Nowadays, you can liken a business website to a brick-and-mortar store. If any people need anything from your business, they would rather visit your site first than go to your physical shop or office. After all, shopping and transacting online have become norms.
Because of that, having a website for your business is necessary. And for you to proliferate online, your site should strike a good first impression on your visitors. The moment they see the first page, they should be convinced to stay and do business with you.
Unfortunately, this is often easier said than done. Even professional website designers can still commit mistakes and produce poor results. As someone who’s building a business website or a person who’s commissioning a pro to develop one for you, here are some common mistakes that you should know about and prevent.
1. There’s Too Much Going On
Your website isn’t going to stand out from the competition if there’s too much going on on every page in it. Say that you have a simple login page. In it, there’s an animated banner on top. The cursor transforms into a custom image. Then there’s background music playing. All of those things can distract and even annoy visitors.
Know that less is always more, and you shouldn’t have a site that just seems to be bursting with unnecessary colors and graphics. Visitors who become annoyed with how busy your website is will immediately leave it within seconds of opening a page. Right there and then, you lose potential paying customers. Think of these as customers walking out from your store upon arrival.
With that in mind, here are some compelling reasons why you should strive to keep your website as simple as possible:
- Simple websites are timeless and evergreen. Regardless of seasons and events, your website will never look dated or inappropriate.
- Simple websites are easier to navigate. Because of that, it’s more accessible to a wider range of customers and visitors, especially those who’re technologically challenged.
- Simple websites perform faster and more efficiently as fewer design elements, which your visitors’ computers and browsers need to download and render, are present.
If you’re keen on achieving a simple website design and you don’t know where to begin, it’s always best to start by choosing the best web developer within your local area.
2. Not Making It Easy For Customers To Contact You
A ‘contact us’ section may be one of the most neglected sections on a website, but for a business, you should put more attention to it. Remember that most visitors and customers will try to visit this page if they need to transact, contact, or request assistance from you. And if you have a badly designed ‘Contact Us’ section or if you don’t have one at all, you’re going to lose current and potential customers. Also, make sure that it’s easily found and accessible and contains all the necessary information visitors need to know.
Typically, the links to the ‘Contact Us’ section should be placed on your top navigation bar and footer navigation section at the bottom. Lastly, the ‘Contact Us’ itself should contain the following pieces of information, such as:
- Physical locations
- Business e-mail address
- Toll-free phone number
- Social media account handles
3. Poor Use Of White Space
As its name implies, white space refers to empty spaces—it doesn’t necessarily need to be white—on your website. Many are unaware of its importance in web design and think that having it will make a website look dull.
White space leads your visitor’s vision around your website. It also gives them time to rest their eyes from text, graphics, and other elements in your site. Aside from that, below are the other reasons you need to utilize white space properly in your business website:
- It improves comprehension as it makes your website easily scannable and improves legibility.
- It may, together with proper application of search engine optimization, increase interaction and conversion rate as it helps visitors to find what they’re looking for.
- It makes your website look more professional as it’s a lot tidier and more organized.
Conclusion
To rise above the competition of thousands of websites on the web, it’s important to build a well-designed website. This is non-negotiable. And to make that happen, you must make sure that you or your developer doesn’t commit to these common mistakes.
A well-built website can get you ahead of your competition, as it can let you drive more customers to your business and away from your competitors, which directly translates to increased market share. Again, if you or your team is still in the process of creating your business website, be mindful enough not to commit the mistakes above.