Blaming the web design mistakes is a common behavior when a website faces serious challenge in respect of user feedback, reduced traffic flow and traffic to business conversion ratio. Either for a small business or for a blogger or for an organizational website visitors and their response is the elemental force and most crucial factor to the success of the website and if they do not stay on your pages or just avoid getting on your website or if simply you are ignored by the search engine by poor design attributes resulting in disastrously drowned level of web traffic, then the otherwise ripe fruits of your labor in other web aspects is lost. There are many philosophies on classifying the web design mistakes but some mistakes are very common to have most disastrous effects on the performance and responsiveness of the website. Let us have a look at the top 10 web design mistakes.
- Poor Navigation
- Content is in back foot
- Absence of clarity
- Absence of a strong image and brand message
- Slow page speed
- Bad color contrast
- Absence of a clear call to action
- Less readable and more flashy
- Disturbing self starting videos and music
- No focus on SEO
Millions of websites suffer from this too common mistake of designing a website that would be perceived by users as hackling enough. The user has a specific purpose when he visits a website that can be influenced by other presented content and material but everything should be presented in a way so that you never feel to lose too much time in searching for something or getting in areas of the site from where retracting to the home page is getting difficult except for constantly clicking on the back link. However big and multifarious your site becomes in content all the pages must have direct and clear route to get back to the home page and if possible to other areas as well with simple and easy indexed page links.
Among the web design mistakes nothing is as severe as presenting the content in back foot. Web users visit your website primarily for content and if behind the so called smart layout, design attributes and advertisements your content maintain a low key visibility and prominence the whole point of getting web traffic is lost since even if you hit search ranks you cannot expect a better conversion of traffic to actual business outcome. Presenting content most clearly and giving it utmost importance to your presentation is the key factor to your web success.
There are hundreds of websites that suffer from simply because of absence of a clean, use specific design attribute and looks more often as a clutter of too many aspects trying to attract attention. In such cases the site is severe enough to experience decreasing rate of traffic and traffic mobility typically limited to home page view that does not sustain for long. You cannot expect to strike a chord or two in the user's appreciation without removing the clutter and looking yourself afresh with clear and definite design.
One of the most repeated web design mistakes on the web is the absence of a strong brand image of the website and the message relating to the offering and uniqueness. Brand image and a message regarding what we are good at and what we offer to you are the three important things to let the visitor know once he steps inside your site. Even a bold, clear one liner detailing of what your website is driven at can really be enough to situate the visitor in the perfect perspective to relate to your site. Why the visitor should feel that he has hit the right place on the web for what he was looking for, your brand image and message must reply this question in a clear, impressive and if possible innovative way.
Uploading speed of the website and the web pages is a serious matter of concern in regard to getting sustainable web traffic. Globally it has been observed that most of the visitors get away from the page if it takes more than 2 seconds to begin to upload. Too much images on the home page that have not been modified as for faster upload speed can ruin your traffic conversion and in the long run your search rank as well. Remember too much flashy attributes can make you appear ultimately dull with your page upload speed being increasingly slow.
How the website looks is after all central to web design and consequently one of the common web design mistakes also occur in this area only. Color is itself an indication of web identity and so you cannot run the risk of creating contradictory impression with a color scheme that does not go with the kind of domain you are dealing with. For instance if your health website appears in all that flashy color gizmo that make it look too much fashionable, do you think you are doing justice to your visitors? Similarly a news website that is dressed in bright color contrast more like a fairy tale color scheme would equally be detested by the majority of users if not all. Experimenting with color scheme and contrast can really make you pay very dearly and so it is advisable to go with the standard and to avoid too sharp contrast.
For a business driven website or for a website for which every visitor must be addressed accordingly to come up with better traffic to business convertibility, it must have a clear call to action. It is more like landing on a showroom or supermarket where even though you do not intend to purchase anything in particular except just browsing through few goods, the salespeople and merchandising are cleverly geared towards your attention. The design of the website must incorporate certain aspects that make the visitor involve in one way or the other.
Would you feel comfortable as a reader if too many distractions make the readable parts significantly overrun and unclear? Yes, among the top 10 web design mistakes this one is of utmost significance because quite often the content loses its point through a flashy presentation that may look good but not at all value adding to the reader's experience. Some websites uses slide show with a poor content visibility making the reader frustrated enough to leave the site and search for the content elsewhere.
If you think self starting videos and music while uploading a page is your last resort to make the user listen to your advertisement forcefully then probably you are unknowingly becoming detested. Nobody likes anything to run and create noise as long as he does not want it to and so all sorts of self starting media can hurt the sensibility of the user besides posing technical difficulties like slowing the page upload speed, etc.
Our discussion on web design mistakes won't be complete without referring to this too common problem across many websites. In spite of great in design attributes and perfect in many regards just simply because of their poor show in SEO focused content to hit search ranks they suffer from lack of consistent traffic flow. Yes, SEO is no longer is a specialist's business, but it is the very basis on which all web designs make their presence felt. Your SEO in the ultimate sence decides on your traffic flow and business conversion more than anything else.