Is it possible that your website could be making a few big mistakes? Mistakes that could be costing you? No matter what type of website you have – ecommerce, brochure, dynamic – there are a few design principles that everyone should follow.
If you’re guilty of any of these seven web design mistakes, connect with your web designer STAT. Making a few simple adjustments can make a world of a difference for site’s performance.
1. Teeny, Tiny Fonts
One of the best ways to make your web content inviting is by choosing the right size font. Back in the day, websites had small fonts – around 12px. Over time, people realized that reading a 12px font on screen was quite difficult. Today, fonts are bigger, and yours should follow the trend. I recommend that body fonts be at least 14px – and at least twice that for headlines.
2. Straying from Design Principles
It’s good to be creative, but you don’t want to mess with common design principles. These principles are important to follow because users expect certain things to be in certain places. They expect to find logos and taglines at the top left of the page, menus in the top right and sitemaps in the footer. Be savvy – but work within the principles that we’ve all grown to know and love.
3. Moving Sliders/Carousels
Yoast said aloud what we were all thinking – sliders suck. Moving sliders aren’t just detracting from your site – they have no SEO value, they prevent readers from digging into your content and they can hurt your conversion rate. Because carousels often use Javascript, it’s likely that your site is being slowed down as well. Bottom line: Stay away from moving sliders.
4. Low Contrast Fonts
Most web designers know not to use a light font on a light background (or a dark font on a dark background), but some sites haven’t been updated. If you feel that your font doesn’t contrast well, let your web designer know.
5. Poor Line Height
Who would have thought that so many web design mistakes are in regards to font?! Another issue that can negatively affect your design is the line height of your font. After you choose a font and size, spend some time adjusting the line height. If you choose one sporadically, your font could look crowded and messy.
6. Long, Rambling Sentences
According to the Baymard Institute, sentences should contain 50 to 60 characters. That includes spaces. Yikes! But, lines of text that are too long can be intimidating. At the same time, you don’t want to make your lines too short. Otherwise, the reader will be stopping and starting way too much!
7. Bland Calls to Action
Your calls to action should stand out from the rest of your text, so let color do the work for you. CTA colors should be bright enough to capture attention yet complementary to the rest of the design.
There you are – seven web design mistakes to avoid. If your site is guilty of any of them, work with your web designer to get them fixed, or call SEMGeeks for an estimate on an updated website.
