5 website design mistakes to avoid in 2020
Live chat and chatbots are both great features to consider during a website revamp…
Here at giosg, our customers often tell us that one of the main reasons they have started using chat or chatbots is because they finally have a proper website to showcase the tool on. As with chat tools, websites also need to be continuously optimised and improved to get the most out of them. And since websites are a crucial part of a chat functioning, we wanted to take a glance into the future and see what website mistakes you should avoid in the year 2020.
1. Not optimised for mobile
First off, we have to differentiate between mobile-friendly design and mobile-optimized design. Mobile-friendly design functions the same way no matter the device, while mobile-optimized design is built on dynamic content that changes according to the device by correcting spacing and optimising images.
One of the most important things to keep in mind is that Google now ranks mobile sites higher than desktop sites in SEO ranking. Already in March 2018, Google announced that they will start indexing websites based on their mobile version, not the desktop version.
2. Mobile page upload time takes too long
With more than half of all website traffic coming from mobile devices, how long a mobile page takes to upload is of utmost importance. And do you know the limit to wait for a mobile page upload?
It’s about three seconds. According to Google’s research, about 53% of visitors leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load, so make sure that your mobile pages are in order.
3. Social media links
The two most general mistakes with social media are that companies either forget to link to their social media sites completely, or the links are too high up on the actual website. Social media icons on the top of your page are a distraction and encourage visitors to leave your site just when they’ve landed. Social media icons are extremely important, but please add them anywhere else that on the top header of your website.
4. Images are not optimised for website
Many blog writers and website content creators tend to forget that once they find the perfect image for their page or blog, the image still needs formatting to fit your specific needs. So, here’s a couple of things to remember once an image is downloaded:
Decrease the file size since stock photos tend to be on the larger side, and large files tend to negatively affect the loading speed of your page
Remember SEO and the fact that you need to change the file name and the metadata of the image.
5. Ignoring Growth-Driven Design (GDD)
One of the most common mistakes for renewing a website is to see it as a project instead of an ongoing development. After working on the site for months, and having it go live, companies tend to stop improving the website until the next website redesign. Instead of a one-off project, in growth-driven design, a website ‘project’ is seen as a constant process of enhancing the website and improving results through iteration.
In 2020, there will be no such thing as a “finished website”. Tools like Hotjar help you to see what aspects of your website layout can be improved while other marketing analytics and tools can help you to constantly improve your content to drive up conversion.
