Your company website is more than just an online version of a company paper brochure. Its design and performance can be seen as a measure of your company’s values, efficiency  and services. A poorly-designed website will affect not only your reputation but can also affect your sales and revenue in the long run. One can say that your customers will judge your site as a reflection of how your business operates.

With the the popularity mobile devices and the exponential growth of online shopping, a fully-functioning optimised website is no longer just an option but a requirement. If you want to generate quality traffic  and to build customer loyalty for your site, avoid the 3 web design mistakes below:

Slow Loading Websites

Users nowadays are generally impatient. A report showed that at least 25% of users ‘bounce’ or exit a site without doing anything if its pages load time exceeds 4 seconds. This lost audience can easily be translated as lost revenue. This is most evident in large ecommerce stores like Amazon where each second can be translated as billions of dollar in loss.  

Check the speed of your homepage and other most visited pages of your site. Any page that loads longer than 3 seconds need to optimised. Use tools like Google PageSpeed to find insights to speed up your website. Consider minimizing image sizes and making codes cleaner. You can also consider asking your host provider different solutions that they may have to improve your site’s load speed.  

Poor Mobile Site Experience

Nowadays, mobile devices are seemingly extensions of the people’s lives. Whether at work or in everyday lives, people have it with  all the time and everywhere. It is always within an arm’s length away from a person. Google recognized this behavior and updated its algorithm to award mobile-optimised sites with better search rankings in order to incentivize companies to make their sites mobile friendly.

Audit your site by browsing it with different mobile devices. Do different tasks like navigating to different pages, downloading items and signing up for newsletters. Take note of sections that made you pause or areas that did not function properly.

Check your site with Google's Mobile-Friendly Test. This tool will show you how your site is displayed on different mobile browser sizes and orientations. It will also provide insight on areas of the mobile experience you can improve on.

No In-site Search Functionality

Make it a point to provide easy access to your pages. People need information, and they need it quickly. What better way than providing them with an in-site search bar that allows them to input and browse your site’s page quickly. This is particularly important if you own a site that showcases thousands of different products.

Search functionality helps increase your site’s conversion. The data you will get from these searches will also help provide insight on items or pages that are important for them.

Have a search bar installed above the fold of each page of your website. Making sure this functionality is visible will directly affect both your bounce rate and conversion rate.

Summary

Website design can be quite difficult, but it can be beneficial if you know what to prioritize. Keep page load time fast, design for mobile and have a search function for your site. These basic items will keep your site competitive in the digital space.

‍