor.
People want to be able to find answers to their questions as fast as possible — studies show that people really care about the speed of a page. – Google Webmaster Central Blog
Google has indicated site speed (and as a result, page speed) is one of the signals used by its algorithm to rank pages. And research has shown that Google might be specifically measuring time to first byte as when it considers page speed. In addition, a slow page speed means that search engines can crawl fewer pages using their allocated crawl budget, and this could negatively affect your indexation.
4. Your contact info isn’t easily accessible.
Customers need to get in touch with you effortlessly.
More often than not, website owners fail show their phone number prominently in the header, footer, or on a dedicated contact page.
This is one of the easiest website design mistakes to avoid.
Customers do not want to work to find out how to get in touch with you. Reduce the friction between you and a sale by making your contact info easily accessible.
5. Your website is not HTTPS secured.
Not having a secure website is like waving a red flag at search engines and cautious website visitors. And no, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have an e-commerce site. If you ask for any personal information—from email and phone number to first and last name—your site needs to be secured. If not, Google (and other search engines) will push your website further down in the search results and limit your online visibility.
- Google Chrome labels HTTP sites as insecure, warning users that the connection is not safe.
- HTTPS has been a signal in Google’s ranking algorithm since 2014.
6. Your website contains poor quality content.
It’s crucial to have a well-constructed website but it’s also just as important to fill your site with content that attracts visitors, engages them and turns them into buyers. It’s important to maintain a solid digital strategy that includes what your content will consist of and where it will be placed.
Think of your new or refreshed website as a house you’re building for your customers.
- The site structure and host server is your foundation.
- The theme, colors, font, and pages are the framing and drywall.
- The content is the furniture and fixtures.
You wouldn’t invite people to your house without having furniture for them to feel at home in, right? The same goes for the content on your site:
- Copy written with the customer in mind.
- A clear and concise About Page.
- Well-placed calls to action.
- A blog with helpful tips and relevant buyer questions answered.
- A great overall customer experience.
7. Your website lacks a clear call to action.
A missing call to action is one of the most common website design mistakes we see.
The best website user experience should tell a customer the what, where, and how.
- What they need to do.
- Where they need to go.
- How they can buy now.
8. Your website is not optimized for search engines (SEO).
There is no magic formula to obtain high search engine rankings and results definitely do not happen overnight.
Old school SEO was a mix of “stuffed” keywords, thin content, and use of haphazard backlinks (whether credible or not). Anyone making these web design mistakes can get penalized and lose site authority today.
Search engine algorithms have grown to be a lot smarter now and website value is based on much more.
These are some of the website design aspects that should be optimized to search.
- Page titles
- Meta descriptions
- H1 headings and H2 subheadings
- Reader-friendly
- Natural language keyword phrases
- Consistent new content
- Social engagement (content shared on social media, traffic directed back to your site from social)
Your website is your virtual storefront. Today’s modern, hyper-connected consumer expects a friendly, engaging, information-packed and friction-free experience. They won’t settle for less because, frankly, they don’t have to. Use these tips when working with your own designer to improve your customers’ experience.
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