Part 2: Are You Making the Biggest Web Design Mistakes on Your Company Website?

Last week CueCamp shared an article discussing the top five mistakes companies make with their company website. In this article, we want to continue, sharing the final five mistakes that can keep you from creating leads through your company website.

#6: Company Website Pages Take Forever to Load

If your website does not load in an expected amount of time, users will leave. It may sound like an unreasonable ultimatum, but it’s true: 47 percent of customers on e-commerce websites expect their site to load in two seconds or less, and 40 percent will abandon a site that takes more than three seconds to load.

Do yourself a favor – check out Google’s Page Speed tools to make sure your website is as quick as it needs to be. If it’s not, consider either upgrading your hosting or cutting content that takes to long to load from your website’s pages. A variety of things like interactive ads, uncompressed images, and JavaScript can negatively impact page load times.

#7: Unnecessary Content

It’s incredible how some people have a knack for talking your ear off without saying anything remotely useful. That’s not a good talent to have, especially online where users are bombarded with information.

From a Web design perspective, that means that if your website is loaded with unnecessary information, or the sitemap is filled with too many bells and whistles, people are likely to get frustrated and ditch out for a competitor. Be succinct and keep it simple. Lengthy text should be shortened, making use of headings and subheadings to break up the text and help users scan through page content.

#8: Neglecting Mobile Users

It’s somewhat baffling how many webmasters still don’t see the importance of mobile. After all, mobile searches now outrank desktop searches, and smartphones are quickly supplanting computers as the browsing device of choice. If you haven’t taken active measures to support mobile – for instance, through the implementation of responsive web design – you need to pull yourself out of the past immediately. Mobile-optimized content is vital for good usability on the mobile devices that your visitors use to visit your website. Mobile website visitors should be able to easily scan and read important content, as well as complete basic tasks like finding your contact information.

#9: Missing Your Target

As a web marketer, you understand how important it is to know your target audience. You’ve probably spent hours creating customer profiles and figuring out how to attract consumer attention. This is just as significant in web design. The way your website looks and “feels” will naturally attract a certain type of visitor. Some websites are highly professional; some are trendy and hip, while others are fun and bubbly. Sometimes, a website tries to speak to too many audiences. If you try to please too many types of customers, you can end up with a confusing website that appeals to none of them. Identify and profile your target audience, and cater to their needs.

#10: Poor Navigation

Navigation issues will kill your website’s popularity fast. We live in an age where everything is delivered to us in an instant, and anything longer will make visitors abandon your site. Making your navigation menu difficult to find or use are common web design mistakes. Have you ever been to a website and you can’t find the menu or a search bar? It’s quite frustrating. Make sure the navigational aspects of your website are easily understood and even easier to notice.

Conclusion

If you want to avoid frustrated users that abandon your website, you need the following features:

  • Support for mobile users
  • A clean, crisp interface
  • No excess information; provide users only what you know they’ll want to see
  • Fast load times
  • A clear and consistent brand message throughout
  • Professional, high-quality content that is free of mistakes (e.g. broken links, spelling errors)

To get started fixing up your website, you can check out our top 5 tips for creating a powerful homepage for your website. In addition, if you would like your website reviewed by one of our experts for free, please visit CueCamp and request your free marketing analysis video. You will receive a 5-10 minute video that analyzes the usability and marketing effectiveness of your website, delivered within 48 hours.

Written by: Michel Ann Sharritt
Posted by: CueCamp

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