Common Website Design Mistakes That Hurt Business

In today’s digital age, whether you are in Kansas City or abroad, your business website is often the first impression potential customers have of your brand. Whether your website is a custom design or built from a template, certain design flaws can significantly impact your credibility and prevent your business from standing out in the market as well as in search engines eyes. 

A well-designed website should establish credibility, educate visitors, and drive them to take action—whether that be through live chat inquiries, phone calls, emails, or filling out contact forms. Over the last 14 years, Critchfield Consulting has evaluated countless website designs across the Midwest and to better help our customers, we have identified the most common mistakes businesses make with their company websites and how to avoid making them.

DESIGN MISTAKES
Your website’s design is crucial in making a strong first impression. Common design issues include:

• Website Layout: A cluttered or confusing layout can overwhelm visitors, making it hard for them to stay on your website to find the information they need 
• Fonts and Color Schemes: Inconsistent fonts and poor color choices can make your site look unprofessional and hard to read, immediately discrediting your online store front.
• Imagery and Video Production: Low-quality images and poorly edited videos can detract from your message and diminish your company and brand’s credibility.

• Poor or Limited Main Navigation Page Headers: Unclear or missing headers can confuse visitors about where to find important information.  It’s important to invest time in what pages are most important and how best to utilize the use of drop down navigation to simplify your message.
• Lack of Internal Navigation Elements: Without clear navigation paths on your internal website pages, visitors can get lost and frustrated.  Just getting a visitor to your interior pages is hard enough, losing them once there because of navigation is even worse.   
• Confusing, Missing, or Broken Links: These can lead to a poor user experience, declined search engine credibility and reduce the likelihood of visitors staying on your company website much longer than a few seconds.

CONTENT MISTAKES 
Content is king, but only if it’s done right. Common content issues include:

• Lack of Content: Not having enough content can leave visitors with unanswered questions and a poor understanding of your offerings.  Moreover, search engines won’t index your websites internal pages if they don’t meet certain character requirements. 
• Non-Optimized Content: Without proper optimization, including the use of page titles, page headers, and Meta descriptions, search engines won’t recognize your content, leading to lower search engine optimization rankings.
• Missing Pages: Each product or service should have its own dedicated page with proper page optimization.  All to often, we see websites that have all of their products or services on one page in a bullet list without any of them linking to additional informative pages. 

BACKEND PROGRAMMING MISTAKES
Even if your site looks great, backend issues can hurt performance and SEO. Common programming errors include:

• Missing Page Titles: These are crucial for search engine indexing.
• Poor Site Speed: Slow loading times can drive visitors away.
• Missing Meta Descriptions and Backlinks: These elements are essential for SEO.
• Improper Local Citation Directories and Google Map Integration: These are vital for local SEO and helping customers as well as search engines in finding your business.

MISSING KEY CONVERSION ELEMENTS
A website should guide visitors toward taking action. Common conversion element issues include:

• Lack of Prominent Contact Information: Your phone number should be easy to find on your homepage and throughout your website. 
• Underutilized but Important Elements: Elements like your social media channels, blogs, galleries, reviews, and FAQs all help build credibility and engage visitors.
• Missing Calls to Action (CTAs): Clear CTAs on your homepage and internal pages can drive conversions and get your visitor where you want to lead them.
• Lack of Supporting Links or Relevant Content: These elements such as blogs or FAQ’s help support your business message and establish an emotional connection with visitors.

THE EMOTIONAL TIE IN
Ultimately, your website should create an emotional connection with your visitors. This involves a cohesive design, clear messaging, easy navigation, and content that resonates with your audience. Differentiating your business from competitors and highlighting the emotional benefits of working with you can make a significant impact of winning over a prospect and converting that person into a new lead for your business.

SUMMARY

Avoiding these common website design mistakes can help your business establish credibility, improve user experience, and drive more conversions. At Critchfield Consulting, we specialize in creating websites that not only look great but also function effectively to help your business thrive. 

We invite you to take a look at our clients website design projects and see how all of these pieces described above are handled.  For more information on how these elements work, we encourage you to visit our individual service pages for more detailed information.   

Feel free to take advantage of our comprehensive website and digital marketing evaluation.  If you’d like to discuss your company’s website design with us in more detail, call us 816-718-6617 and learn how we can help you avoid these pitfalls to create a site that truly represents your brand.