5 Website Design Mistakes To Avoid
Anyone can make a website, right?
Thanks to companies like Squarespace, the ability to DIY your website is more accessible than ever. However to make an effective website there are still some important things you need to know before you get started.
Most Squarespace templates come with clean, modern designs and fonts which is amazing but can also leave your website looking like everybody else.
A good website is so much more than the design - it should quickly and easily communicates your value and more importantly, drives sales.
Whether it is your navigation, calls to action, or formatting, always remember to keep in mind the experience you want people to have on your website … aka where you want them to go and what you want them to do.
5 Common Website Design Mistakes
1. Stop Trying To Sell
Too often we see websites focus just on the “BUY NOW” call to action. While your website is a crucial part of your sales process, the main goal of your website just isn’t meant to close the sale, it is also meant to serve as way to get the conversation started.
When someone lands on your website they are looking to get an idea of what you do and decide whether they want to talk to you. If they are ready to buy and you have clear easy calls to action they’ll move through your sales funnel. But what if they are curious just not ready to buy yet? Where and how do they learn more about your value?
If you don’t have a reason for people to be on your website other than to buy your product or service, they will most likely leave and not come back. Instead, focus on providing (free) valuable content that will help show visitors how you can help them and start building trust and credibility.
A few ways you can do that:
Newsletter - just make sure you’re providing consistent, valuable content each month.
Blog - providing education on topics that your clients care about will not only showcase your expertise, it will give them a reason to stay on your website and also help with your organic SEO.
Free resources - whether it is a video course or free ebook, providing free resources allows you to really go deep on a topic and help connect with your website visitors. Bonus if you create a way to nurture the realtionship with something like an automated email sequence.
2. Too Many Navigation Tabs
This has to be the most common mistake we see in novice website design … cluttered website navigation! How is anyone ever supposed to find anything when every link is listed in the navigation menu ?!?!
The function of your website navigation is to tell visitors what is the most important information and where you want them to go. Your web pages should have a hierarchy or journey to them (aka UX or user experience).
Whenever we ask a client “What are the 3 MOST important pages on your website?” they always respond by listing out all of them. Just imagine going to a restaurant and getting a 20 page menu that isn’t organized. You would be so overwhelmed you would probably walk out without ordering anything.
It may seem counter-intuitive but when you are clear on the most important information you want to share it makes it easy for your website visitors the information to click on.
Navigation best practices:
Keep navigation to 3-5 links tops - we recommend key pages like your services, about and contact pages
Group similar information together in folders, just make sure to keep the drop downs to 3 options max
Try to use 1 word navigation links
Don’t include your home page in your main navigation
Use the footer to create a secondary menu for things like testimonials and other supporting information
Link to information within the body of your website when relevant
3. Too Many Calls To Action (CTA)
Just like your navigation, you need to be clear about the most important things you want people to do on your website. Ideally each page has 1 clear call to action that leads visitors around your website.
What does that mean? Simply if the most important thing you want people to do is book a free consult don’t ask them to sign up for the newsletter, read your blog, follow you on social medial, download a PDF, and book a free consult.
Your calls to action show your clients you understand what they are looking for and make it easy for them to find that information. Remember, the more things you ask people to do the less likely they are to do anything. When done correctly, your calls to action will move people through your website in an intentional way.
For example:
The home page has a “see our services” CTA that links to the services page
The services page CTA links to the case studies page
The case studies CTA links to the free consult page
** Your main navigation clearly says “services”, “case studies”, and “free consult” so people can access important pages at any time but each page’s CTA moves them along the customer journey.
4. Not Having Contact Forms or Online Booking
The idea is that your website makes it easy for people to contact your right? Then why doesn’t your website have contact forms or online booking? In addition to simply being more efficient, when people can take action immediately with just one click they are more like to take action.
The more steps required to contact you, the less likely people will take action. Here are a few examples to consider:
You want to contact a company but have to leave the website and open your email. You meant to send an inquiry email but once you open up gmail you see an email from your dear Aunt Sally and you totally forgot why you opened your email in the first place.
Or you want to inquire about pricing but there is a phone number on the website and it’s past working hours. You make a note to call tomorrow but then your day gets crazy and reaching out just doesn’t feel as important.
There are so many free online booking calendars there really isn’t any reason not to implement this simple but impactful change ASAP. . Not only will visitors will be able to take action immediately, it will also cut down on email back and forth saving you time and energy.
5. Not Customizing Your Formatting
When it comes to formatting your webpage the key thing to remember is to call attention to the most important information you want people to know. Yes, Squarespace takes the guess work out of designing a modern website but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay extra attention to your formatting.
Most online readers are just skimming the page so when the information isn’t separated into easy to consume pieces, their eyes glaze over and they don’t read anything. We could write an entire blog just on text formatting, but here are the most common formatting mistakes that are hurting your website design:
Too many font styles and/or colors
Poor image quality (too big, too small, pixelated)
Long paragraphs that take up the whole page
Too many things on one page (whitespace is your friend)
So what can you do? Here are our website design formatting best practices to create information hierarchy (aka call attention to the information you want people to know):
Keep paragraphs to no more than 3-5 lines at a time
Use headers, bold, italic and bullets to create an easy to read page
(Almost) always align paragraph text to the left, center aligned paragraphs are hard to read and can look unprofessional, especially when they are long
Update and customize your website favicon (that little gray box in the search bar)
Remove the “powered by Squarespace” text from your website footer
What’s the next step?
We recommend pouring a cup of coffee (or glass of wine) and sitting down to spend some quality time with your website. Take a look at your website and do a quick audit of what is working and what needs to be updated.
By avoiding these 5 common website design mistakes, you can will draw people’s attention to the most important things you want them to know and the action you want them to take.
