Hey there! Today we are talking about the top 5 website design mistakes that I see all the time. When you make your website, please keep these tips in mind.
Website Design Mistake #1- Not using WordPress
We talked about why you should use WordPress in my last post. It is seriously the best website platform to use. Over 50% of the worlds websites are on this platform and there is a reason why!
Website Design Mistake #2- Bad Hosting
This is super important. Getting a great hosting provider can seem really confusing because there are so many out there! Hosting is where your website files are stored and how they deliver them to the internet. So, your hosting is everything. It is by far the most important decision you will make regarding products for your website.
Things you want to look for in a good host:
- They should be using SSD drives (NOT SATA) this is super important.
- They should provide FREE SSL, seriously its 2020, SSL should be included in your hosting.
- You need to pay attention to storage space, depending on how large your site is, you may need more.
- You need to pay attention to bandwidth limits, especially if you have (or plan on) having lots of traffic.
I offer amazing high-speed cloud hosting that is not only affordable but also I offer monthly plans unlike most hosts that make you pay yearly.
Website Design Mistake #3- Not being mobile friendly
Did you know that over 50% of your viewers will view your website on mobile first? This is why it is super important to have a site that is mobile friendly. What does that mean? Have you ever visited a site that you can’t read, or navigate,easily? It’s so frustrating! If you only have 5 seconds or less to make an impression (which you do) its vital that your site is easy to use. This is why I love Divi to build my sites, it allows you to view and build in mobile version too.
Things to check for:
- Images, are they aligned correctly? Do they look off?
- Fonts, they should be easy to read. No less than 15px.
- Alignment, most things should be center aligned on mobile.
- speed, it should load fast.
Website Mistake #4- Having a slow site
Like I said above, you only have 5 seconds or less, to make an impression and keep the viewer on your site. One of the most important factors to speed, is hosting. If you have bad hosting, you wont be able to fix it until you change hosting. Another thing you need to make sure of is that your images are the correct size and that they are compressed.
I strongly recommend compressing your images before loading to your site. One of my favorite tools for compression is tinypng.com its free and does a great job. A great plug in to help scale and compress your images is Optimole. I love using this plugin on my sites.
Another thing you need to optimize your site for great speed is a cache plugin. Evans Hosting comes with LiteSpeed cache for free, and I strongly recommend it. Depending on your hosting provider they may have one. If not, WP Rocket is great cache plugin but it is a paid plugin.
Website Mistake #5- Not using call to actions
Call to actions (also known as CTA’s) are what you tell the viewer to do next. Common CTA’s are “Call Now!”, “Book an Appointment!”. These are crucial to your website strategy. Funny thing, people won’t do anything unless you tell them to.
I recommend to all my clients to put a call to action in the header. Look above at my header, there is a CTA that states “Work with me”. I recommend that it is a different color button to stand out. I also recommend that the CTA is above the fold. Above the fold is anything that you see on your website before scrolling. Your CTA’s should be below the fold in each section as well. Constantly reminding the viewer of what they should do next.
So those are my top 5 mistakes that people make on their websites. Are you making these mistakes?
Please, as always, reach out if you have any questions.
xo
Autumn
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