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Common Website Mistakes

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Common Website Mistakes

Many websites suffer from bad design and content mistakes which reduce the positive impact and experience your your viewers will have. Some website design choices or mistakes are obvious. Some are not.

Maybe you weren't present to what was necessary during the design process, or simply haven’t updated your website in quite some time. I’ve complied a list of common mistakes which are quite easy to fix or implement even if you aren’t ready for a complete website overhaul.
What is your Website about?

Is it clear from the very first glance what your website is about? If someone who has never heard of your business or even industry stumbled upon it, would they be able to grasp what it’s about straight away? They should be clear on what kind of business you are in and what you are selling.

Lack of accessibility

Accessibility is a broad term that refers to the ease with which visitors can access, view and interact with your website. Your page shouldn’t lose coherency, clarity and your layout shouldn’t fall apart when the visitor changes the text size, browser or screen size.

Infrequently asked questions

Seriously there is nothing worse than frequently asked questions which leave the reader wondering if anyone has ever actually asked those questions and if so, how often? FAQ can be great for SEO but make sure to update often and keep them relevant - which rings true for your whole website.

Contact information hard to find

If it’s not on the front page, I shouldn’t have to click more than once and it should be super easy to find. You contact page should include conventional contact methods as well as email, a contact us form and bonus points for Google Maps (or any maps) if you’re a business with a physical location that’s relevant to your customers.

No page titles

Each page within your website is an opportunity for content and search engine optimisation. One of the common mistakes is to create a generic title for each page while working on the website and then forgetting all about it during deployment. Well thought out titles communicate to your visitors relevant information they need to know about your website and they advise search engines how relevant your page is to a particular search term. Make sure each title accurately describes the content of the page and don’t forget to include words people would search for to find you.

Bad navigation

Navigating should be easy and intuitive. Navigation practices are constantly evolving especially as responsive design takes centre stage during the development stage, but sticking to standard navigation methods is still recommended. Links should look and behave like links and going back to the home page or up a category using breadcrumb should be effortless.

No search box

Irrelevant of what kind of website you have, search is not really negotiable. Especially if your customers are coming to find a specific product, article or news item, a quick search raises the chances of finding it and not navigating away to another website.

Really long sign up forms

Not everyone wants to fill in every detail of their life just to be able to browse a selection of products or to be able to add them to cart. Forcing customers to fill out laborious forms can easily mean loss of business. You really don’t need their address or name of their first born just yet.

If you’d like to learn more about common design mistakes and how to avoid or fix them, give us a call on 1300 123 500.