According to research, your business website has about 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression. You see, your website is the first interaction potential customers have with your business. In other words, first impressions matter — a lot. If you want your website to look great, so you need to work with the best website design services in Houston.
That’s why a common goal for businesses is to create a website that accurately reflects their brand and engages visitors. The thing is, your website is essentially the face of your business. It needs to be well-designed, user-friendly, interactive, and informative. If you’d like more information about seo agency be sure to visit EngineRoom.
While there are endless ways to design a website, there are also many common website redesign mistakes businesses make that can hurt their chances of success.
To help you avoid making the same mistakes, we’ve put together a list of the top ten common website redesign mistakes businesses make. By avoiding these mistakes, you can ensure that your website redesign is a success!
1. Lacking an Effective Redesign Strategy
Creating a new website design is not as simple as it may seem. There needs to be a strategy in place that takes into account your goals, target audience, budget, etc.
Without an effective strategy, businesses often end up making common mistakes such as:
- Not knowing their target audience
- Not setting clear goals
- Not understanding their website’s analytics
- Overlooking the competition
- Not budgeting properly
- The timeline for the redesign project
- Who will be responsible for each task
- How you will measure the success of the redesign
All of these common mistakes can be avoided by having a clear and concise redesign strategy in place.
2. Failing to Address Slow Page Loading Speeds
Did you know that almost 40% of people will abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load? This makes website speed one of the most important aspects of web design. Consumers are becoming more impatient by the day, with a current attention span of just eight seconds.
A slow website will not only lose you customers, but it will also hurt your ranking on search engines. Google has stated that site speed is a ranking factor, which means that if your website takes too long to load, you could end up losing valuable organic traffic.
Slow loading speeds can be caused by various factors, such as large images, excessive use of plugins, and poorly written code. If you want people to stay on your website, you need to make sure it loads quickly.
There are several ways to improve your website speed, such as compressing images, using a content delivery network (CDN), and minifying CSS and JavaScript files. If you’re not sure how to do this yourself, you can always hire a web development agency that specializes in website speed optimization.
3. Failing to Address Website Responsiveness
In the age of the mobile-first, a mobile-friendly website is non-negotiable. Not only do you risk turning away potential customers on smaller screens, but Google also punishes non-responsive websites with lower search engine rankings.
Website responsiveness means that your website should be accessible and easy to use on all devices, including laptops, desktop computers, tablets, and smartphones.
You need to keep a few things in mind when designing a responsive website, such as using large fonts and buttons that are easy to click on, making sure the layout adjusts well to different screen sizes and using images that resize automatically.
If you’re unsure how to design a responsive website, you can use professional web design tools and services such as Sitecore development.
4. Overloading the Website With Ads
Ads can be a great way to monetize your website and generate income, but they can also drive away potential customers if you’re not careful. The key is to strike a balance between ads and content.
If your website is overloaded with ads, it’ll be difficult for users to find the content they’re looking for. The best way to find the right balance is to experiment with different ad placements and see what works best for your website and your audience.
You can also use Google AdSense’s Auto Ads feature, which automatically places ads on your website in places most likely to generate revenue. The trick is to ensure your pop-up ads are relatively small and that ads are above the fold to avoid distracting your users.
5. Not Optimizing for Search Engines
SEO and web design go hand in hand, and your website will not thrive without it. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website so that it ranks higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Some common SEO techniques include using the right keywords, optimizing your website title and meta tags, creating high-quality content, and building backlinks. If you’re not sure how to do this yourself, you can always hire an SEO expert or agency to help you out.
Remember, optimizing your website for search engines is an ongoing process, not a one-time thing. You need to continuously monitor your website’s SEO to ensure it’s up-to-date and to make sure you’re not making any common mistakes.
6. Using Poor Call-To-Actions (CTAs)
Your call-to-action (CTA) is one of the most important elements of your website, yet so many businesses get it wrong. A CTA is a statement or button that encourages users to take a specific action, such as signing up for your newsletter or downloading a white paper.
However, many CTAs are poorly designed, with unreadable text or confusing messages. Others are placed in strategic locations on the website, such as above the fold or near the end of an article.
To design effective CTAs, you need to use actionable language, make them visible and easy to find, and test different CTA placements to see what works best for your website.
7. Placing Your Contact Information in a Hard to Find Place
Your contact information should be easy to find on your website, yet so many businesses make it hard for users to get in touch. The common mistake is to bury your contact information at the bottom of your website in the footer section.
While it’s important to have your contact information in the footer for SEO purposes, you should also include it in other places on your website, such as the header, navigation bar, or sidebar. This way, users will be able to easily find your contact information no matter where they are on your website.
Another common mistake is not including enough contact information. At a minimum, you should include your email address and phone number. However, you may also want to include your mailing address, social media links, and a contact form.
8. Failing to Prioritize User Navigation
This is by far one of the most common website redesign mistakes. User navigation aims to help users find the information they’re looking for on your website as quickly as possible.
A few common mistakes can impact user navigation, such as using drop-down menus that are difficult to use, having too many links in the navigation bar, or using non-standard navigation elements.
To create effective user navigation, you need to keep your navigation simple and easy to use. Use navigational elements, such as a search bar, breadcrumbs, and drop-down menus, and limit the number of links in your navigation bar to no more than seven.
You should also consider using mega menus, which are drop-down menus that include additional links and information. Mega menus can be an effective way to improve user navigation, especially on eCommerce websites.
9. Running an Unsecure Website
According to research, 70% of website visits come from mobile devices, yet many businesses are still running unsecured websites. An unsecured website is one that doesn’t have an SSL certificate, which means it’s not encrypted, and user data is vulnerable to being stolen.
In a world where cybersecurity has become so rampant, user data is one of your most valuable assets. That’s why it’s so important to have an SSL certificate for your website, even if you’re not running an eCommerce site.
An SSL certificate is easy and inexpensive to set up, and it can go a long way in protecting your website and your users’ data. Apart from an SSL certificate, you should also consider other security measures, such as two-factor authentication and a website firewall.
10. Failing to Analyze Previous Version Feedback and Analytics
One of the most common website redesign mistakes businesses make when redesigning their website is failing to analyze feedback and analytics from the previous version of their site.
This feedback can be extremely valuable in helping you understand what users didn’t like about your old website and what they would like to see on your new website design.
There are a few different ways you can collect feedback, such as conducting user surveys, collecting data from your website’s contact forms, and analyzing your website’s analytics. Once you have this feedback, be sure to take it into account when designing your new website.
Top Common Website Redesign Mistakes to Avoid
These are a few of the common website redesign mistakes businesses make. By avoiding these mistakes, you can create a website that is more effective, user-friendly, and secure.
When designing business websites, it’s vital to keep navigation simple, include plenty of contact information, and never underestimate the importance of security. Last but not least, don’t forget to analyze feedback and analytics from your old website to improve your new website design.
Looking for more valuable information? Check out our blog for more helpful articles.
