5 Common Website Design Mistakes

A functional and attractive site can help your company grow by leaps and bounds, but the opposite is true -?poor website design can do just as much harm. Even if you have the best intentions at heart, a poorly built website can limit your ability to acquire new customers, limiting your opportunities for sales and potentially putting you out of business.?

As websites are meant to complement your business rather than harm it, it needs to be designed well. It needs to function well. To get the most out of your website, here are a few common design mistakes that many Do It Yourself websites have:

Common Website Design Mistakes:

1 - Not Paying Close Attention to Basics

A website is only useful if it can be found.?To check whether your site is being indexed, go to Google Search Console and put the URL of the page in the URL field. Then, click on URL Inspection in the left navigation to see if your site is being indexed. If it isn’t then this is a priority and you will need to set up a google search console account.?

When you set up a?Google Search Console account?you will be able to check that the site and pages are included in your sitemap. Google Search Console is also where you submit your site to be “indexed” by Google and is the way it will start appearing on search results. If your website isn’t appearing for particular search terms (for example my website should appear under “web design”,?and remembering Google ranks website pages individually, then you need to continue to optimize your website. Include hyperlinks to other sections of your website's content and links to information on external, high-quality websites in your document. If you want to dig a little deeper, you can look for errors in the search console and rectify them, for example, look for any pages with a meta name containing the word "index"—this instructs Google to disregard the page

?2 - Failing to Design for Google

Customer convenience and good user experience should be paramount in designing a new website. However, you may completely disregard the other "customer" that everyone has: Google. Google is the gatekeeper or God of the internet world. If you want to increase traffic, you must be aware of both Google's requirements and the requirements of your consumers once they arrive at your site.?

Make sure your pages contain enough keyword-rich content on them so that Google can rank you higher than your competitors in the search results. Continue to add new content (blogs) as Google rewards freshness, frequency, and length in its search results.?

If feasible, include checklists in your blogs; a good checklist advice post can remain relevant on the first page of search results many years after it was initially published. Employ up-to-date development and data best practices to encourage Google's Site Crawler to consume your website in the same way that a person can.

3 - Not Providing Customers with What They Are Looking for

When we are shopping for a good or service, we have ready a list of wants, worries, and questions. The job of your website is to answer those questions and quickly. When someone visits your website, the very first thing they see should not be a self-promotional statement about how wonderful you are. Instead, it should address their most urgent want, worry, or inquiry.?

Providing website visitors with the solution to their problem should be front and center on the home page and your other pages should continue to expand on this, giving evidence wherever feasible via tools like comparisons, images of products, testimonials, case studies, and reviews.

4 - Using Too Many Plugins at the Same Time

Now to the website architecture. If you have created a website yourself, using WordPress, plugins offer several clearly defined benefits. They allow you to do particular tasks without having to do much unique code. However, if you use them excessively, they may result in various issues, such as increased maintenance, slower response times and security issues.

Plugins are essentially tiny programs that a single programmer typically develops. However, even the most powerful plugins may be compromised, resulting in widespread cyber damage to those who utilize them on their websites. Furthermore, when a plugin may get stale, the developer may become distracted by other projects and abandon the project. In any event, the greater the number of plugins you have, the less control you have over the security of your website, even if you update them regularly to ensure that you are taking advantage of the newest security updates from the plugin developers.?

5 - Doing Everything Yourself

Developing a good website is a time-consuming and complicated endeavor. We, website designers, spend years and in fact decades building our knowledge base to understand website design, user experience, search engine optimization, and digital marketing. Whilst I believe “done is better than perfect” and it is always better to get a website launched and have something vs nothing, the majority of DIY websites can benefit from an audit from a professional or a?mini-makeover.?A few minor changes can have a big impact.

Final Thoughts

Throughout the design process, from planning to post-launch analysis, keep your target customer and brand image at the forefront of your thoughts at all times. If you can find a way to bring the two together, you'll have a stunning website that says volumes about your company. Review your data and continue to add content.?Get the most of your website by working with Plink It. I can help you with any web development needs or conduct?WordPress training?to help you move forward. Check out my?portfolio?to learn more about my past projects!? Read the full article "5 Website Design Mistakes" on my blog.