Your website is very important to your business since it helps drive traffic or customers to buy your service or product.
A good website design will enable you to carry out effective online marketing campaigns which will lead to more sales conversions and eventually more income.
Customers are the driving force of any business, so if your visitors don’t find your website appealing or user-friendly, it will affect your sales and ultimately your brand.
Take care to avoid all these mistakes which can make your business lose traffic.
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Lack of Planning
Whipping up a website at the last minute is the worst possible thing you could do for your business.
Improper planning regarding the design and content of your website can give you an underwhelming start and you will not end up getting the buzz or sales you anticipated.
Many businesses make the mistake of postponing their website plans and this ends up making a dent in their marketing and sales strategies.
Others rush the process which results in a poorly designed and inaccessible or poorly functioning website.
Make sure you plan out your website properly without leaving out any little details.
Everything from the content to the placement of ads or call-to-action buttons should be in accordance with design principles. Each stage of the process should be analyzed, reviewed and approved before moving on to the other ones.
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Excessive Or Inadequate Elements
Too many elements on your website can confuse your visitors and make them leave more easily.
Using tons of colors, flashy text, too many images or a bunch of call-to-action buttons will make the page look extremely unappealing and cluttered, and may even affect your sales target.
Limiting the elements will make it more intuitive and customers will easily find the essential links and information.
At the same time, if you hardly include any elements, your website will look blank and boring. Try to strike a proper balance between the two.
If you are inexperienced with web design, reach out to a reputed web designer in your area who can create a good and compelling design for your company.
For example, a Maine Website Designer can help you with your website if you want to market your company or business in Maine.
You can also hire web designers online and have them create the design.
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Bad Navigation
Good website navigation is key to engaging your customers so they stay on your website for longer.
Bad navigation practices will make it difficult for your visitors to go to different pages which in turn will affect your conversions and bounce rates.
Here are a few practices to keep in mind while planning out the navigation for your website.
- Keep the clicks to a minimum – Your visitor shouldn’t have to click more than four times to access any information or to complete an action. Structure your website such that it takes a maximum of three clicks to access relevant information.
- Elements – Include elements like sidebars and footers to highlight important links to information like contacts, addresses, or new arrivals.
- Keep it clean and minimal – You don’t want the visitors to get lost or feel confused. Each element should have a purpose and the user should know what it stands for or where it leads to.
- Use bold colors for important elements – Colors of CTA buttons and vital links should be in bold colors or highlighted so it catches the attention of the visitor.
- Avoid drop-down menus – Drop-down menus are time consumers for website visitors. They also tend to be annoying and distract users from other important information. Limit drop-down menus whenever possible.
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Not Mobile Responsive
More than 60% of traffic comes from mobile devices so it is going to cost you a lot if your website is not mobile-responsive.
Mobile-friendly websites get more visits and better customer loyalty which in turn leads to more sales conversions.
When your website is not optimized for different devices, it will waste a lot of valuable time since your visitors will have to scroll and zoom in numerous times to view certain information.
Make sure your website is designed to be viewed properly on both mobile and desktop devices.
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Not Practicing Internal Linking
Internal linking can help give your website a better ranking.
This is because Google follows these links to discover content and relate them to other posts and related pages.
Some other benefits of internal linking include,
- It helps improve user engagement since it will enable them to explore your site even more.
- Enables you to choose which pages you want to promote based on a specific keyword.
- Helps you develop a good internal network which aids in site indexing.
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Using Too Many Images
A few images are all well and good, but too many of them will slow down your website speed and make it look clunky.
Make sure the images you do use have the right dimensions and are of lighter formats.
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Long Videos
A long and boring video is likely to make your visitor impatient and make them leave faster.
Include short videos which are catchy, to the point and convey what is important.
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Lagging Website
A lagging website is sure to make your visitors frustrated.
Too many flashy elements, videos and images can slow down the website speed so take care to stick to a certain number that doesn’t affect the speed. Optimize the size of the media files so that the web pages load quickly.
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Bad CTA practices
The call-to-action buttons should be designed properly and be in the right place.
Don’t include unnecessary information and make sure the CTA tells them exactly what to do and leads them to the right page.
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Unnecessary Ads
Ads are important for generating income but if they are popping up constantly, chances are your users will never visit your site again.
Make sure they are easy to close and don’t take up the full screen. They should be located strategically on your website.
Conclusion
If you are unfamiliar with website design, consider hiring a professional to design one for your business.
Invest in a proper design that can help you drive traffic rather than cutting costs and losing sales on a poor website.
You may be interested in: Key Elements of Web Design to Make Website User-friendly
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By: David Jones
Title: 10 Common Website Mistakes that are Making Your Business Lose Traffic
Sourced From: marketbusinessnews.com/10-common-website-mistakes-that-are-making-your-business-lose-traffic/317087/
Published Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:38:17 +0000
