Top Business Website Design Mistakes

If you Google the term “website design mistakes,” you will find hundreds of articles that feature list after list of no no’s that people make with business website design. Some of the problems are picayunish and don’t cause much trouble, but others present significant problems for a website’s appeal to customers and ability to convert sales. Below are some of the most egregious website design mistakes companies make when they create business websites.

Not Enough Research

Website launches are similar to product launches: hastily launching a site can be disastrous when not enough research is done on the target audience. Years ago, when online revenue was frosting on the cake of in store revenue, companies felt they could take plenty of time designing a site for a particular type of customer. Today, they are tempted to place urgency over investigating the target audience, which is a recipe for a low conversion rate.

Targeting the World

Everyone loves what your business sells, right? Even so, you shouldn’t try to market its offerings to the world. Paradoxically, the wider you cast the net of customer appeal, the fewer customers you tend to catch. Instead of being generalized, a website’s marketing approach should be as specific as possible. The closer you come to marketing to a niche, the more accurately you hit the sweet spot for your demographic, which supports a high conversion rate.

Not Optimized for Mobile

Google’s Hummingbird update has laid down the law on mobile business website design: if your site isn’t optimized for smart phones and smart tablets, its position in search results will suffer. Even when a non-mobile website doesn’t receive an abysmal search results position, it still stands to miss out on a steady stream of business. According to a recent Telemetrics and xAd study, a whopping 46 percent of search engine users perform only mobile searches.

Long Winded Writing

When business owners handle the copywriting for their website, they often create landing pages that look more like magazine articles than web pages. They are experts in their field and want to create the impression that their company is knowledgeable about what it sells. Unfortunately, the resulting abysses of text are read by almost no one. If you want to get something across in writing, use informative bold subject headings and limit paragraphs to 100 words.

Limited Cross-Browser Compatibility

One of the most common business website design mistakes among sites that haven’t been updated recently, limited cross-browser compatibility is sure way to increase the bounce rate of a website. Browsers interpret CSS and other programming languages in different ways, so you need to design a site that’s compatible with all the browsers your target audience uses. As new browsers hit the web and old ones fade into obsoletion, preferences will naturally change.

Long Flash Intros

As search users continue to demand a faster web browsing experience, the use of flash introductions for home pages and landing pages is quickly dying out. Today, a page loading speed of four seconds is considered an eternity, and most flash introductions last well over a few seconds. The perception of search users is that flash introductions delay arriving at the actual website. While that may not be true in a technical sense, it’s the perception that counts.

Contact Us Today

The number of business website design mistakes is practically endless, but some are more problematic than others. If your company’s website contains any of the mistakes above, correcting them as soon as possible with the help of a reputable web design firm, such as Coalition Technologies, is crucial for improving the performance of the site. For more information about our services, call us today at (888) 993-7639, or click here to use our contact form.

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