Common Mistakes of DIY Web Design

With the growing popularity of do-it-yourself website-building platforms, creating a great company website is now within the reach of practically every business operation. Still, building a website with no design training whatsoever means that you might fall victim to details that can seriously hurt its performance. Here are six most common mistakes made by those who opt for DIY web design.

Failure to realize user or business needs

When designing a website, business owners often think that a simple website is enough - in reality, a website needs to be effective in challenging competition, driving sales or boosting customer engagement.

A website that doesn’t realize business or community goals won’t work to your advantage - you need to clearly show visitors what you want them to do (fill a form, sign up for a newsletter, call customer service etc.). Failing to incorporate those objectives, your website will add nothing to your sales.

Slow load time

We all know how slow load time affects the conversion rate of our websites - a popular KISSmetrics study claimed that more than 3 seconds of load time is enough for 40% of visitors to abandon the page.

What slows a website down is basically its design. If you delegate the task of designing your website to a person who doesn't know how to compress images, use caching or limit server calls, you might be in for trouble.

Poor navigation and structure

Another classic mistake is choosing templates that look nice, but at the end of the day aren’t functional and only serve to confuse users with tricky navigation or chaotic structure. Needless to say, this is a mistake you’ll pay for in user experience, but also SEO. Getting the navigation right is almost always a challenge for amateur web designers.

Not designing for mobile

Even if you manage to get your website up and running, you’ll still need to address this significant issue - the mobile version of your website, which involves a set of completely new challenges. You’ll have to start worrying about website weight, images, screen sizes, as well as an entirely new audience.

SEO won’t be easy either - Google now has a new mobile algorithm, making such a mobile website even more important for your position in search rankings. Forgetting about mobile is a cardinal mistake that can cost you a lot.

Lack of Google/audience optimization

Among companies that choose to build their websites themselves, we constantly see this error: they either focus too much on Google and too little on their target audiences or vice versa. A great website will be perfectly optimized to serve the interests of both parties involved in the reception of information on our website. If you don’t take this optimization aspect into account when building your design, you risk losing on traffic in the future.

Missing the preferences of target audience

One of the worst mistakes made by people who delve into the world of web design without having a clue about what they’re doing is creating a website that looks nice, but has nothing in common with their target audience.

It’s important that the website matches the tone of your audience and projects the right company image. Just because you happen to like yellow doesn’t mean it’s the best color for your website. When focusing on your own preferences, you’ll be missing the needs of your target audience.

Instead of hurting your conversion rate and brand reputation, you can simply employ a professional to do the job for you - you’ll find many of them on different online platforms, but always make sure to check their skills and portfolio. Creating a great website with some help from web designers, you’ll be on your way to ensuring that your business is properly represented on the web.

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