Are You Making These 5 Web Design Mistakes?
In the age of digital marketing, your website is your primary tool to drive sales and educate new viewers about your service-based business and offerings. Having a clear, organized and on-brand website are only a few first steps to ensuring that potential customers have a good experience while they learn more about you. Because websites are so robust (especially if you’re not a web designer!), it’s easy to overlook simple mistakes that might drive customers and sales away. Let’s take a look at a few common website mistakes that businesses make, and we’ll walk you through how to fix them.
1. No mobile optimization
Believe it or not, nearly 60% of all website traffic comes from mobile devices*! This is the reason that websites are commonly designed with a mobile-first approach. A few ways to improve your mobile website view would be designing an easy to use mobile navigation menu, focus on simple designs and layouts, double check the legibility of your font sizes, and optimize your image files to reduce slow loading. One of the things we love most about Showit, our favorite web design platform, is how easy it is to create a unique and pixel-perfect mobile experience!
*Statistic from Exploding Topics
2. Unclear Navigation
Speaking of navigation, it should be extraordinarily easy for your website viewers to jump between pages and know exactly where they’re ending up. Don’t hide important links on the footer of your web page or within pages. You should also ensure that each link in your navigation has a clear call to action. For example, if you want someone to inquire to learn more about your services, label the button “inquire” or “contact,” NOT something ambiguous like “chat” or “more.”
3. No Image alt text
If you want your website to rank higher in google searches, improving your SEO should be a top priority. One quick and easy way to boost SEO is with image alt text. This consists of writing short descriptions of the image that someone is viewing. This text isn’t visible by the viewer, but is meant to convey why the image exists on that webpage. It is read aloud to visually impaired users with screen reader software, and also displays on the page if the image fails to load.
4. No keyword research
Keywords are another great way to improve your search engine optimization. I highly recommend working with a copywriter or SEO specialist who can do some deep diving into which keywords will perform the best for your business specifically. Scatter these keywords throughout the copy on your website to boost performance and help viewers get a deeper understanding of what your brand offers. Having a blog on your website is an amazing way to keep copy minimal on the main pages of your site which still make the most of keyword-rich copy. A company whose brand and website we designed who does an amazing job with their blog is DH Estetika.
5. No calls to action (CTAs)
Having amazing copy written on your website can only get you so far without any CTAs. You need to tell someone directly how to take action once they’ve read your website content. Use phrases like “book now,” “view our services,” “shop new products,” or “inquire to learn more,” to encourage viewers to continue browsing your website or contact you directly. Don’t assume the viewer knows what steps to take without your guidance!
We know that websites (as beautiful and helpful as they are) can be a huge undertaking for business owners to design and build for themselves. At Hello June, we design websites that are beautifully on-brand, designed to convert, and one-of-a-kind just for your business. Looking to boost those conversions? Fill out our inquiry form and we can set up a time to chat to see if our website services are a good fit for you!
