15 Important Web Design Problems

Time is short when it comes to surfing the internet. By the time you finish this sentence, someone will visit and abandon your website. Unless you give your site visitors a reason to stay, they’ll be gone. And a high bounce rate is an indication of visitors’ lack of interest and possible web design problems.

Common web design problems that we see in our day to day work

1. Slow website that take a long time to display

Visitors have little patience when they are surfing, if your site doesn’t load quickly, you’ll have lost your visitor. Optimise website structure for fast loading and similarly optimise the images.

2. No clear pathway through your site

Navigation is poor. You may want to give visitors an easy way in and through your website. If there is too much information, people don’t know where to look and get confused. Don’t give visitors too many options. Keep it simple.

3. Writing is difficult to read

Font too small or too big or a strangle confusing font! No one will spend the time to decipher your text, they’ll just move to an easier to read website. Make it easy for them. You want people to come to your site and read what you have to offer.

4. Contact information is difficult to find

Why have an ‘online store’ that no one can easily contact! If you want customers to find you, make sure your address, phone number, email and business hours are easy to find on your site.

5. Little or no Keyword research

Keywords are basic to SEO in any website. Yet it’s surprising how many websites I work on for SEO, that make little use of keywords. It is no use having a website that looks fabulous if basic ‘keywords’ are not used correctly to ‘tell’ the search robots what your website is about. Optimise meta tags with keywords.

6. Web pages do not have individual page names

If your web pages haven’t got meaningful names, you are missing a trick. Why would you call a web page ‘220’ rather than a description of what the page is about such as ‘buy house plants’? Use keywords in page names.

7. PDF files on web pages

This is a pet hate of mine. I think all information that you think a visitor is looking for, should be on a web page. If the information is needed, it will add value if it is on a web page. If the information is no really necessary, why attach a pdf?

8. Too many adverts on the web page

Nobody minds a few adverts on a page as long as you can still see what the page is about. But if the page content about fishing is swamped by adverts for swimsuits or books, the visitor will probably leave your site.

9. Poor use of colour

If there are too many colours or a strange mix of colours, a website generally looks ‘messy’. Keep it simple. Limit the number of colours and likewise limit the number fonts. Decide on a colour scheme and use it throughout.

10. Undated postings of articles

I don’t understand why people post news pages or blog pages that are undated. Your visitors want to know whether you wrote it in 2017 or 2009. Date your posts.

11. Out dated design

Your website may have been cutting edge in 2009, but it’s now 2017! It’s got a header, sidebars and a loads of information down the centre. It’s 8 years old and needs a redesign.
Time to refresh with current design thinking. The layout of a page has evolved over the past decade. These days the best sites break up content into smaller, digestible bits.

12. Website isn’t mobile friendly

Mobile has overtaken desktop. Most of your visitors will be looking at your website on a tablet or phone, that is on a tiny screen. Have you checked what it looks like on a phone screen? If visitors have to pinch and stretch to read the text, they’ll move on to another website that is more user friendly on a small screen. Test how mobile friendly your site is on the Google Mobile Friendly Test.

13. Poor quality images

Images are the ‘life blood’ of websites. Visitors ‘flick’ through a page looking at the images to check the page is about what they are looking for. If your images are poor, your visitors will move on. In today’s world, it is fairly easy for most people to take reasonable quality photos on their phone, just a bit care and attention to the subject matter, background and lighting.

14. Over used stock images and photos

If visitors see the same image on many websites, they’ll start thinking its a bogus site. Visitors don’t want to see the same picture of people sitting around a conference table in different websites. A personal photo about your business is a valuable asset to a website.

15. Designing for yourself rather than your customers

Identify your target customers and customise the design and content for their needs.