As a business owner, you may rely on your site to drive customers, but at the same time if you are not careful, you might even lose them. According to a survey conducted by Web.com, some obvious web design mistakes occur more frequently than you may think. Though small business websites have been improved from the last few years, still there are a number of ways to make your site better in order to ensure enhanced UX. Business owners have now become serious, thoughtful and more concerned about maintaining their web presence.
The process of the web development is certainly cumbersome, however avoiding some of the website designing mistakes can help your business prosper in the long run.
Let’s have a quick look over the mistakes that need to be avoided by the small business owners in order to grow their bottom line:
1. Considering Time Over Understanding The Targeted Audience: You sometimes overlook your targeted customers in a hurry to develop your site and make it live. Rather than focusing on time to get the site done, you need to first research about the interests and preferences of your customers. Then, start the development process considering the data information collected through research. For example, if you are targeting older age users, then focusing on larger fonts and enhancing the user experience with fast & easy navigation would be a great idea. While if the target market is younger generation, then you should consider imagery and beautiful color schemes & make your site mobile compatible.
2. Trying To Target Masses: Know your target market. If you try to entertain every type of user, then your site will really be a whole mess and you are likely to end up pleasing no one. Therefore, it is better to checkout your frequent visitors and concentrate on offering them optimal experience.
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3. Call-To-Action Is Not Made Clear: Once a user has reached your site, he should know its theme and purpose. The most important thing is to tell your users what you want them to do after they hit your site’s homepage. Tell them what they need to do next, which can be viewing detailed information, purchasing your product, subscribing your email newsletter, contacting you, etc. Ensure that your content rightly answers the questions of your customers. The call-to-action needs to be bold enough to be visible and directing them to the next step.
4. Making the design flashy or too busy: For a successful online presence, you should primarily focus on branding and marketing your site, instead of a flashy design. Avoid over-designing the site with too much website design elements & opt for a simple yet elegant website, which offers a pleasant and enjoyable user experience. You should not only aim at attracting the users, but also properly directing them to the desired place after they reach the homepage. Moreover, flashy sites do not look perfect on the mobile devices. A user visits your site for a specific reason and if in the next 3 seconds he cannot find what he should do next, then you may need to return to the drawing board.
5. Content Not Given Attention: 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 assume that you are no longer in business or not creative enough to stand ahead in the competition. Ensure that your content addresses the customer’s needs and remains updated with the changes in company. If your site has a blog section, then it is recommended to update it weekly. This will help you drive traffic to your site as well as improve search engine optimization.
6. Go Over Budget Or Spend Too Little: Small business are commonly seen hiring cheap & unprofessional developers and thus, often end up with a poor functioning site. In the interim, companies are also distracted by high-priced agencies that often work with renowned brands and do not realize that such agencies may not be good enough to help ROI focused small business. Do not be too much money-focused and spend sufficient time in finding the right company, which offers quality services.
7. Following DIY Route: A business site is often the first experience that users have with a brand. If you do not possess considerable experience in the website design, then better leave this task for professional developer. Always remember that ‘first impression is the last impression’. So, appeal your customers with a visually stunning site, designed by innovative designers and offer them a unique UX.
8. Ignoring Mobile Users: Nearly 75% of the Smartphone users prefer to access a mobile-friendly website and 95% users say that they have noticed sites that are not compatible with the mobile devices. With increasing number of people using their smart phones to access the internet, it has become essential to consider building responsive websites as it is highly recomended by SEs (Google).
9. Broken Social Media Links: Nothing can be more annoying than clicking a social media page and find the link broken. This leaves the users wondering what wrong is happening to your site. You miss the chance to let your customers know more about your services or company & potentially like or follow your web pages. You must check your social media buttons on a regular basis to ensure that they are correctly installed and lead the users to the right page.
10. Consider Writing For Search Engines Instead Of Customers: Marketers think that their site can be positioned high in the search engines by stuffing more keywords on the web page. However, this is one of the ways to get blacklisted by Google. It is recommended to use a few keywords and write for your users. Create relevant, fresh and unique content, which is of great interest to your audience.
11. Poor Navigation Leading To Poor Experience: Small businesses often fail to give priority to navigation, which results in frustrating experience for the visitors. Users visit your site for some specific information & if they are unable to find it, they are likely to leave your site and may not return. So, it is crucial to create better navigation structure for seamless browsing experience and keeping visitors engaged for a long time.
Conclusion
For small business owners, a website is a crucial piece of their branding and marketing efforts. People visit your site for some specific reason. So, ensure that you provide them what they are looking for and use your site to promote your products & services. If your website is not designed rightly, you can lose a huge money initially and eventually lose more dollars in the potential revenue, which you could make from a perfectly designed and efficiently functioning site.
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