Great Web Designers Avoid These Top 5 Mistakes

The number one mistake in web design is to create your website using Flash technology. You have to put your visitors first and there is no doubts that Flash sites look good but this is unlikely to impress. They want information about your products and services and most couldn’t care less that you have a Flash site – many will leave without even seeing what you have to offer.


Not all of your visitors will have mega broadband connections and what will appear quickly to some will take an age for others and will more than likely have them clicking the back button through frustration. Internet surfers are used to instant answers and don’t appreciate delays so why make them wait? For all your UK design needs go to web design UK.


The second mistake is trying to make your website look like a catalog with hundreds of links to different products on the front page and subsequent pages. This is the “show them all you’ve got scenario" where website owners believe that if they display all of their offers they will make more sales. There is no evidence to support that this works.


There are several studies of online marketing which demonstrate that too much choice often ends up as no choice and this will not make you any sales. Information overload like this will overwhelm your visitors and they will look elsewhere as they don’t want to experience this. It is better to organize your site into product categories and help your visitors further by adding a search box.


Creating a site that the top search engines Yahoo, Bing and Google can’t find is the third biggest mistake that you can make with web design. Many will tell you that your message to your visitors is much more important than worrying about the search engines. While there is truth in this, it is quite easy to write for your visitors and optimize for the search engines at the same time.


The smart thing to do is to see what people are typing into the search engines when they are looking for plumbers in London. Let’s assume that the majority of people are searching for “Plumber in London". So it makes sense t o optimize your site for these keywords. The term needs to appear in your title, in the main body of your content a number of times and in your site description. Search engines are just machines and they need all the help they can get in understanding what your web site is about.


Putting too many graphics on your site is mistake number four. The more images you have, the more likely you are to avert your visitor’s attention from your core message and your page will be slow. Google are now penalizing web sites with slow load times. You have seven seconds to interest your reader according to many online surveys. Some web sites take longer than that to display because they are full of graphics and you will lose a lot of visitors of your site is like this.


And the final mistake in web design is to have your site design and content produced by people with no online marketing experience. The point of having a web site is to get your visitors to take action such as buying your product or service, joining your email list or picking up the phone and calling you. Just let your web designer do what they are good at which is the design work while you or a hired copywriter produce the written content.