When trying to gain new customers, subscribers, or frequent website visitors in a competitive online world, your website will essentially be the face of your business. While more seasoned websites with an established following may have some room to experiment, Avatar New York lists 3 mistakes that should be avoided in the web design of a new site.
Unclear navigation. For newer businesses, having confusing navigation throughout your website can be your biggest downfall. Potential customers may become discouraged and not bother giving your business a fair shot if they can’t easily navigate their way around. Provide a search bar feature that is clear and easy to locate, so that users can quickly look for the information that they want. Also, make sure that your navigational bar menu runs horizontally across the top of the page, because it has been shown that users respond best to this common formatting.
Disregarding mobile. While having a website that looks great and functions well on a computer is a complete necessity, disregarding how it will appear on mobile devices is doing your business a complete injustice. It has been proven that the smartphone is the most common platform that websites are browsed on today, so assuring that your site is compatible in this format is of the utmost importance. There is a high chance that the first time a user sees your website will be on a mobile device, so disregarding mobile compatibility will eliminate half of your potential market right off the bat.
Straying away. While sometimes it pays off to take risks and dare to be different, you should avoid straying away from the norm when web designing for a new site. Certain tactics and rules for web design have been used and tested over the years, and have been proven effective. For example, your company logo should always be present near the top left corner of the page and should send users back to the home page upon clicking. Additionally, links should change color after being clicked so that users can easily remember what pages they have already visited. People enjoy familiarity, so giving them what they want is a recipe for success.
Avatar New York is an innovating, award-winning New York web design firm dedicated to providing clients with responsive websites that help grow brands and convert visitors to customers. With an expertise in web development, branding, cloud hosting, mobile app development, and CMS and e-commerce solutions, Avatar New York's top tier designers have the ability to create intelligent websites for any type of business.
Sources:
http://www.businesscomputingworld.co.uk/5-web-design-mistakes-new-online-businesses-should-avoid/