If you ask for web design advice from anyone who either has or has had a website they’ll tell you lots of things you should have on your site. Some of it will be correct but some advice will so wrong that if you follow it, you could harm your website and its usefulness permanently.
Here are two major web design errors that you must avoid completely when you design your website.
#1 Forgetting Why You Have A Website
There are literally thousands of business websites on the internet that seem to have no purpose whatsoever…don’t let yours become another one. It seems crazy that a business would pay a web designer to design them a website, only for that site to have no discernible reason to exist other than to showcase their skills built from web design tips.
When you sit down to plan the design of your website, the first question to answer is what goal or goals do you want the website to achieve for your business. If it’s a simple one-page sales letter or video, then the obvious purpose is sales. Some single page sites might have the alternative goal of gaining email subscribers.
If branding is of paramount importance above all else, then branding should be prominent throughout the site. Your site might be a blog where you share information to build trust and eventually customers. A larger corporate site may have information on the company, with product ranges and services fully explained in order to generate leads.
Whether it is any of these or one of the many other reasons why you’d want your business to have a website online, when you come to design it, make sure that purpose is fully accommodated its design and structure.
#2 It’s Nothing More Than a Graphics Fest
The second major web design error is for your site to appear to be an excuse to show loads of images, graphics and videos and have little else for visitors to look at or do.
Obviously, if your business is in the media or graphics niche then you might expect to have lots of graphics but even then, there needs to be further and alternative sorts of content.
Whatever niche or industry you are in some visitors will want to read more about your company and its background or history. Some could be more interested in reading about your products and services. Others might even be looking for contact information to get in touch with you to place an order or at least obtain a quote.
These intentions by visitors are positive for you, or at least they would be if you had the applicable content present on your site. If you don’t and all they can see is videos and images they’ll soon go elsewhere.
One other point is that websites with lots of large video and graphics files take longer to load, which is another cue for visitors jump off your site.