Oftentimes, clients come to us because their previous web design firm did not work out. Here we have outlined some of the most common web design mistakes we have encountered and how to avoid or fix them. Hopefully, you can learn from them.
Not Setting Specific Goals
According to HubSpot and Forbes, the primary reason for website failures is not having a clear business objective. Many companies set vanity goals that do not necessarily translate into more sales: more traffic more page views, longer visit duration, etc. More traffic is only valuable if it generates more qualified leads. You need to establish SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely) website goals in order to ensure successful results.
- Specific – set a quantifiable website objectives like “increase lead generation by 50%”
- Measurable – Measure your progress with website tracking tools like Google Analytics or your CRM
- Attainable – Set realistic goals based on past website performance
- Relevant – Set goals that aligned with your business and stakeholders’ needs
- Timely – Set a realistic and attainable timeline for accomplishing your website goals
Not Defining your Target Market
In order to design an effective website, you have to define your target audience in terms of their lifestyle, income, needs, motivations, pain points and how they can benefit from your products or services. Remember, you can convert your target market if you make them relevant offers. Relevancy leads to sales and a successful website.
Not Creating a Blog
A blog that posts unique and relevant content regularly fuels SEO, brings up your website rankings and position you as an industry leader. Every post can help drive and convert web traffic, strengthen your brand and promote your expertise, products, and services. Business blogging has become status quo, so if you do not have a blog, you are already behind.
Not Designing your Logo First
A logo is a symbol that represents your company, its products or services. A logo is the focal point of your website and the theme of your brand. Designing a website without a logo is like not having a focal or theme. The logo also influences the website’s look and feel, fonts, colors, imagery, and design. Oftentimes, prospective clients just ask for the top left corner of the website to be left blank which can be disastrous.
Writing Content Without Keyword Research
Just because you build it, does not mean that they will come. Having a unique and functionally seamless website catered to your target market is only half of the equation. In order to drive qualified leads to your website, you need to rank in Google for the specific keywords that your target market is searching by doing some keyword research with Google Keyword Planner. Once you figure out what your specific keywords are, you need to incorporate them naturally into your website content. Writing your content without considering SEO is setting your website up for failure.
Ignoring Mobile Users
Responsive web design adjusts and reflows your web pages for easy reading and navigation with minimal resizing and panning across laptops and mobile devices. With mobile traffic having exceeded traditional laptop and desktop traffic as of 2014 and Google penalizing websites that are not mobile-friendly, responsive web design is a must to survive the mobile revolution.
Using a Pre-made Theme
Although customizing a pre-made theme may seem much less expensive and easy, they are bloated with code and thus are much slower loading than a custom WordPress website. A pre-made theme is also made to be very generic so that the web developer can sell it the hundreds of times he/she needs to hopefully make a profit. If you want to stand out against your competition, you need a unique website custom designed for your target market that loads at lightning speed for an optimal user experience. If you don’t believe us, try comparing a website made with a pre-made theme to a custom one with Google PageSpeed Insights. Remember that you get what you pay for and the majority of our business comes from clients who have purchased buggy pre-made themes that now have to pay again to have their websites fixed.
In Conclusion
Are you in the market for a professional web design agency who can grow with your business? We have a seasoned team of web designers, web developers and SEO specialists in the San Francisco Bay Area who have hands-on experience in designing custom WordPress websites for different industry verticals.