Web Design Mistakes and How You Can Correct Them

As a small company, your website is the forefront of your business. Let’s be honest, your website is not going to be perfect, even professionals make mistakes. The most important thing is that you understand where you went wrong and how to fix it.
Simple mistakes will have a negative impact on your business, there are a few simple things you can do to dramatically improve your site…

Clutter

Never underestimate the power of white space, if your page is busy and cluttered it just looks unprofessional. A common mistake is that small businesses try and attract as much business as possible and so include every detail possible within the homepage. The easiest way to check this is just to question each element on the page. Ask yourself, does it really need to be there? If you have a phone number on the header of the page that “floats” as you scroll, do you really need “call us” buttons scattered around the content…
Tip: Less is more.

Content

A customer will use your site to gain information, it may be to get a better understanding of your business, contact you or even just to understand a bit more about the industry. The problem is most of this information comes as text, and walls of it! Mix it up, add a video in there, add some illustrations to help explain difficult subjects and break it up. Just solid blocks of text need to be avoided, get rid of the waffle and use paragraphs where possible.
Tip: Highlight any important information and links as a focus point.

Mobile

We have written previous articles about how mobile is a must for a website, but a simple reminder may be helpful. More than half the web traffic are now on mobile, if your site isn’t mobile friendly, that’s over half your potential customers going to a competitors site. Mobile is also a ranking factor, want to appear first for your search terms… a non responsive site will be holding you back!
Tip: Get a mobile site, you might need to get a new responsive / adaptive template.

These are just the basics, you need to keep it simple at the end of the day. People want to find information quickly and easily, that’s it. Get someone you know to go through your site and ask them what worked and what didn’t, a second opinion is priceless.