Nothing makes you appreciate a well-designed website like visiting a poorly designed one. As a business owner or marketing manager, you should take care to incorporate effective web design elements into your company’s website.
Small text, loud colors, and missing information all make for a poor web browsing experience.
Consider The Impact of Poor Web Design Elements on Your Company
Eighty-two percent of consumers conduct online research prior to making a purchase.
Now think about 82% of potential customers visiting your company’s website. Your website is, for all intents and purposes, a digital store. It displays your offerings and represents your brand.
If you walked into a messy, unattractive store, would you feel inclined to buy there? Or would you feel more inclined to shop elsewhere? More than likely, you’d want to leave and go to a different store.
Poor web design has the same effect. It paints a bad image of your brand, and it drives away potential customers. And for many businesses, you’re not competing locally or even nationally–you’re competing globally.
Given the fierce competition among online stores, it’s important to steer clear of poor web design elements.
Notoriously poor web design elements include the following:
A Rainbow Brite Color Scheme
Colors play an important part in making your website (and brand) attractive. You should choose colors that compliment each other, represent your brand, and make your website functional.
One thing you should not do is throw every color you like onto your website. Having such a busy color scheme makes your website exhausting to look at. Not to mention, it poorly affects your site’s functionality.
A lot of colors make it hard to discern your site’s other elements. Potential customers want to go to a site and know where to find what they’re looking for — not be screamed at by twenty or so bright colors.
Media That Automatically Plays
Auto-play media adds an unnecessary nuisance to your site that many customers will find annoying.
Consider the auto-play ads on lyrics and news sites. Most information on the Internet is text-based and requires reading. When you visit a site and one of these ads play, it breaks your concentration.
If customers want to watch or hear media, they will do it on their own terms. They don’t want to be forced to consume media, especially if they prefer silence or music while browsing.
Scammy Text or Images
One of the most important elements of efficient website design is credibility. There are a myriad of scams out there, so proving you’re trustworthy is key to generating online leads.
The easiest way to establish credibility is to include contact information and reviews on your site. But the buck doesn’t stop there.
Check your text elements. How are your grammar and spelling? Poor writing skills are a major red flag that your site may be questionable.
Next, review your overall layout. How old does it look? Does it seem like it was built circa 2000?
Scammers aren’t web designers. Their websites are simplistic and look like they were built by middle schoolers. As such, it’s important to keep your site updated and looking modern.
Hard-To-Read Text
Consumers visit your site for information about your company and products. If they can’t find that information easily, they will leave and go elsewhere on the web.
For that reason, the text on your site has to be readable. Curly fonts are pretty but can be hard to read. Small text might aesthetically look pleasing, but that pleasing look is lost if consumers can’t make out what the text says.
The same goes for colors. Don’t use light text on a light background or dark text on a dark background. That forces consumers to highlight the text, and many aren’t willing to do that just to read what it says.
Too Many Images
The old saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” And that is true–unless you’re using too many images.
Images help illustrate the information that you’re presenting to potential customers. However, too many images can muddle the message, confusing customers and driving them away.
Too many images can also make your site busy and poorly impact its functionality. Like crazy color schemes, a lot of unnecessary images distract customers from finding the information they want.
Poor Site Navigation
Excellent site navigation is another all-important web design element. Customers need a clear path to the information they seek, or else they will become frustrated and leave your site.
To make sure your site navigation runs smoothly, put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Is your main menu easy to find? Can you intuitively find the information you seek? Is the information organized into pages logically and named appropriately?
If you answered, “No,” to any of these questions, you need to reorganize your website immediately.
A Lot of Blank Space
Blank space may have been a hit with Taylor Swift fans, but it won’t resonate well with your potential customers.
Big and empty, blank space on a website does more than give the impression that you don’t know much about effective web design. It implies that you don’t have a lot to offer.
Fill that blank space with something, be it text, images, or reviews. Just be sure not to stuff the space, or the page will become too busy for customers’ viewing.
If you still can’t get rid of the blank space, you may have to look at rearranging the elements on that page.
Need Help Picking The Right Web Design Elements? Reach Out to Us!
Midas Marketing is an internet marketing agency with an extensive network of designers and marketing specialists. We are experts in web design and other internet marketing strategies, and we’d love to help you optimize your web presence!
Reach out to us today! The sooner you do, the sooner we can start boosting your site’s ROI.
Know of any other poor web design elements? Got a story about a horrible web browsing experience as a result of poor web design elements? Tell us in the comments section below!
