9 Web Design Mistakes You Can’t Make In 2024
Even if you think you have an excellent website for your business, given that 75% of consumers say that they make judgments about a company based on its online presence, now is the time to examine just how effective your website truly is.
Bad website design doesn’t just cost you business — it also hurts your company’s reputation.
Whether you’re considering revamping your current website or getting ready to launch it for the first time, make sure you read this post before it goes live.
In it, we’ll share nine of the biggest web design mistakes that even experienced companies often make — and who you can rely on to help you fix them.
Consume this content in video format.
1. Not Having a Mobile-Friendly Site
The hallmark of bad website design is the lack of a mobile-friendly site.
First of all, more people now access websites on mobile devices than on their desktop computers. But perhaps more importantly, search engines have adopted a “mobile-first” ranking algorithm.
This means that you’ll almost certainly fall below your competitors if your site isn’t optimized for mobile.
A few quick tips to increase the mobile-friendliness of your site include using larger font sizes and buttons that are easy to click with fingers, compressing images, enabling autocorrect forms, or even to create a mobile version of your website.
2. A Slow Loading Speed
Nearly half of consumers expect a website to load in two seconds or less — and if yours doesn’t, a visitor will click away from it.
Not only does this mean you’ll lose the sale, but this also increases your site’s bounce rate, penalizing you in search engine rankings.
Speed up your site by eliminating autoplay videos and pop-ups (after all, no one likes those anyway). You should also optimize your image sizes, enable compression and browser caching, and get rid of plugins you don’t really need.
3. Missing Your SSL Certificate
Nearly 30,000 websites are hacked into every single day.
It’s your responsibility to keep your customers’ data — and the website you’ve worked so hard to build — as safe and secure as possible.
If you want to protect your website, you should always have an SSL Certificate and use HTTPS. Not having them is irresponsible, will cost you consumer trust, and could potentially even lead to a lawsuit in the event of a major hack.
4. No Google Map
About 46% of all searches are related to local or location-based content. This means that people are likely in the mood to get in their cars or walk to your store to make a purchase or book an appointment.
Including a Google Map on your site boosts your likelihood of showing up in local search engine rankings, and makes it easy for your customers to find you.
5. Walls of Text
Terrible websites usually have one big thing in common: walls of text that look more like an English class essay than an easy-to-read piece of Internet content.
Use plenty of white space, images, bullet points, and headings to break up your content and aim to increase its overall readability.
6. Missing Contact Information
Poorly designed websites don’t just look bad and fail on a technical level.
They also don’t provide visitors with the information they need.
Your website absolutely must have your company’s NAP — name, address, and phone number — on not just your homepage, but on every internal page of your site as well. (After all, not everyone will access your site through your homepage.)
You should also include buttons that direct users to your social media platforms so they can give you a quick follow.
7. Broken Links
Especially if you often include non-competitor external links on your website, you need to frequently check these links to ensure that they’re still working.
No one likes being directed to a 404 Error page, and visitors will simply leave your website. Plus, consistently having broken links on your site will get you penalized by search engines.
8. A Lack of Proper Organization
Confusing websites fail to take intuitive navigation into account and are completely disorganized.
If you have a blog, you need to categorize and arrange your post (and have a list of your most popular articles, too.) Any images you include on your site should be clickable. Your best-selling products/services should be featured on the homepage.
Your site should contain a menu at the top of every internal page with clickable links.
The goal is to make it as easy as possible for visitors to find what they need — which makes them much more likely to make a purchase or take some kind of action on your site.
9. A Failure to Optimize for SEO
Bad web design turns off your customers from the get-go, but a failure to take SEO optimization into account means that your customers won’t even get to your site at all.
Remember that including keywords, internal links, headings/subheadings, and even frequently updating your website through new blog posts all help to boost your SEO score. However, most people don’t know how to optimize for SEO on their own.
That’s why you should always work with professional web design and SEO companies who know exactly what they’re doing — and are ahead of the latest digital marketing trends.
Don’t Let Bad Website Design Bring Your Business Down
If any of the mistakes on this list seem familiar to you, then it’s time to face the reality that your bad website design has already lost you more than a few customers.
But don’t worry.
When placed in the right hands, your website can come back with a vengeance — and leave your competitors shaking in their boots.
Looking for the top website design, SEO, and digital marketing services?
If so, then our incredible team at Oak City Tech would love to have the chance to work with you.
Whether you need help with branding, social media marketing, content development, graphic design, website design, or another digital marketing service, you can rely on us to get the job done.
Reach out to us today to get started on coming up with an epic plan for your business.
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