Photo by Raychan
Your business website is often the first interaction customers have with your brand. And good web design can help your brand make an excellent first impression.
But, on the flipside, bad design can drive many of your visitors away before they even get to know what you’re offering.
We’ll explore some common web design mistakes small business owners make and discuss how to avoid them, so your website can help take your brand’s success to new levels.
Why Good Web Design Matters
Creating an effective website goes beyond just putting up important information – you want to present it in a way that sparks people’s interest. Quality web design greatly impacts people’s experience of your business. The more dynamic it is, the better chances people will spend more time exploring everything you have to offer, and come back for more.
Effective design also makes sure that visitors can easily find the information they’re looking for – a proven way to build a reputation for reliability. In fact, 75% of people judge a company’s credibility based on its website’s design.
However, poor design can make your business feel outdated or, worse, unprofessional.
Let’s look more closely at some smart solutions to common web design mistakes.
The Curse of Clutter
One of the most common web design mistakes is overloading your website with information. Too much text, too many images, an overabundance of buttons – it can all overwhelm your visitors.
Clutter also makes it difficult for people to find what they’re looking for. And if folks get frustrated, they’ll probably beat a hasty retreat from your website. 38% of users won’t even engage with a website they find visually unappealing.
The Smart Solution: Focus on keeping your website simple. Remember, simplifying doesn’t mean dumbing it down. The goal is clarity and focus. Break down large chunks of information into smaller parts that visitors can appreciate more easily. Try using bullet points and headings to organize information more clearly. And feel free to include plenty of whitespace in order to give your design lots room to breathe.
Blurry Images
We’ve all heard the phrase: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” When it comes to the online world, the value of high-quality photos has, if anything, gone up.
Why? Because people recognize the subject and the quality of an image very quickly. And if your website has blurry, stretched, or low-quality photos, they’ll probably be the first thing your visitors notice. In fact, it takes people just 0.05 seconds to form an opinion about a website. That’s incredibly fast.
The Smart Solution: High-quality pictures. Put them front and center. Showcase your products and services in the best light – it’s a great way to capture people’s attention.
Also, take care when choosing image file formats on your website. And be sure to find the right balance between the quality and the size of your image – you don’t want your pictures to be so big that they slow down your page loading times. And, this is really important: When it comes to any images you publish online, make sure you have the rights to use them, to avoid any copyright infringement issues.
Mobile Mayhem
92.3% of online users are accessing the internet using a mobile device. For many, mobile devices have become the way to get online.
This creates a challenge – websites need to look and function perfectly no matter how they’re accessed, whether it’s from smartphones, tablets, or computers. But all those devices have screens that are different shapes and sizes.
Unfortunately, many older websites don’t take these differences into account. They might look fine on a computer monitor. But, if accessed on a smartphone for example, they become a jumbled mess. And, when 92.3% of visitors are using mobile devices to visit your site, you want them to have the best possible experience.
The Smart Solution: There’s a powerful answer to challenge of presenting your website effectively and accurately, no matter what kind of device is being used. Responsive web design. This allows your website to automatically adjust its layout and content based on screen size, so it looks sleek and professional every time.
Here at Smart Link Solutions, we specialize in using responsive web design to update older sites, and bring them to the cutting edge of what the internet has to offer. We look at the industry and determine what your most common visitors use for a device. For example, if you run an industrial company, and the common visitor is an engineer in an office, the desktop experience is probably more important than the mobile experience. For most other industries, however, we take a mobile-first approach to our web design.
Photo by Robert Katzki
Font and Color Fiasco
With so many interesting fonts to pick from, it can be hard to choose just one or two. Or five. Caution: Using too many fonts can make your website look chaotic and unprofessional.
The same issue pops up when it comes to using colors. After all, colors can be powerful tools – they evoke emotions and, thanks to color psychology, can influence how visitors feel about your brand, even how they interact with your site. But using too many colors, or a bunch of clashing hues, can be jarring, and harsh on the eyes.
Smart Solution: First, stick to two or three fonts—one for headings, one for body text, and possibly one for accents. Going back to what we discussed earlier, make sure your content is easily readable on all devices (especially that it’s not too small or stylized when viewed on a smaller smartphone screen). Not only that, but studies show that consistent use of a specific font can increase your brand recognition by up to 80%.
Keeping with the same theme, aim for a “less is more” approach when it comes to the colors you choose. For easy integration, you may want to base your website’s color palette on your company logo. If you don’t already have branding guidelines in place, now is a good time to start to think about creating a branding guide.
The Power of Simplicity
If there’s one theme that links these solutions, it’s the power of simplicity. Aim to make your website easy to understand and easy to enjoy, and you’ll be well on your way to avoiding most of the common web design mistakes.
Ready to take your website to the next level? You’ll find all the best solutions at Smart Link Solutions!
Our experts are here to help you achieve your business goals – in fact, we’ve been helping local businesses thrive in the digital world since 1994. With a focus on building strategies tailored specifically to your needs, we provide customer service that’s earned us 5-star reviews and A+ Better Business Bureau rating and accreditation.
To learn more, call 866 – 757 – 5100 or visit us at Smart Link Solutions!
Photo by Annie Spratt