Chukwunonso Samuel
Today’s website visitors are usually busy individuals who are most likely checking your site on their mobile phones while on the go to work or in between appointments. If they have a few moments to spare while at home, they probably have their hands full with cooking dinner, driving their kids to after-school activities, or simply lounging on the couch while watching TV.
You’ve got just a few short seconds to catch the reader’s attention and hold it. A poor web design or slow website will almost certainly cause you to lose that valuable traffic you’ve worked so hard to get. In fact, the New York Times states that if a website is slower than a similar one by more than just a quarter of a second, people are less likely to visit it. So, besides ensuring your website is fast, visitors also expect it to meet certain standards.
- A website should have an appealing visual design
- provide high-quality content
- and have a user-friendly navigation
To keep your audience focused, it’s crucial to avoid the following five pitfalls and make sure the website doesn’t take away from their attention
Five Annoying Website Issues to Avoid
Busy Graphics
Editors of newspapers and magazines understand the significance of white space in a publication. It is necessary to allow our eyes to quickly scan the content for easy reading. A page filled with text without any breaks, headings, or separation would be challenging to read. Similarly, cluttered graphics can make the content on your site difficult to read. To make reading easier, it’s best to avoid them.
- Busy tiled backgrounds with an image that repeats and draws the reader’s attention.
- Neon colors are colors that clash (these hurt the eye)
- Text in yellow
- Light text on a light background or dark text on a dark background
If looking at it hurts your eyes, your site visitors will leave quickly.
Here are some examples of the worst “busy” web designs I could find:
Slow Load Time
KISSmetrics states that loading speed is the main reason people abandon a website. If your site takes more than three seconds to load, it’s likely that visitors will leave. In fact, 47% of Internet users expect a site to load in less than two seconds. To improve the performance of your website, here are some tips:
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- Make sure to properly optimize all images for web use.
- Utilize CSS style sheets for styling, rather than adding styles directly to individual pages.
- Aim for a balance between the number and size of graphics. While larger graphics can improve conversion, it’s important to not overdo it.
- Consider selecting a faster website server to host your site on.
Pingdom offers a free website speed test that gives you an in-depth analysis of the load times for different items on your site. You’ll receive a grade from zero to 100, and access to other helpful analysis tools.
Too Spammy
Does your website have an excessive amount of advertisements? Most people prefer to visit websites for content and information rather than being bombarded with ads. While a few ads are acceptable since they help the website pay for its expenses, having too many can be a nuisance. Additionally, a website that has too many ads is likely to receive a lower ranking from Google. In fact, Google AdSense restricts websites to a maximum of three ads per page to avoid penalization.
When someone visits your website and reads an article, it’s important that they can easily find their way back to the home page. If they can’t, they’re less likely to stick around and read more. To make sure your site visitors have a smooth experience, keep your navigation simple and easily accessible. Place it near the top of the page and provide additional links at the bottom. It’s also helpful to keep the navigation consistent across all pages so that visitors always know where to find the menus. And, to ensure a positive experience, here are a few things to avoid in site navigation:
- It’s best to avoid having only images or icons with no text accompanying them as links, expecting visitors to know their purpose.
- Using fonts that are hard to read or text that is either too small or too large, hindering readability or becoming distracting, should also be avoided.
Not Mobile Device Friendly
According to the Pew Research Internet Project, nearly 9 out of 10 adults in America own a cell phone, with over half of them being smartphones. In a survey conducted by Pew in 2013, it was found that 60% of mobile device users use their devices to browse the internet.
If your website is not optimized for mobile devices, you may be missing out on reaching new readers or customers. To solve this problem, there are affordable solutions such as responsive web design or using mobile-friendly tools.
For example, modern WordPress themes often come equipped with responsive designs that make it easy to create a mobile-friendly site.
If you need help choosing a theme, refer to this post for guidance.
Advantages of Improving Your Website Design
If visitors are quickly leaving your website without becoming customers, it could be because your website design needs improvement. By incorporating elements used by successful websites, you can increase visitor engagement, reduce the number of abandonments and enhance conversion rates. Why not take a moment to examine your website today?
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