Whatever line of business you’re in these days, you need a great-looking high-functioning website if you want to catch the attention of your visitors. You can guarantee that your competitors will have a website that looks great, so if you haven’t got one too, then you’ll be missing out.
You need to be sure that your site is free of costly web development errors that could be holding you back.
When putting together a website, you’ll put your trust in a web development service. But how do you know whether they’ve got it right or not?
In this guide, we’ll take a look at seven of the most common web development errors and talk about some of the ways that you can avoid them.
1. You Don’t Have a Mobile-Friendly Website
One of the biggest web development faux-pas that you’re likely to encounter in 2021 is a website that isn’t compatible with mobile devices.
A staggering 60% of all searches these days are made using mobile devices. This statistic shoots up to 72% when you look at searches for specific industries such as the food and beverage sector.
With smartphone use so prevalent, if your site doesn’t load and isn’t scannable on a mobile device, you’ll be losing out on a large percentage of visitors.
Not only does a lack of mobile support turn visitors off, but it’s also a ranking factor that can dramatically affect your position on the search engine results pages.
So, what can be done if your site isn’t mobile-friendly?
The first thing you should do is make sure your text is large enough to read on a small screen. Where you have links on a page, make sure they’re spaced far enough apart that it makes them easy to click. Finally, make sure all pages load within one page and you don’t have to expand the screen to see them.
2. Your Site Is Slow
If your site drags its heels when it should be loading up, you’re likely to see visitors turn away in droves. Nobody likes to wait for a site to load, particularly in the days of high-speed 5G internet.
Get your act together and boost the speed of your site now, before your site ends up languishing at the bottom of the search results. Run a Google page load speed test to find out exactly what is slowing your site down.
Common culprits for site lag include a full cache, uncompressed images, and lots of images on a page trying to load all at once.
Compress your images, clear your cache, and install a lazy load plugin on the site and you should see the page loading in no time at all from now on.
3. Your Website Isn’t Trustworthy
If your site isn’t built in the right way, it could flag up as being suspicious by your visitor’s browsers. This can be particularly problematic if you’re expecting your visitors to enter personal information such as passwords or bank details into your site.
You need a secure site, and you need to be sure that your site has all of the markings that indicate that it’s safe. That means having the padlock that appears in the search bar of a browser.
Having your site set up with an ‘HTTPS’ address will also help boost visitor confidence in your site as it’s an encrypted protocol.
Hire PHP developers to give your site a complete rundown and ensure it’s as safe as possible for your visitors.
4. You’ve Got Dead Links
If your site is littered with links that go to dead pages, or to defunct websites, you’ll be very likely to lose the confidence of your users.
While the page that you’re linking to may have worked when you originally posted the link, over time things change. Pages get closed down or moved, and you’ll be left with lots of “404-page not found” errors.
Use a broken link checker and Google Search Console to help identify all of your broken links and replace them with links to pages that actually open.
5. Your Site Doesn’t Load On All Browsers
While most developers understand the importance of cross-browser compatibility, it doesn’t stop mistakes from being made. There are lots of different browsers that are commonly used.
Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari may be the most popular, but you should ensure your website loads and is fully functional on every possible browser.
6. Text That’s Hard to Read
When you choose a theme and design for your website, don’t be drawn in by getting the flashiest design with the most innovative fonts. While it’s great to push the envelope, your site needs to be clean and easy to read.
If you choose a font that’s too complex in its design, or that’s hard to read, you’ll lose your visitors.
Similarly, think of the color scheme that you’re using. It may sound very pedestrian, but black text on a white background is simple and helps the reader.
7. Too Much Going On
If your page is too busy and there’s too much going on, it can be very unsettling for people visiting your site. Think about whether widgets such as carousels actually add value to your site, or whether they’re a clumsy distraction that makes the site hard to digest.
Simple and elegant layouts without too much movement will make for a comfortable browsing experience. Straightforward website design ideas are often the ones that increase visitor dwell time and minimize your bounce rate.
Don’t Let These Web Development Errors Ruin Your Site
When building business websites, take care that you don’t let these simple web development errors turn your site into a no-go area. Take the time to view your site as though you were visiting it for the first time and remember to keep it simple.
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