BLOG

Web Development Mistakes That Affect Your Online Reputation

A new business or even an existing business just getting around to developing its website can make some rookie mistakes. Hey, after all rookies and mistakes go together. So, what are some of those web development mistakes to avoid which can ruin a business’sreputation online?

If you browse around the Internet, you will naturally come across websites that you like. Whether it’s a business website like Apple or an informational website such as Wikipedia, it’s obvious to see how clutter-free they are. Also, notice the combination of text and background color on these websites. These websites do not have much color, do they? Below, we will discuss web development mistakes to avoid as they can affect your online reputation.

Avoid Over-Designing & Clutter
For first-time web developers, the cardinal mistake to avoid is over-design. Don’t have too many flashy elements on the home page that are all saying “Look at me!” It’s pointless. Website visitors will only hate a website that has flashing menu elements and other such tricks that go out of their way to attract the attention of the visitor. Visitors will leave the website in a hurry for sure if the website is over-designed.

Go for simplicity. Just as Apple iPhone’s shout simplicity in their form, let your website too attempt to accomplish a certain sense of simplicity leading to elegance and class. Clutter happens when you try to present too much information all at once; hence, overloading the innocent first-time visitor. Avoid that as well. Use as little text as possible and opt for bullet points.

Also, make good use of white space to separate out blocks of text and other information. While space helps people scan the information first (in seconds) and people want to be able to scan the info first before they decide whether want to spend the time on the website to read through it or not. With a good web development company, you can get access to professional web designers and developers who will make sure to avoid this and other rookie mistakes.

✓ Avoid Usability-Related Mistakes
Usability comprises of many things. Usability makes a website sticky — that is, a website where users and website visitors are likely to stick around and spend time.

✓ Website Loading Time
One of the key usability metrics is website loading time. Lots of studies have pointed out that people will wait for around seven seconds for a website to load and no longer than that. So, make sure your website is fast loading. This is even more critical as more and more people browse the internet from their mobiles and smartphones.

✓ Cross-Browser Compatibility
You don’t want your website to act funny just because a user decides to view it on Safari rather than Chrome or Firefox. Your website needs to be tested on all modern browsers while the website is being developed so that it renders equally well on all of them. When working with a professional web development company, they will ensure that this problem never happens.

✓ Color Combinations
We see without mind and not with our eyes. There are hot colors and there are cool colors. There are colors that soothe one’s mind and other colors that irritate. As you develop your website, it’s important to remember the psychology of colors and how the human mind responds to colors.

The best option is to go for black text on white background. This should be suitably modified if you want to highlight your corporate logo or a particular color theme. Also, the subject of the website and its intended audience makes a difference to your color choice. A website meant for kids clearly should have a different color combination than a website for academic researchers.

Choose your color combinations wisely and use colors belonging to the same color family. Do not have too many clashing colors as that will irritate visitors for sure.

✓ Avoid Autoplay
This is an amateur mistake that some web developers still make where an audio starts playing in the background as the website loads. Users prefer to have control over whether want audio (and video) to play or not. While you can embed YouTube videos that are relevant to your website, never set videos to auto play on load. While it may be a great temptation for you to let a video play automatically, that will be a great turnoff for the visitor. You have to defer to preferences of your website visitors.

✓ In Passing
It goes without saying that the text itself should be snappy with adequate call-to-actions whenever needed. The basic qualities of text that engage and hold the attention of the reader are use of active voice in most situations while taking care that there are no language or grammatical errors. Similarly, sentences should be short and to the point.

Conclusion
For great results with web development and design, ensure that you hire professionals to assist you with your development as they will have the expertise and experience to deliver exactly what you need. These above mistakes of web development might seem simple but you would be surprised how the simplest of things sometimes gets missed. If you need any advice or assistance with your web development or anything else, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital Group.