Common Web Design Mistakes and How to Fix Them

The digital age is nurturing the dreams of those who want to gain publicity, money, and reputation. A well-designed website is behind this success. Be it for customers, branding, engagement, or driving conversions, its role is incomparable. Considering its importance, online businesses have to focus on some common web design mistakes that reduce its effectiveness.

Result? Users don’t like to engage with it, which eventually reduces its overall impact. So, the business owners should be extremely sensitive towards the website. He or she should understand flaws in its design and implement solutions that can significantly hook users by offering seamless and engaging experiences.

If you are not aware of it, let’s introduce you to the commonest errors and how to get them fixed in this post.

Common Web Design Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Web Design Errors and How to Fix

For sure, these errors are technical and require your attention.

1. Poor Navigation

Clicking, scrolling, and jumping through linked phrases or buttons in a website define its navigation. When users don’t find easy ways to navigate, they quickly leave the website. This action can be a significant setback in terms of engagement, conversions, revenues, and reputation. So, understand the root causes of poor navigation, which can be hidden menus, excessive menu options, and inconsistency.

How to Fix?

  • Create a simple and comprehensive menu structure.
  • Avoid exceeding 7 menu items, as they confuse users.
  • Integrate breadcrumb navigation (below the banner) so that users can immediately track the desirable landing page within the site.
  • Test and debug navigation usability errors while testing in real-time.

2. Slow Loading Speeds

A slow website is the testing of users’ patience. And many fail in it, which increases bounce rates. Google itself advocates ensuring loading within 2-3 seconds.

How to Fix?

  • Heavy images can slow down its loading. So, compress their size without compromising their quality.
  • Merge CSS and JavaScript files for faster HTTP requests.
  • Enable caching in a browser so that it can detect repeat visits and load faster.
  • Integrate a content delivery network (CDN) so that load times can be distributed across multiple servers.

Contracting with professional web designers can help in quickly and adeptly optimizing the speed of the website. These experts use advanced tools and techniques to do it effortlessly.

3. Non-Responsive Design

Mobile devices account for over half of web traffic on a website. Unresponsive web designs interrupt users, and hence, their traffic slows down. This glitch leads to low search ranking and reduced conversion rates.

How to Fix?

  • Simply follow a mobile-first indexing approach while designing your website.
  • Flexible grid layouts and scalable images can also define a website as agile.
  • Testing is a must. So, do it on multiple devices and screen sizes.

4. Cluttered Layout

Overloading is harmful. When it comes to a website, adding many elements makes its design inconsistent. Users face challenges in recognizing them and hence leave them.

How to Fix?

  • Opt for a minimalistic design, which gives a decluttered look and feel.
  • Effective use of its white space is always appreciated. It effectively separates elements and hence enhances comprehensibility.
  • Focus on the hierarchy of the content so that users can easily find and explore key elements.

5. Inconsistent Design Elements

Diverse fonts, colors, and styles can give a negative message. It expresses that the website is unprofessionally designed and organized.

How to Fix?

  • To get rid of inconsistent design, develop a style guide for fonts, color schemes, and button styles that should ideally be similar.
  • Never exceed the variety of fonts from 2 to 3. And the color palettes should complement them.
  • Everything should be uniform across all pages so that people can feel connected and, hence, recognize it easily.

6. Weak Call-to-Actions (CTAs)

Calls to Action, or CTAs, will drive users to act immediately. It’s like a guide to sign up, subscribe to a newsletter, make a purchase, or download a resource. If your CTA is not strong, it will lower the conversion rate.

How to Fix?

  • The best way to fix this problem is to use action-oriented language, for example, “Let’s get started” “Sign Up” or “Download Now.”
  • The placement of CTAs should be above the fold, ideally. Or it can be at the end of key sections.
  • Keep the same button all over the webpage, and the color should be in contrast to make it stand out.

7. Overuse of Stock Images

Stock images are really helpful. However, overusing them can be harmful to your website. It may impersonalize the website or feel generic.

How to Fix?

  • Employ a web designer and a graphic designer to customize photographs so that they reflect a unique brand identity.
  • If you want to use stock images, limit the use of stock images and select only high-quality and relevant visuals.
  • Before making the web design live, ensure that all images are optimized. It won’t hamper fast loading speed.

8. Lack of Accessibility Features

How would you feel when you want to scroll down to click the required button but it’s not happening? For sure, users feel awkward and try hard to act. Web accessibility should be ideally fit for all, including users with disabilities. Ignoring them can lead to a poor or bad user experience.

How to Fix?

  • Using ALT text is a must so that a picture can also be recognized by all, including visually impaired users.
  • Ensure that the text is readable. It should be in proper contrast with website colors.
  • Ensure that the website is effortlessly navigable with a keyboard and screen readers.
  • Strictly follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) for seamless accessibility of the web content.

9. Ignoring SEO Best Practices

Let’s consider a case where you have a stunning website but, unfortunately, users fail to find it. This will signal to lead search engines not to consider it for ranking online. It is considered a poor SEO practice.

How to Fix?

  • Integrate relevant keywords in meta tags that are targeted, headings, and content.
  • Use short and descriptive URLs, as they are more optimized.
  • To recognize images, integrating ALT text with images is a must. Also, create a sitemap for easy navigation of the search engine bots.

10. Lack of Regular Updates

Do you update any posts or content on the website once in a blue moon? It can push users to bounce out for not being obsolete.

How to Fix?

  • Make it a must to practice updating content regularly. Post blogs, images, and news—or whatever your website resonates with.
  • Periodically review its design so that the site can look trendy.
  • Deploy CMS tools to manage its content effectively without technical hassles.

11. Unclear Branding

Inconsistent branding or sending unclear messages can dilute the message of the CTA on your website.

How to Fix?

  • Avoid using inconsistent logo design, diverse brand colors, and typography. Keep them consistent across all pages.
  • Define CTA to communicate your value proposition, especially on the home page.
  • Ensure that your content aligns with the tone and voice of your brand.

12. Ineffective Content Organization

The structure of the content on your website can look unsynced, leaving users annoyed.

How to Fix?

  • Clear headings and subheadings can breathe fresh life into the content structure.
  • Instead of lengthy paragraphs, break it into smaller paragraphs. Or, use bullet points for better readability.
  • Integrate a fully functional search bar for easy navigation.

13. Ignoring Analytics Data

Underestimating user behavior can be a big mistake. You may miss many golden opportunities for your business. Frequent analysis can help in fixing this mistake.

How to Fix?

  • Rely on tools like SEMrush or Google Search Console to track flaws in web designs.
  • Explore and review metrics such as bounce rates, session durations, and page views for insights.
  • Use insights to make your web design better and the user experience enhanced.

Conclusion

Some flaws or faults in your website design can hamper business opportunities that come to your account. These can be related to navigation, color contrast, inconsistent content structure, and poor analytics. These and some other reasons can increase the bounce rate, which leads to low visibility and online ranking of your website. A professional web designer can help in fixing these flaws effortlessly.