When starting to design and develop your website, there are certain website shortcuts to avoid. This is not a gospel type of thing from digital marketing agencies. Even if you don’t have budget, avoid the following couple of website shortcuts we’ll discuss –
1. Skipping usability testing
One of these website shortcuts is website usability testing – a very valuable thing to do that you certainly can’t skip. It’s often the first thing that gets cut down due to budget constraints; however, every single website needs this process.
Basically, usability testing is simply getting someone in a room in front of your website, asking them to perform four or five tasks and observing them to see if they can actually get to the point where you want them to end up. They’ll click around the website and have certain facial expressions. This will determine if the actions given to them are straightforward or frustrating.
Why do we do this? We want you to think about one particular website that annoys the living hell out of you. Still, unfortunately, it is something you have to use for some reason… That’s why! It’s testing if the site is clear enough to tell its users exactly what you need them to do. Or guide them through a process of where they want to be.
One usually pays for usability testing, but the cost can’t be compared to the conversions you want. You might think that your wife and kids could do this, right? It’s not ideal for family, friends or board members to perform the usability testing. They’ve probably already interacted with the website, or they understand the business and the jargon.
It’s recommended to invite just 3 members that fit your target audience’s profile, pay them for an hour and so, gather the feedback and rework the website structure from there. We also recommend doing it monthly if new sections, new info and new promotions are loaded.
Other options also exist, such as companies that do this online, record the session and provide you with a copy. You can choose to do this once-off, per project, or monthly. If you want to know more, visit Steve Krug’s website, a usability expert who wrote a helpful book, ‘Don’t make me think’.
2. Using pre-designed themes
We understand that budget concerns push most people in the direction of using pre-designed website themes. However, choosing a theme and shoving content into it is another one of the famous website shortcuts and are plainly doing things backwards. Your website content should guide the design and not the other way around.
Using a website template or theme also restricts you to what you most possibly want to do later. You can’t put things where you want it. In the future, when you are ready to build on your website, it’ll cost you extra to hire a developer to work on the massive pile of stylesheets and unnecessary code. These themes are usually designed and developed for everyone – making it bloated and adding to speed issues.
Yes, these themes are flexible in dragging in dropping content and images on pages, but we wouldn’t recommend using them because it wasn’t explicitly considered for your company. So if you can afford it, build your website without a preset theme or template.
3. Sliders & carousels
Website sliders and carousels are popular with clients but not preferred by developers. We understand that every department wants to promote something on the homepage, but your home page isn’t your only landing page.
If everyone wants to promote something on the home page, it’s basically screaming at your audience. In fact, statistics show that most users don’t engage with website sliders anyways. Those users that do click on the sliders usually only click on the first one because it’s in their faces, but they don’t sit there and wait until the next one loads. Instead, they move on to looking at the menu and the pages and reading the content.
Why would your competitors or the industry use it and not you? Because they’re not aware of the stats, but now that you know, you can be the industry leader. Strive to be better than them, not imitate them; otherwise, you’ll always be left behind.
If you’re in a position where your boss wants sliders or carousels, at least ensure you can track the clicks and measure the click-through rate on them all, then go back to your boss after six months with the stats and get rid of it.
We suggest the following as an alternative to website sliders and carousels: Have four or five hero images and load them randomly on page load. Loading fewer images will make your website speed faster. Avoid 5 to 7 images on a single page; it just adds too much weight to the site. Also, come up with a monthly/weekly editorial calendar to present different messages – it helps to focus on one message at a time, having important content in a systematic, planned approach.
4. UX problems
- Pop-Ups: Avoid wanting to add pop-ups to encourage users to subscribe to your newsletter. Users that aren’t interested will insert a non-active email address if they can’t find the exit icon, or they will leave the site. Users who are not interested but signed up anyways are less engaging when you send out bulk emails because they weren’t interested. If users are interested in signing up for newsletters, they will search specifically for it in the footer or on the contact us page.
- Click here to do this and that: Avoid using click here, click here, click here… It doesn’t give the user any context, and neither does it tell Google what users are clicking through to. Many people use screen readers due to disabilities, and if they hear click here the whole page through, you’ll have them confused and irritated. Read more about why you shouldn’t use ‘click here’.
- Above the fold: ‘I want this content above the fold.’ There’s no such thing. Every screen – phone, tablet, laptop, monitor – has its own screen dimensions, and that’s why it doesn’t exist. Refer to I am the fold if you don’t believe this.
5. Neglecting micro-copy
One of the last website shortcuts we want to discuss today. Micro-copy refers to the little text/messages users receive. For example, after submitting an online form, saying ‘Thank you, we received your email…’. Neglecting these types of messages and letting a developer writes them instead of a content writer will result in the wrong brand voice and tone. This could send an incorrect impression of your brand. For example, if you have a website for donations or any other emotional connection, and the thank you message is ‘Hi! Thank you for your message.’, instead of ‘We appreciate your support and want you to know this will go a long way. Thank you.’ it’s an issue. Ensure your micro-copy fits your brand.
Get in touch with us if you want to know more about do’s and don’ts and how to avoid other common website mistakes.
Warm regards,
Ribbit.