The famous dictum is that we learn from our mistakes. But what if there was a simple list of mistakes you could reference to help you avoid them while performing your professional tasks? Don't you think web designing would be much more fun if you knew a way to avoid the pitfalls you might find yourself stumbling in to at least once in your career?

Well, here we have listed six key web designing mistakes you can avoid to make your project a success, whether you're a large online company, a growing small to medium sized business, or a startup.

A main reason behind the success of UAE based Elephant Nation is the effort we put into designing each and every component of our website. From the template we have to work on through to the customization options, such as buttons and images, the color scheme, the type of font, and the implementation of SEO practices; we ensure we carry out every task with great care and expertise.

So using our learnings, here are six mistakes you should aim to avoid when developing a web design for your brand.

1) Selection of the non-customizable template

While designing a website, the designer gets the option to create a suitable template for the website. The template they choose can either be customizable or non-customizable.

A customizable template allows the client to amend elements according to their individual brand's demands. Using a non-customibale design would be a big mistake.

Every client and design team look forward to a receiving the design in a format they can amend slightly according to their needs. Delivering a non-customizable template can restrict the functionality of the website and may hamper certain creativity requirements of the brand.

2) Wrong play with the SEO techniques

As every web designer and developer should know, SEO is crucial in affecting the visibility of a website in search engine results.

Without implementing SEO tricks and techniques on a website, it will fail to rank for the key terms customers are looking for, meaning it can quickly fall behind competitors.

A very common mistake that can be made while designing a website is overlooking ways to incorporate these SEO rules, recommendations, and best practices. Doing this often only means problems in the future both in terms of online reputation as well as actual traffic to the site.

Read this article to find out how to do an SEO health check of your site, and in turn boost your business without blowing your budget.

3) Using multiple fonts in text or visual content

Using too many fonts within the written and wider visual content can cause confusion for customers and impact engagement. As with any design, it's important the site balances the text with all the visual elements.

There may be some people who like the variety or appreciate the individual artistic elements, but finding the best pairings for fonts is crucial in delivering an aesthetically pleasing site.

This means the key is in keeping things simple, creative and attractive.

Check out this article if you're not a designer and remain unsure how to choose a font for your website.

4) Complicating the website's navigation

Ensuring visitors who enter the website navigate to the content they need is an art. Only creative and hardworking designers can ensure the perfect navigation of website pages.

The key is keeping the navigation simple rather than adding too many links and click-to-open features on every button on the web page. Before you make the mistake of adding additional navigation, study your website and make sure you are directing the visitor to only the most important and relevant content from the home page.

For more help on this, read our article on how to create a great navigation menu bar design.

5) Adding poor quality images on the website

Poor quality, plagiarized, or generic stock images are some of the biggest contributors to bad design on a website. Using these pictures suggest your own creativity and design imagination is near to zero.

Given you probably don't want to deliver that impression to clients or customers, it is necessary you focus more on creating original visual elements, videos and images.

All of this helps deliver the best UI/UX for your website.

6) Compromising on the website's responsiveness

One of the major mistakes a web designer can make when thinking about the page structure is compromising on the website's responsiveness. A website must be functional on any electronic device. Across tablets, smartphones, laptops and computers, the website must deliver a fast load time and provide the same level of service to the customer. Customers don't like to wait much for websites, not least ones that then have key elements missing.

Thus make sure your website loads quickly and displays everything a customer is looking for. Read this article to discover more about the benefits of a responsive website.

Guest article by Junaid Ali Qureshi. Junaid is a digital marketing specialist who has helped several businesses gain traffic, outperform competition and generate profitable leads. His current ventures include Elephant Nation, eLabelz, Smart Leads.ae, Progos Tech and eCig.

Want More?

Want to stand out online with a great web design? Maybe these articles can help:

Tips On How To Create The Best UI/UX For Your Website

How to Avoid Using Generic Logo Designs

How to Make Your Business Blog Shine

How To Build A High Performance Lead Generation Website

How To Ensure You Website Redesign Has A Positive Impact

Written by DesignCrowd on Monday, April 24, 2017

DesignCrowd is an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world.