Web design is one of the most important assets in your digital marketing strategy. Your web design should be responsive, easy to use and should work for you to generate leads & sales. If you’re reading this, you might be experiencing trouble with low site traffic or engagement and seeking ways to boost your web design performance.

Sadly, not all web designers apply a user-focused strategy when building a website – and if you built your own website, you might never have heard of web design strategy, or how/why to use it as part of your web design. Have no fear, because today’s guide will highlight some common mistakes to avoid in web design and provide solutions to the problems they cause.

Increased web design performance is just a few steps away!

For those who may be unfamiliar, I’ll first define a few of the web design related terms used in today’s article:

• Bounce rate – the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page.

• Engagement rate – the percentage of visitors who engage with a particular website. This can be using different metrics such as clicks, image views, time spent on site pages or downloads.

• Conversion rate – the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action, eg. becoming your client or customer by booking an appointment or making a purchase.

Understanding these terms are an essential part of your web design strategy, and will help you start making sense of your website analytics. This will be the starting point for identifying potential problems with your web design resulting in low traffic, engagement or conversion. 

There are a number of web design mistakes I often see which contribute to low site traffic and engagement, so let’s identify what these are and how to avoid them.

Web design mistake number one: an unresponsive web design across devices.

If your web design is unresponsive, this means that it’s less functional or not functional for site visitors on tablet or mobile.

Potential problems here are likely to be low site traffic and an increased bounce rate. In Australia alone, 56.74% of website traffic is generated by mobile users as of March 2023^[1], meaning this common, easily-fixed web design mistake could cost you more than half of potential site visitors! An unresponsive web design can negatively impact your website’s bounce rate, as nearly 8 in 10 consumers will stop engaging with content that doesn’t display well on their device^[2].

To avoid this problem, ensure the web designer you choose provides a fully-responsive design as part of their web design service. This means your web design will appear optimised and will function perfectly across all devices including desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile. It’s important not to skip this step if you’re DIY-ing your own site, but if you’re not confident applying these changes, seek out a web designer who can help you apply these changes.

For those who may be unfamiliar, I’ll first define a few of the web design related terms used in today’s article:

• Bounce rate – the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page.

• Engagement rate – the percentage of visitors who engage with a particular website. This can be using different metrics such as clicks, image views, time spent on site pages or downloads.

• Conversion rate – the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action, eg. becoming your client or customer by booking an appointment or making a purchase.

Understanding these terms are an essential part of your web design strategy, and will help you start making sense of your website analytics. This will be the starting point for identifying potential problems with your web design resulting in low traffic, engagement or conversion. 

There are a number of web design mistakes I often see which contribute to low site traffic and engagement, so let’s identify what these are and how to avoid them.

Web design mistake number two: poor search engine optimisation (SEO).

It’s no secret that SEO strongly influences the visibility of your site to your audience.

If your web design has poor SEO performance, you might be experiencing low website traffic, which ultimately results in a web design with low conversion rates. Your audience can’t engage with you if they can’t find you!

To avoid this problem, chat with your web designer about potential SEO solutions. There are many SEO options available to all kinds of budget, but check to see if your web designer includes any SEO setup or optimisation as part of their web design service.

Web design mistake number three: an inconvenient user experience.

We’ve all had one of these website encounters – you get there, nothing is feels intuitive, the site navigation is confusing and you just can’t seem to quickly and easily complete the task you went there for. The accessibility and convenience provided to your audience as they navigate your website is known as the user experience (UX).

If your site’s UX is flawed, your potential problems are likely to be low engagement and low conversion rates. UX is often forgotten about as one of the ‘invisible’ elements which contribute to high-converting web design, but not prioritising this can be a huge mistake as 88% of online customers say they wouldn’t return to a website after a bad user experience[3]. And they won’t try to buy from you if they can’t find or understand what you’re selling!

To avoid this problem and boost your success at converting site visitors to customers, be sure to invest in a web designer who prioritises your site’s user experience and provides a web design strategy which is complementary to the goals for your website.

Web design mistake number four: dubious (or no) site imagery.

How many times have we all accessed a website only to wince when faced with those horribly fake stock images? In contrast, some web designs contain no imagery at all – leaving us with a dubious sense of their credibility. Professional imagery plays an incredibly important role in your web design and its ability to engage site visitors.

If your web design contains dubious or no imagery, you might be experiencing low site engagement and an increased bounce rate.

There are a few great solutions for avoiding icky stock images in your web design. The goal of your website imagery is to tell the story of your business in an authentic way and create a sense of trustworthiness within your audience. The best and most genuine solution is to invest in brand photography!

The addition of brand photography to your web design creates a cohesive, engaging experience for your site visitors. You don’t need an entire gallery, often 5-10 high quality images will do. If you’re already making a sizeable investment into your web design, seriously consider investing in brand photography as well. When paired together, a good brand photographer and vision-oriented web designer will capture your authenticity across every aspect and produce website magic that’s out of this world!

If brand photography isn’t an option for you right away, don’t worry. As long as you or your web designer understands the value of genuine imagery, there are many high quality images to be found online using paid resources such as Adobe Stock, or free resources such as Unsplash or Pexels.

Our fifth and final web design mistake for today: an overcrowded website.

This occurs when a web design is stuffed with too much information in the form of written content, images, fonts, colours or other visual elements. It can often be tempting to fill your site with as much information as you can, but there’s a time and place for including this content (your web designer and copywriter should help you with this).

An overcrowded web design reduces its overall effectiveness, not to mention resulting in slower page speed! Potential problems here are likely to be low conversion and increased bounce rates.

To avoid this problem, discuss a ‘less is more’ approach with your existing web designer or find a web designer whose visual style is more minimal and easier on the eyes. Every word, image and other piece of content in your web design should be intentional and serve your overall web design strategy, and not just be there because it can be. For example, business websites with a clean, modern and/or minimal layout are often perceived as more professional and trustworthy. Additionally, once you realise that website users read only 28% of text on a page on average^[4], you can begin to focus on communicating only the content that really matters and slimming down the rest.

Whether you’re a DIY expert building your own site or a seasoned web designer building sites for others, carefully consider the positioning of your site against these five common web design mistakes. They can all have a negative impact on the performance of your website, but by solving each one you’ll be sure to see increased site traffic, engagement and conversion rates.

It’s easiest in the beginning to find a web designer who values quality, and whose web design strategy includes solutions to each one of these challenges – it’s a good idea to ask a potential web design partner about this before making an investment with them. Alternatively, you could opt for a solution such as a website template which are generally lower in cost, fully customisable and include pre-built solutions to most or all of these challenges.

I hope this guide has left you feeling enlightened and with some helpful ideas for boosting the performance of your web design!

I offer a variety of custom web design services suited to all kinds of budgets, so if you’re keen to start transforming your online presence and writing your digital success story, I’d love to have a chat – it’d be great to meet you!

- Emily