For many business owners, having a website could be the difference between making money or losing money. With a website, business owners are able to drive traffic to their site using a number of marketing efforts (e.g., advertisements, PPC, Google Adwords, etc.). However, if your website leaves something to be desired when people visit, it may cost you a potential buyer due to its unappealing look. It is important for a website to be able to enhance the user experience. Below you will find seven web design mistakes you must avoid if you own a small business.
1. Building Website without Understanding Your Targeted Audience
As business owners, sometimes it’s very easy to overlook your targeted clients rushing to get your website up and running. Instead of concentrating all of your efforts getting the site completed, your initial tasks should include researching your target audience concerns and the things they enjoy doing. Once you have collected the necessary information, you can then begin to construct your site. If you’re targeting the youth, time well-spent on making the site mobile friendly and colorful would be a great idea, for instance.
2. Attempting to Target Everyone
Trying to target everybody will cause your website to look like a jumbled mess. As such, it would be very difficult to have room for every kind of audience. Instead, focus on those who visit your site on a regular basis and enhance the user experience.
3. Flashy Website Design
For a successful online presence, concentrate on your brand and promotion of your website, instead of a flashy design. Choose a simple but elegant design that can provide a pleasant UX. It should also include a responsive theme. In other words, those who use mobile devices to access your website should be able to do so without having to resize in order to see specific parts of your site. Give your users a reason to stay on your site and be able to navigate without difficulty.
4. No Clear Call-To-Action (CTA)
Sometimes being in a hurry to get visitors to their site, business owners neglect to tell their audience what they need to do next once they are on the site. If it isn’t obvious what your site is all about in the initial few seconds a visitor lands on your page, you could lose that potential customer forever.
So be sure to tell them what you want them to do. For example, using a menu heading that directs one to: “start here”, having an op-tin for signing up for your newsletter, and so on. The CTA should be highly visible and give clear directions on what to do next.
5. Outdated Content
Customers look for the latest and up-to-date information about your company, products and services. If your site lacks fresh content, your visitors may think that you’re no longer in business or lack initiative to keep your site with current content. Make sure that your content focuses on your client’s needs and keep current with the changes in your company. If your site has a blog section, provide fresh content at least once a week. In turn, it will help you drive traffic to your site as well as improve search engine optimization.
6. Broken Social Media Links
Broken social media links can be very annoying especially when someone hears about a great article or event that a lot of people are raving about, but can’t get to the site. When users encounter a broken link it can sometimes make a person not want to visit your site again and you might miss the opportunity to tell your visitor about your business’ goods and services as well getting them to be a new customer. So, double check to make sure that you have installed your social media buttons correctly to keep from losing customers.
7. Writing for Search Engines Instead of People
Oftentimes, Internet marketers have the mindset that by using a keyword over and over on their website will get it ranked higher. This couldn’t be further from the truth. It could get their sites penalized for overstuffing keywords and even blacklisted by Google. It’s okay to use keywords, but use them in such a way that it sounds natural. Remember, you’re writing for people and keep your content fresh and unique.
Conclusion
To be more effective in their branding and marketing efforts, it is imperative for them to have a web presence. Since people visit your site for a number of distinctive reasons, it is best to give those visitors what they are looking for and use your site to promote your products and/or services as well. One of the key things is to have a well-designed site to keep people from disregarding your website due to its lack of appeal.
As a small business owner, what are some of the web design mistakes you think other businesses must avoid? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.