6 Big Mistakes to Avoid When Designing Your Website
When designing a site, it’s tempting to jump right in full speed ahead. After all, you have a vision and a new business that you want to launch and you are eager to get started. Before you get too excited, it’s a good idea to educate yourself about some of the most common mistakes that Brooklyn web design make because the best way to solve a problem is to avoid it in the first place. A proper New York web design company should be highly educated on this subject and avoid the following mistakes.
1) Linking Away
Professional websites often contain in-text hyperlinks. While you think that inserting a link from your web page to a page on Wikipedia makes your site look professional, you may want to step back and rethink your decision. Although links do add to the website’s value, they can also hinder it by being irrelevant or by taking the viewer away from your site. Once a viewer is taken to another site he or she is likely to get distracted and may not return your site. If you’re going to add links into your text, try to keep the links within your website- that is, link one page of your site to another page that is relevant to the anchor text. If you still want to add a link to an outside source, be sure to make the link open in a new tab so that users can always easily navigate back to your site.
2) Excessive White Space
A critical mistake that many new website designers make is the inclusion of too much white space on a page. Although its true that too much content or too many photos can make the page look crowded and confusing, it’s also true that too much white space can make the page look sloppy and give off the impression that the designer didn’t put much effort into his creation. An excessive amount of white space may imply laziness or lack of attention to detail, and this is certainly not something you want people to encounter when considering your business. It’s important to remember that “white space” doesn’t necessarily mean the color white but to any empty space on a website that has no design elements or content within it.
3) Too Many Call to Actions
Call to actions are buttons or links that encourage a viewer to interact with your site in someway, whether it is by making a purchase or sending an email. Any good Brooklyn website designer will tell you to include a call to action on your website design. Very few, however, will warn you to avoid using too many. Having too many of these encouraging phrases takes away from the value of each one and can make your site appear to be “trying too hard” or “desperate for views”, as each call to action will look like a sales tactic to attract to your attention. It also diverts the attention of the user and confuses them as they don’t know which one to click first and often times wind up not clicking any at all.
4) No Contact Information
When running a website, upfront and easy to find contact information is key. Viewers and potential customers are unable to discuss your site or services with you if they can’t find your contact information easily on your website. Contact information should be convenient to find and either located on its on a special page or within the website’s footer, as the footer appears on every page and can be viewed from any area of the website.If your contact information has its own page, the page link should be easy to find and clearly marked. For example, the link could be located within the main menu dropdown and titled with something simple such as “Contact Us”. A good contact page will have a phone number, email address, and an address if the website is related to company with physical locations. The website should also have a contact form to make the process of sending you a message even easier. If someone is looking to contact a Brooklyn Web Design company, it should be easy for them.
5) Too Many Contact Form Fields
When it comes to contacting a business, people want to be able to communicate their message quickly and without hassle, which means that online contact forms need to be designed with usability in mind. A contact form should only contain basic fields such as email address or phone number, name, and a message field. If the website is an online shop, you might also consider adding a field where the customer can input his or her order number. There’s no need for any extra fields, as including too many fields and asking for too many details turn people away. This is mostly because it takes too much time to fill in the fields.
6) The Sacrificing of Speed for Visual Appeal
The ideal website is both fast and easy on the eyes. This can be a tough combination to achieve without a bit of attention and patience. Often times, designers focus too much on the visual aspects of a site and push the aspect of speed to the side. A website that has great graphics or a complicated background is nice to look at but will often time be slower than a simpler designed website. Avoid using too many photos, videos, and complicated backgrounds such as those that move, blink, or otherwise change, as all of them will cause the site to load more slowly. This problem is especially true for mobile users and should be considered when designing a mobile-friendly website.
