You put so much effort into the design and content writing for your website to make your site into a beautiful digital storefront or digital representation of your brand. However, effort alone will not make up for a poor strategy when it comes to driving your users to consume the information in the way you intended and to drive them to take the desired action.
This article shares the most common website complaints you never want to hear about your website. But don’t be discouraged. Take a fresh look at your existing website with these comments in mind to see what may ring true and point you toward some meaningful changes, so you can address them early.
But first…
Why Should You Take Website Complaints Seriously?
Your website plays a big role in your business. If you don’t exist online, you essentially don’t exist! Plus, your “digital storefront” allows you to make a lasting first impression that can build interest and loyalty in a matter of seconds. That’s a lot of pressure, but also a lot of opportunity!
Website complaints might feel like an attack on you and your team’s hard work. Whether you like it or not, these will not go away like magic. Instead of taking these comments negatively, it is better to take them with a grain of salt and then consider what truth there may be to the matter.
Plus, mistakes that kill website performance will have an impact on your business in the long run. For example: Your SEO campaign efforts will be rendered useless and your website’s SERP ranking will go down as well.
It only makes sense that you take care of your website. That is why it is important to address the website complaints sooner than later.
You Never Want to Hear These Common Website Complaints
Let us be honest, nobody really likes to hear any criticisms about their hard work. That is why we are sharing the most common website mistakes now, so you can get ahead of them and preemptively fix them! Here’s what they are…
Website Mistake #1: Performance Issues
A website’s poor performance is one of the most glaring website development faux pas. It does not take a developer or tech-savvy person to notice that there is something “wrong” with your website.
Here are the most common performance issues you need to address with website development:
- Slow page render or loading time. Your website should load within a few seconds. Unless a web page contains important information for the person, they will not waste time waiting for the site to load.
- Errors and bugs. Aside from delays, a website that is not functioning right is just annoying for your visitors. Their basic expectation is that there are no issues when they are trying to click a button or navigate within your website.
Website development tip: Optimize your website’s scripts. Make sure to measure the render times before and after the process of optimized website development.
Website Mistake #2: Not Mobile-Friendly
There are more people who search the web via mobile devices than on desktops. Let that sink in! And that gap is only going to widen. Since smartphones are always on hand, it is the most popular and convenient way for people to access information from any setting.
It only makes sense to make your website mobile-friendly and adapt it to people’s preferences. However, some overlook this during website development. As a result, mobile users might not spend that much time on your business website since it looks awkward when accessed via any handheld device.
Website development tip: Make your website mobile-friendly during the very early stages of website development. Remember to check how the web page looks and performs on smartphones, tablets, and every other conceivable mobile device. Be intentional about it!
Website Mistake #3: Outdated Design
Caring about how your website looks is neither shallow nor insignificant. Remember, it is your storefront, so first impressions are very important. Color, font, images, flow, navigation, and content are critically important for drawing users in and encouraging them to stay awhile.
Here are basic things that people often judge when they visit a website:
- Does it look good? Do the colors, font, and images jive with their personal taste?
- Is it modern? Does it use the latest trends and technologies to make navigation easy?
- Is it easy to read? It’s a fine balance between too much content and not enough. And font size matters!
- Is it visually cluttered? We know you may have a lot you want to communicate, but throwing everything out there at once will only cause overwhelm and accomplish the opposite of what you hope.
People appreciate good website design. It is why people moved away from outdated designs that look boxy and heavy-handed. Now, the preference is modern designs that have clean lines and big white space.
Did you know, there is a psychological aspect to it as well? Beautiful views or anything that is pleasing to the eyes creates a positive feeling in people—and they go on to associate that with your brand, products, and services. People like to spend more time looking at pretty things!
Website development tip: Invest in good website design before going into website development. It’s far easier to tweak and change things in the design process before you invest in someone coding and developing out the technical aspects of your website.
Website Mistake #4: Poor Navigation
It is frustrating for web visitors if a website is hard to navigate. This is one of the most common website complaints you are likely to receive.
People want to find information with ease. But with poor website development planning and confusing layouts, this will be difficult. And with every second lost as a potential customer tries to sift through your website, they lost patience for and interest in what you’re trying to sell to them.
Website development tip: Incorporate the navigation plan and web design in the early stages. Make it as easy as possible and clear-cut through the layout. Let people test it during the website development stages to tweak it as you go.
Website Mistake #5: Excessive Pop-Ups
Imagine this: The minute a website is done rendering a pop-up obnoxiously blocks your view. You click the exit icon to remove it. But when you scroll down another pop-up appears to hog your screen all over again.
Annoying, right?
It is true, pop-ups can help build your email list and encourage your website visitors to act on your call-to-actions. But it is a delicate balance between effective and ruining the experience. Keep in mind, it is not just your website visitors, even Google finds excessive pop-ups annoying and will potential penalize your website on SEO.
Website development tip: Use with moderation. Make your pop-up smart enough to adapt to different types of web visitors. You can even provide an option for no pop-ups throughout the duration of their visit. Lastly, remember to measure the efficacy of each pop-up, so you can tweak or remove according to its performance.
Website Mistake #6: Broken Links
So, your visitor clicked a link on your website and they are seeing a “404 Page Not Found” page. That only means one thing: you have broken links.
It can be annoying if a link to an article is not working. But it is a big deal if an important page on your website, like one attempting to close a sale, is experiencing this error. It creates an impression that your website is neglected, or worse, fake.
Website development tip: Check your website for broken links regularly. A myriad of things can cause this, both within and beyond your control. There are various smart tools you can use to help you find broken links, beyond simply clicking through every page by page on your own. Remember to use absolute links instead of relative links for your website to minimize this as well. And if any of this intimidates you, know when to bring in professional help!
Avoid Website Complaints with Good Website Development
Keep in mind, the ones we shared are just the most common. Your website is your unique journey and specific to your industry and customer base, so there are many more bumps and potholes in the road to great website development of which you must be aware.
The key to minimizing possible complaints is pretty simple: Apply good website development practices from start to finish and be proactive in monitoring and fixing website problems.
Author Bio: Flexisource IT is your best gateway to top-caliber fully managed IT teams dedicated to servicing Australian businesses and startups to scale up and grow rapidly.
The Comm Entrepreneur 