A Few Website No-No's From Your Friendly Local Website Experts

We often read articles on where websites are headed, what trends are in, and how to handle the basics of designing your own website. But there isn't nearly as much coverage on the bad practices of website DIY'ers. You know a bad website when you're on it, but it can be difficult to pinpoint the "no-no's" that make you bounce from the bad site and give your attention to a site that does it right.  
 
Here are a few of the "no-no's" we think are important when it comes to website design in the Year 2020.

First:
Don’t get cute with font colors. Stick with black text on light backgrounds.

Or white text on dark backgrounds. If you feel like you absolutely MUST stray from white or black text, choose a font color with as much contrast as possible from your background color or image.

​You don’t want to lose a large chunk of your audience because they simply find it difficult to read your red font on your pink background, or your blue font on your yellow background. (Did you know nearly 10% of the population cannot read this sentence because they have a form of color blindness that can't see reds and greens? Don't leave out one-tenth of your potential customers by making this same mistake.)

Obviously, there are exceptions, especially in the creative world, where you may want to show off your creativity with vibrant (yet complementary) colors. But for most standard business sites, you want as much contrast as possible between your text and your backgrounds.

The same concept applies with fancier fonts. Studies have shown that as many as 1 in 4 young people can't read cursive writing, so if you like a fancier font, try and limit its usage, especially if you intend to communicate to an audience under the age of 30 (which we do, so we're not even going to get cute here and change THIS FONT to cursive.)

2.
Don't write an essay. Avoid long paragraphs of information.

If you have a lot of information to share:

• Try and break it up with bullet points
• Or break your text blocks up with related images​

via GIPHY

Attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. Almost no one likes to read a single paragraph of text, let alone several paragraphs. They want simple information FAST!

Get creative in the ways you can present large amounts of information. If the information you want to present takes A LOT of text, try presenting it in a video too. Give users a choice in how they want to digest that much information.

Third:
​As you are building your site, don’t view your work first on your desktop or laptop computer. Most users view websites on a mobile device nowadays (as much as 90% on some of our local sites), so make the mobile version the default version you view while designing.

And don’t waste too much time on the big, fancy design elements that are only available on the desktop-version of your site. These elements often slow down your page load times to a virtual crawl on mobile devices (especially in rural West Central Ohio).

People have grown accustomed to incredibly fast page load times on their mobile devices. Having a huge, ultra high-def panoramic video (that likely cost your business thousands of dollars and countless hours to even produce) is increasingly unnecessary. And more often than not, that slow-loading, buffering video on a bad mobile connection annoys your users with slower page load times and causes them to bounce from your page.

There are always exceptions to every rule depending on the business, but this is pretty much the new standard in our neck of the woods. Give the people what they want as quick, easy and efficiently as possible.

Meta

4.
Don’t be afraid of white space. A lot of clients can’t stand empty white space and want a graphical element, text, image or a video on every square inch of their site, but studies show that users like the white space. 


White space gives eyes a breather as they transition from one section to the next. And their eyes are funneled in the direction you want them to with white space. A site with too much content and too much going on can distract and be just as ineffective as a site with not enough content and information.

​
Find a balance. And don’t be afraid to use just plain old white space as that balance. It's simple, easy and doesn't distract from your message.
 
Lastly:
Don't be inconsistent in your design. For example, did you notice the labeling on each of our points? We were intentionally inconsistent to show how distracting it can be. 

Keep your site organized and cohesive. Not only do cohesive sites flow better and feel more unified, they also present a stronger message of your brand and competency.

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We know there are still a lot of website DIY'ers out there. We hope these Website No-No's help. 

And if you feel overwhelmed, out of time or ready for a professional upgrade, contact us today for a free consultation. We love helping local businesses tap into their full potential online!