The evolution of the internet has provided people with a lot of opportunities to make money nowadays.
Individuals, Small Businesses, Medium Businesses and even large Corporations rely heavily on the internet to help them gain and secure more business from their target demographic.
Having a dedicated website for your business had almost become a necessity today, directly relating with people’s expectation of obtaining knowledge on-demand as quickly as possible.
Websites that take advantage of good design, clean code and awesome usability not only go on to generate you more business they can also help to make you look exceedingly more professional among your competition.
There are some key mistakes we often see here at NINE2 when people have used tools like Wix to build their first website (we’ve also done an article on that too).
We want to help businesses avoid these common mistakes, hence why we’ve created this article.
So, without further a do let’s run through our Top Ten common website design mistakes list!
1. Failure to Understand the Target Audience
The first and arguably most common mistake new businesses make when building their first website (and long after to be brutally honest) is not grasping and actively adapting their content to suit their correct target audience.
Some people either write in a manner that is not suited to the age or demographic of people who will ultimately buy their products or service or try to come across too ‘friendly’ or informal when writing content.
Understanding who your target audience are whether they’re male, female, British, American, Young, Old or otherwise can help massively when targeting your content to suit the people YOU want to sell to.
I’ll throw in this picture of ‘The Marmite Man’, Mr Donald Trump, president of The United States of America – A man quite famous for preaching about anything and everything in the vein hope to win voters.
2. Confusing Navigation
A simple task when building a website but one that, again, is often overlooked.
Make sure your page navigation is EASY to use and fool-proof.
We’re not saying everyone who uses the internet is a fool… but things are often overlooked!
Your main menu is usually the first thing people see and the first thing they interact with.
Don’t make it hard to use!
3. Use of Flashy Web Design
Web design is a very important aspect of any website. But businesses fail to realise that a flashy web design isn’t going to take their website anywhere. They follow a common misconception of using web design for attracting prospects while the website’s marketing is responsible for it. Furthermore, websites that have flashy and colourful web designs don’t look good on tablets and mobile devices.
4. Overuse of Colours and Patterns
According to many web designers in the UK, web design for business websites should be simple and to-the-point because simplicity makes prospects feel comfortable while surfing through them. This is why web designers in Norwich and Norfolk along with many others all across the UK prefer to avoid the overuse of lots of colours and various patterns.
5. Auto-Play Videos
Another thing which people don’t usually like while surfing the website of a business is the feature of automatic playing videos. Such videos usually avoid them and even entice them to leave the website. This is a really big mistake for websites of new businesses but it can become a powerful marketing ploy once the business cements its place among competitors and garner some loyal customers.
6. Focus on a Lot of Animations and Graphics
Graphics and animations make a website slow which increases its loading time. As mentioned in a previous point, people like things instantly so a website that takes more than the usual time to load isn’t going to help your business. This is surely a mistake new businesses need to avoid while building their first website.
7. Use of Popup Forms
Popup forms are a neat trick for gaining new subscribers but don’t be pushy. In the start, new businesses should avoid using popup forms and making the inevitable mistake of pushing away prospective customers. Moreover, if overly used, popup forms can really deteriorate the professional image of a business.
8. Poor to No Call to Action
Once the website of a new business starts getting visitors, then it’s all about making them buy the products and services the business offers. So, to make the visitors buy the products, subscribe to the newsletter, and contact the business, it must efficiently place a clear and effective Call to Action. Because a clear Call to Action leads visitors to the next step.
9. Failure to Provide Contact Information
Surprisingly, failure to provide contact information is a common mistake that new businesses make while building their websites. Contact information is essential because the moment a visitor decides to purchase a product or a service of a business, they would want to have the business’ contact information. A simple Contact Us page would rectify this mistake.
10. Scammed by Web Developers
New businesses rush into the process of building their websites and hire web developers without doing proper research on their business’ needs and requirements. They also fail to research the average cost and eventually get scammed. At least 1 out of every 10 new businesses pays a lot more for their website than they should have paid for, only due to lack of research.
At NINE2 we offer free quotations and advice for you up front. There’s no nasty, hidden fees and everything is clear and concise.
So, are you starting a new business and require your own website with impeccable Web Design in Norwich, Norfolk?
Feel free to get in touch and we will be happy to help you launch a mistake-free website!
(Psssttt…there’s a contact form at the bottom of this post)
Until next time… thanks for reading!
