In this age of online business and competitive marketing, smart website designs are essential for building brand identity and furthering business. However, website designers are prone to making common mistakes when designing a website, partly in their zeal to create a result-oriented design, and partly their desire for a ‘beautiful’ website. But good-looking websites are not necessarily good websites.

Here’s a quick look at some of the mistakes commonly made:

1. Complicated Designs: Web designers often commit the mistake of creating complex web designs that are difficult to access by online visitors. When a visitor comes to a site, they must be easily guided to the information they are looking for. For this, the navigation must be simple and user-friendly to lure the viewer more into the site. Complicated designs will do the reverse. It will drive the users away from the site.
2. No Website Planning: Most web designers lack a proper and well-thought out website design plan. Before planning the dynamics of a website, they jump head first into creating an ‘attractive’ website layout. Before designing a website, it is essential that the purpose of the site is clearly defined and the target market is recognized.
3. Mismatch in the Theme and Design of the Website: Not necessarily will a gaudy and vibrantly designed website do wonders in attracting visitors. The look and feel of the website must clearly spell out the company’s brand image. For instance, if you have a website on academics, then using a flamboyant design will fail to deliver the brand’s individuality to your audience.
4. Designs that are Not Interactive: Often, designers design sites that are little interactive. The design should be able to talk about your business concept. There is a good chance for a new visitor who realizes he is getting what he wants from your site, turning into a customer. Web design should speak out the essential details and eliminate the superfluous ones.
5. Lengthy Web Pages: Designers sometimes incorporate too much text in the website. This bores the visitors as the online audience has very little attention span. Long scrolling a webpage drives the visitors’ attention away from the site. A properly designed website must be simple, integrating only one idea a page.
6. Mistakes in Language: This is another common mistake repeated by web designers. Errors in the use of language may drift visitors away from the site, resulting in poor traffic. Good content should essentially be error-free and useful.
7. Too many Clickable Links: Most web designers fail to diminish the number of clicks in a page. Too many clickable links on a webpage makes a visitor lose focus and causes inconvenience when navigating the site.

It is a well known fact that search engines are major traffic boosters for websites. A designer who fails to design a search-engine friendly websites will have fewer or insignificant visitors. Ideally, avoiding the above mistakes can help build a SEO-friendly website. If web designers employ simple but creative, user-friendly designs, then a site’s ROIs are bound to improve.