Common Mistakes in Custom Website Development and How to Avoid Them

It is shocking but 94% of visitors mistrusting a website on the first visit is design related. Also, about 75% of a website’s credibility depends on its design.

A professionally designed website is that important!

Although many might still have the idea that websites are optional to businesses a reality check – it's a necessity. Most of the time, a successful brand is built on a credible website, and a professional custom website development company is usually involved. Having a poorly designed website for your business is worse than a no website at all for your online business.

An effective website must have a few elements in place like,

1. A clear CTA
2. Clear brand messaging that directly targets the ideal audience
3. A mobile-optimized design

To set the CTAs straight consider a few questions:

1. A clear idea of your target audience
2. Goals of your website
3. Ways to drive traffic to the website
4. The frequency at which the website will get updates

After you have addressed these queries, the chance of making mistakes in custom website development becomes low.

However, there are a few website design mistakes you need to avoid. It will ensure that your website becomes the ultimate destination for your target audience.

Custom Website Design Mistakes to Avoid

Slow Loading Speed

Poor user experience is one of the biggest red flags for a website. One of the primary reasons for poor user experience is slow loading speed which contributes to the higher bounce rates. Patience might be a virtue, but in the fast-evolving digital space, it is not. A slow-loading website is more likely to ward off visitors instead of doing the opposite.

Some of the reasons behind slow-moving websites are – too many plug-ins, large file sizes, and outdated code.

How to Avoid?

To start with, optimize media files. Compress videos and images with lazy loading techniques to load content as per requirement. Using flash content and heavy scripts can also slow down page loading. For this, various page speed monitoring tools come in handy when you are trying to solve website development errors related to page loading.

Non-Responsive Web Design

One of the biggest mistakes in custom website development is a non-responsive layout. In other words, a website that does not adjust to different screen sizes is considered obsolete or a big non in terms of website design. This is another major reason for poor user experience, as visitors will have to scroll horizontally or zoom web pages to access the sites, especially from mobile devices.

How To Avoid?

Responsive web design is the only solution to this problem as it ensures that the website is easy to navigate without having to go through too much trouble.

Vague Calls to Action or CTAs

As the name suggests, a CTA is a prompt that encourages a visitor to perform a specific action. It could be” Learn More”, “Buy Now”, or “I am Interested” etc. On the other hand, vague CTAs are not clear to users or what action they are supposed to take. As a custom website design mistakes lead to missed opportunities and confusion to users who might not visit the website in the future. Statistically speaking, a detailed CTA performs 202% better than basic CTAs.

How To Avoid?

To avoid this mistake, actionable CTAs help users set their expectations and intent behind the button making them to click on it.

Generic Messaging

Generalized messaging is when your content fails to attract the attention of the target users or simply fails to communicate through the design. This is the kind of messaging that keeps the audience in the dark regarding your brand understanding.

How to Avoid?

The rule you must remember to avoid this website usability error is to display effective messaging just above the fold. This will inform your audience about the brand messaging and what makes you stand out. An effective brand messaging right at the beginning of the website will boost engagement and conversions.

Unorganized Interface

One of the most important places to avoid mistakes in custom website development is the user interface. An unorganized interface is visually overwhelming and cluttered. When you put too much information on one page, it becomes hard for visitors to grasp it in one go. This makes accessibility and readability difficult.

How to Avoid?

Use negative space or white space in your website to declutter and have a more organized layout. White space can help the content to divide sequentially making it visually appealing. Also, the focus will be more on CTAs and content.

Unreadable Font Sizes

Using font sizes that are not synchronized with the brand messaging or are difficult to read leads to issues with readability. Too small text leads to readability issues while too large text leads to zooming out to make the webpage decipherable. Out of the many mistakes in custom website development, this is especially annoying as even though everything else is in place, this one factor can ruin the entire user experience.

How to Avoid?

Choose a font size that is not too big or too small. To better understand, for mobile screens use font size around 16pt/px, 15-19pt/px for a tablet and 16 – 20 pt/px on a desktop.

Hidden Navigation

Navigation placement matters for the entire layout of a website. This is one of the mistakes in custom website development that you can avoid through thoughtful planning. Hidden navigation that is not immediately visible to the users can be a frustrating user experience. Visitors often struggle to find information or features boosting the bounce rate.

How to Avoid?

Make sure the navigational element is marked clearly and also easy to access from all devices. Implement a sticky navigation menu to make it all come together.

Grow Website Credibility!

These are some of the most common website mistakes that ruin the credibility of a website knowingly or unknowingly.

Offering an experience to the users that they might want to come back is a win for every online business looking to increase traffic and business awareness.