Suppose you are a customer who wants to buy a product from an online store. What will you expect when you visit the website? You’d want the design layout to be visually appealing, filled with the required information, and easy-to-navigate CTAs. Most people want a clean and quick online shopping experience.

What happens when these are not up to your expectations? You get irritated and immediately leave the website, only to go to another one where everything is much easier to navigate. 

As a marketer, this is a loss of a potential lead. This scenario might adversely affect your sales. The design layout of a website is of crucial importance. It defines the fine line between the make-or-break scenario of the success of your e-commerce business.

Web design constitutes the webpage layout, content production, and elements of graphic design.  It is essential to cultivate an efficient web design in order to gain more leads. 

Oh and just a reminder, if you require professional help, our team of web design experts will be glad to help you out!

Here are the top 10 common web design mistakes that you should avoid.

1. Loading time is on the higher level

The world’s running a little low on patience and time. A prospect will not spend time on a website whose loading time may be more than 10 seconds. Therefore, you have to customize and alter some of the design elements. The loading time of your website should be fast in order to enhance the customer experience. Check out our blog on how you can improve your website speed.

In order to increase the loading time of your website, you can adopt the following methods:

• Optimize the images on your site, especially the ones on your landing page. Images and graphics should not consume a lot of time to load. Thus, scale down your images and alter your content accordingly.
• Heavy plugins and modules can also affect your site’s loading time. Ensure you keep these elements updated on a regular basis.
• Test your elements before you update your live website. If the plugins showcase any abnormal behaviour, make the necessary changes. You will be able to implement the required changes after conducting the tests.

You can use a few free tools like Google Speed Insights, GTmetrix, Pingdom Website Speed Test, that will aid in determining the website’s loading time.

2. The design and layout aren’t appealing

The whole purpose of your website is to impart information and make your viewers take action. This is how you convert your prospects. Your go-to element has to be CTAs, such as subscribing to weekly newsletters etc. If the pathway of your website has not been properly mapped out, your viewers will end up getting lost, unable to make any sense of your content. This will surely make them leave.

Your site design and layout of your elements have to be correctly formulated. The pathway and directions have to embrace the structure of a proper layout. This will ensure the viewers are spared the confusion and irritation. Make the experience as smooth and efficient as possible. You want these visitors to convert, and this is how you will succeed in your venture.

You can check out our blogs on the web design process and the latest web design trends to gain more insight into these topics.

3. Showcasing way too many advertisements

Although ads are essential to market your products and services, they also act as a distraction from the content on your site and decrease the value of your design.

If you have a truckload of ads on your web pages, they will keep flashing continuously to entice your viewers to look at them. 

It will result in a sensory overload that causes confusion and your bounce rates will jump beyond the face. Ensure that your web pages, especially your landing page, do not have too many ads displayed. Display the relevant ones on the sidelines of the page, so that the focus remains on your content, images, graphics and most importantly, CTAs.

4. Absence of SEO or Analytics

If you are not utilizing the essential tools of SEO and Analytics, you are missing out on a substantial number of leads and conversions on your website. SEO and Analytics will aid in the diagnosis of the efficiency of your website. These tools provide the ranking and positioning of your website in terms of search web traffic too. 

SEO will aid you to succeed in the endeavour to rank higher in the search results as viewers rarely bother to browse the second and subsequent pages of search results. Analytics is another useful tool to gauge the average duration of time spent on your website by a viewer. It also tracks the users’ activities on the web pages of your site. In case you have improved the design and layout of your website, you will be able to gauge its effects and performance. 

You can read more about SEO to be performed before website design and launch.

5. Font Size, Style and Colour matters

Different elements of graphic design, such as the font size, style, and colour, have a huge impact on the effective functioning of your website. Ensuring that your viewers can clearly read the content, the main navigation menus, CTAs, etc is essential. To maximize the level of readability, use contrast in your colours and fonts. Viewers will be able to gain maximum information from your site with the least efforts. Additionally, use resizable fonts on your website layout.

Use subtle colours for your text and background. This will enhance the comforts and experience of your viewers, whilst they are reading content on your website.

The layout should also be calibrated to adjust to a mobile’s interface. A responsive website will aid in increasing the comfort level of your viewers and spare the tedious efforts to scroll across the screen line by line. The page responsiveness for your textual content should be up to date as well.

6. Lack of H1 Headings or H2 Headings

Header Tags have to be included in your web pages. They are designed to draw the viewer’s attention towards the headings. The tags aid the search engines to find your website amongst the search results easily. This is accomplished by having helpful markers for bots to read and decipher the content of the page. If the bots are unable to do this, your pages might not even get indexed. For more information on indexability, check out our article on technical SEO.

The H1 and H2 headings allow your viewers to quickly scan the page to ensure the content matches their requirements. This will keep the users on the page for a longer duration and increases the chances of their conversion.

7. Missing Call to Actions

If your viewers do not know how to navigate through your web pages, you have to direct them. CTA buttons will help the viewers in this endeavour. Even though you are receiving a substantial amount of incoming traffic, if you are not able to fulfil your objectives, such as viewers buying your products or availing your services, then the traffic loses its value.

The most effective way of fulfilling the objective is by implementing and making your CTAs explicit. Your CTAs have to be vividly descriptive about what you want your viewers to do, what action to perform etc. This process is also known as conversion marketing. You can also apply a few conversion rate optimizations to improve your client onboarding process.

You have to follow through with your plans to make the viewer commit to a certain action.

8. No easy access to contact information

The contact information has to be displayed on your web page in such a manner that your users are able to view it easily. Your final aim is to convert these prospects into customers. Ensure you make the experience as smooth and hassle-free as possible.

You can have a separate CTA in your drop-down menu which will direct your users to the page containing contact data. Including contact forms also enhances this process.

9. Your website is not secure

If a website does not have a valid HTTPs certificate, it is not secure. You require HTTPS certificates to be considered safe by browsers. In case this is not the case, viewers will receive messages in their browsers cautioning them that your website is unsafe.

HTTPS encrypts the data between your website and your user so that valuable information is not intercepted by cyber hackers, rendering your information secure and private.

Consult your current hosting provider to give recommendations regarding website security. Host providers regularly update their platforms. Ensure that your plugins, themes, and other website elements are kept up to date.

Ensure that you implement the necessary changes to make your site and platform secure. These efforts go a long way to increasing your website’s authenticity.

10. Lack of fresh and updated content

A website with outdated content will not appeal to viewers who are looking for specifics to fulfil their requirements. If their needs are not fulfilled, they will seek out another platform which will meet their requirements. 

For example, if you publish a weekly column on your website, keep it running. Your column should not run out of fuel after a few weeks. 

No one wants their brains to be filled with old news. Ensure that you regularly update the content on your website, be it a blog or a news section.

To conclude…

The web design and layout impact your website’s performance tremendously. It’s crucial to inculcate the essential elements which will enhance your site and its constituents. By avoiding these simple yet common mistakes whilst planning your web design, you will witness considerable growth in your conversion rate and subsequent sales.

Stay ahead of your competition by following the best practices. It’s not very complicated, trust me. Just lookout for the mistakes on your website and bring in the necessary changes.

In case you’re looking for appealing, responsive and functional designs for your website, feel free to contact our team of web design experts.