11 Web Design Mistakes that can ruin your Small Business Website

When it comes to building a small business website, by all means, you want to build a website that drives sales. And for this reason, you want to avoid web design mistakes that can ruin your business.

Unfortunately, in many cases, you may not be able to spot these mistakes that can actually ruin your website. And for that reason, you don’t get to realize it when you’re making them.

But, that’s going to be history today…

Because after reading this post, you’ll not only learn about the common website design mistakes to avoid on any corporate website, you’ll also learn how to get past these mistakes to build a website that becomes your next sales magnet.

So, are you ready to learn? Come with me as i take you through the top web design mistakes you have to avoid like a plague, in the following paragraphs…

No Clear CTA

Not having a clear call to action is one of the major web design mistakes made by most small business websites.

Now, a call to action is an instruction on a website guiding the website user to take a specific action as desired by the owner of the website.

I still remember, in the first few years i had my website, there was nothing like a call to action. So, technically, this website design mistake is very common with beginners.

But it doesn’t just end there. You’ll be surprised a lot of established businesses are making the same mistakes. And it’s unfortunate.

The essence of every website is to offer information that will aid the website users take informed actions.

This means every functional small business website must have a clear call to action button at strategic pages, to enable it achieve the aim of getting the website users to take action.

Failure to add this feature might reduce your returns on investment.

Zero Search Optimization

Ok. So another common Web Design mistakes to avoid as a small business is the issue of lack of proper search engine optimization for your business website.

Of course even when you do not always have to pay an SEO expert to do your optimization at all times, basic search engine optimization should be a part of your web design.

Get to use the proper meta description for your business at the appropriate pages on your website, with all the right key words.

Be sure your business website uses the proper keyword too. Both for the pages and the blog posts.

This will go a long way in positioning your website for proper visibility on web results page when people are searching for it.

No blog/Content

In over 5 years as a web designer, i have met a handful of small business owners who believe that blogging or content creation is not really a marketing strategy that is important for a small business website.

This erroneous beliefs has led many small business owners to create a website that ends up with near zero traffic or visibility.

Thing is, writing a decent number of niche related content on your website consistently will be very helpful to your target audience and your business itself.

It will also help build a good rapport between you and your users.

Going further, blogging and creating valuable content for your audience will improve your relationship with them in a way that over time they will get to know, like and trust your brand thus improving their chances of buying from you, over your competition.

Besides helping in the search engine optimization for your website and improving your visibility, blogging will definitely help your business more than leaving the website blank and bland.

Slow Loading Speed

When it comes to web designing for small businesses, a slow loading website is one of the top web design mistakes you want to avoid by all means.

Yes. There are a lot of things responsible for a slow loading website like Web Hosting, Code, Plugins, Page size, etc. You need to pay attention to fix these things before launching your website.

Another thing. Besides putting your web host into consideration, one important thing to consider as it regards loading speed are the uploads you’re making on your website.

If you upload heavy images on your website (pictures over 500kb to 2mb), such is bound to affect the size of your web pages and subsequently slow down your loading speed.

So, to fasten up your loading speed, you’ll want to consider the size of graphics and images used on your small business website.

Same thing goes for the plugins, code and other softwares you use the website.

Focus on using lean codes and bloat free plugins. If you use too many bloated softwares on your website.

Ensure that everything is maximally used in order to keep your loading speed at optimal levels.

No Relevant Images

You’ve probably heard. A picture tells a thousand stories.

So, having relevant images on your small business website is not only a very important recipe of a good website design, it is also a part of the common web design mistakes that affects a lot of websites.

From enhancing your brand, to creating a better impression for the website, a picture does a lot in representing your brand in just the right way.

This is why you need to get the right kind of images on all the right pages on your website. Talk about pictures that demonstrates your services/products, including the ones that showcases your clients, portfolios and testimonials etc.

What you’re doing with these pictures is to make your average user have a feel of what you’re doing.

While at it, remember that the quality of the pictures you use, plays a role in the quality of the web design especially when it comes to the user interface (UI).

A shabby looking, low quality picture will most likely make your website look cheap and your business unserious.

Now considering how perception plays a big role in determining whether people will patronize your business online or not so you need high quality pictures images and Graphics, whenever you get to use them.

Focus on Design over Usability

A very important part of any website be it business or personal, is the website’s usability.

A website’s usability refers to the accessibility of the website or the ability of a target user to access the website easily and without a lot of inconveniences.

Usability bothers on user experience.. And this boils down to what extent a website can be used by a specified user to achieve a specific goal.

Focusing all your web design effort on the design of your website alone is one of the top web design mistakes that has caused a lot of harm to most websites.

Since usability is a measure of user satisfaction with a website, your website should not just look great on display, every user should be able to carry out specific actions that brought them to the website.

Now this means that besides the design, the purpose behind every user’s visit to your website should be met.

Your users should be able to access your website, find the information they need or carry out the needed transaction on the website without stress.

Poor knowledge of audience

How much do i really know about my audience? This should be one of the questions every website business owner should ask.

This is because a good knowledge of your users will help your business to a very large extent.

From issues like branding of the website to meet with the expectations of your target audience, to the whole design set up and minor things like placement of CTA…

When you know your clients, understand their motives and expectations from a website like yours you’ll be able to avoid some of the important web design mistakes made by other small business websites.

And then you’ll be able to come up with a web design that suits your target markets and meets their needs more easily.

Now, to get around this, before setting out to design your small business website, you need a user persona for your website as part of your web design strategy.

And when you set up a user persona, you should be able to have the persona at the back of your mind through the whole design process.

Wrong Placement of Ads

Placing adverts at the wrong places on your website is another important web design mistake you should avoid as a small business website owners.

This is because some users are so averse to ads that the moment they get on a website with too many ads they will just move on.

Besides, I believe you have seen some websites where the ads gets to cover a large part of the website so much so that you can’t even read up the content on that website.

As a small business owner, you should be wary of placing too many ads on your website. Also, irrelevant ads should not be featured at the expense of your business.

In fact, you should put as few ads as possible. And where possible, your website should be devoid of any ads.

No contact Information

As a business owner with intention to make sales using your website, one of your most important assets is your contact information.

It is not enough for you to have a contact page. It is very important you have your contact information available at strategic locations on your website where people can easily contact you.

If possible, besides your contact page, you should make your contact information conspicuous on your home page. It makes for ease of access.

Users shouldn’t have to go to your contact page all the time whenever they need to contact you.

Also, your contact page should contain all necessary contact information you’d like to add about your website, including your email address, phone numbers, physical address if available.

Doing this will make it far easier for your users to contact you either for their enquiries or other needs.

Final Words

In conclusion, designing a business website that drives sales is one of your most important needs as a small business

But as you can see, sometimes even after getting your website all set up, due to some web design mistakes, you may not get to achieve the goal you want to achieve with your website.

To avoid these mistakes and power your website to become your number one sales machines, do not just read this guide, follow through this instructions to implement it on your website and watch your website come back to life.

Now that you know, get over here and have our team design your small business website without any hassles.

So, now it’s over to you! What’s the biggest challenges you’ve had when it comes to designing a website that works for your business?