March 18, 2020

5 Mistakes When Creating a Website

A website is one of your company’s most important assets. When a user lands on your site, it’s usually the first interaction they have with your brand and first impressions are key.

It is important users who visit your website understand exactly what action they should take. Therefore, when putting together your website it is vital you have not made any of the 5 common mistakes below.

Not reaching your customers.

When putting your website together, all latest technologies should have been used and you may even have listened to the advice of colleagues or friends for ideas on how the site should look. However, you must ask yourself, is it what your clients expect? Do they care more for the look of your site or how easily they can find the information they need?

Think about who you address with the website and how you want to brand to be presented. If it is business orientated, then you should ensure effective CTA are featured and users can navigate the website. If you are designing a portfolio style site for a photographer etc. focus on a minimalistic layout to best display their work. Always have the end-user in mind when building a website.

Information overload.

One of the biggest website mistakes is overwhelming the user with text content, particularly on the main landing page, does not improve your chances of retaining a user on your site. Nowadays people don’t like to have to work to find what they need, they expect it to be clearly given to them and not have to navigate through tons of information to find the information they require.

Less is more. When describing our business, we tend to give full details as we are passionate about it, however for the website we must prioritise what information is valuable to users. Swiftly and clearly explain your business offering.

Poorly organised website layout.

The end goal of your website is what users are seeking, but the layout determines the success or indeed the failure of this. Users only read content that is necessary and they will scan the website for this information.

Use headlines, abbreviations, bullet points, and graphic elements. Icons can also help a lot, but remember important not to saturate the website with too many elements as you can end up with the complete opposite effect from what you intended.

Unclear navigation.

One of the website mistakes often made is unclear navigation. The user should be able to intuitively navigate your website, especially now, with more and more new technologies available in website design.

Using concise text for all links can help guide the user to their next step on the site. Graphics with text added to them can dispel any doubts the user has on where they will be redirected to after clicking. Links and buttons should stand out clearly and must always be a relevant link from their current context. Don’t waste time or discourage the user by leading them to a dead end.

Organise your navigation structure to be consistent with the rest of your website. Never allow your users to get lost when navigating your website and ensure everything is clear and at your fingertips. Remember most users will leave your website if they don’t find what they are looking for in less than 3 clicks.

Lack of current content.

Have you created a news or blog section on your website, but don’t have the time or the desire to populate it? Users can see if you don’t care about the content on your site being up to date. Meaning they won’t see a point in visiting your site. It can also give off the impression that your company is no longer in operation. For example if the most recent news post was added 2 years ago. Remember, search engines also operate in a similar way.

Keeping your content up to date is an easy and important solution. Ideally, at least once a week, some form of the content update is applied. You can write about what is happening in the company, or industry news. Even world news which can have an effect on your market. Brief posts are enough to show that your company is still alive and dynamic. It will also have a positive effect on your positioning within search engines, in turn increasing traffic to your website.

If you would like to build or update your website, Made In Scotland are here to help! We offer a variety of digital services so make sure to get in touch for more information.

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