571 websites are created every minute. New businesses in your niche are launching as you read this article. Cutting through the noise has never been harder. Having a good corporate website design is necessary to catch the attention of consumers and search engines alike. Even if you already have a website of your business, completing a corporate website redesign will help you get the most out of your digital presence. Before we break down the elements of a well-designed corporate website, let’s look at some common corporate website design mistakes.
Common Corporate Website Design Mistakes
There are certain design choices that may seem harmless enough, but they actually hurt your website’s performance with search engines. Below are some of the common corporate website design mistakes and how to fix them.
Mistake 1: No H1 Tags
Sometimes there are no H1 tags because the designer took their minimalist approach a tad too far and didn’t want large text on the page. Other times, the title of the page is embedded in the banner graphic rather than as text.
Google’s bots can only process text, and the H1 tag, also known as the title tag, is the first part of the page a search engine bot reads. Without an H1 tag, Google has no way to determine what the page is about, so it never ranks well due to lack of relevance.
The Fix: Make sure each page on your site has an H1 tag that includes one of your keywords. Your title should explain what the page is about. If the reader can figure out what your page is about in less than five seconds, then you have a good user experience.
Mistake 2: Using Bloated Media Files
While images, video, and other multimedia can increase user engagement when done well, they take up more space than text. If your files are too large, then your page load speed may be suffering. Each second of load time costs you leads.
The Fix: Use Google Pagespeed Insights to test the load speed of your pages. A free SEO tool like Screaming Frog can show you which of your files are too large and can be compressed.
Mistake 3: Relying on Pop-Ups to Capture Visitor Information
There was a time a few years ago when including a pop-up to capture visitor information was an effective website design strategy, but times have changed. Today’s user gets annoyed by a pop-up asking them to subscribe to your email list or take some other action. Including a pop-up also affects your load time.
The Fix: Remove your pop-ups and move this call-to-action to a page. Rely on your content to influence the action.
Mistake 4: Unclear Site Navigation
Some designers think category titles on the homepage take away from their designs. While hiding the navigation under a button may look cleaner, it makes the user experience suffer. Visitors should be able to get to every page on your site within 4 clicks from the homepage.
The Fix: Include descriptive keywords in your category names. Do the same for each subcategory and page title. Think of how you browse a new website.
Mistake 5: Poor Use of Space
White space is not a bad thing. When used correctly, the blank space on your website keeps the visitor’s focus on the important elements of your site. Some sites try to fill every pixel with images, videos, or text. This looks unorganized and overwhelms the visitor. They get too lost in your design to be persuaded by your call-to-action.
The Fix: Think like a minimalist. Studies show consumers prefer a clean, simple site to a site that is crammed and flashy. Break up blocks of text with visual elements when you can, and only include information necessary to ultimately get the visitor to your CTA.
This is by no means a complete list of corporate website design mistakes, but it’s a good starting point for auditing the effectiveness of your current website. A website design company would be able to help you identify and address your design flaws in a fraction of the time it would take you to do it yourself.
Now that you’re aware of some website design mistakes, you’re probably wondering what makes a good corporate website. Below are some expert corporate website design tips that outline the most important elements of a well-designed corporate website.
Elements of a Well-Designed Corporate Website
The most important function of a corporate website is to get visitors to become customers. The following elements of a well-designed corporate website all work together to move visitors through your sales funnel.
A Clear Plan from the Beginning
All the thought you put into designing your corporate website comes at the planning stage. The rest is just execution. Each design decision must serve a specific purpose.
Remember, less is more. Visitors prefer fewer distractions, so don’t “over-design” your site.
Good Use of Visual Hierarchy
Every page has a visual hierarchy. It’s what web designers use to draw visitor attention to a page’s most important elements. There are some “laws” of visual hierarchy that guide the size, color, and placement of texts and images.
- Bigger equals more important
- Higher on the page equals more important
- The most important information has the highest contrast and most unique color
- The least important information is text only, while the most important information is conveyed in an image, icon, or video
- The most important information is surrounded by whitespace
Clear and Easy to Use Site Navigation
Once visitors get to your website, they look to figure out their surroundings. Their eyes start at the top left corner of the page, scan across the top from left to right, and then follow an F-pattern down to the footer. Keep this in mind when designing your homepage. If you “over-design” your website, you make your site harder to navigate. Studies show visitors actually prefer sites that look similar to other sites they have visited.
One such study looked at 50 top websites and found the following to be the most common homepage design elements:
- Company logo in the top left corner
- Left-to-right navigation in the header
- Search bar at the top of the page
- Responsive web design
- Social icons in the footer
The key to a successful corporate website redesign is to avoid reinventing the wheel.
Persuasive Product and Service Pages
Whether you have product or service pages depends on your type of business. Regardless, the goal of these pages are the same – to get the visitor to make a purchasing decision. Every word and design decision should play a role in persuading the visitor to buy.
Make your subheadings descriptive. Tell the reader what they’re going to get if they read the text underneath. Each section should build up to your call-to-action.
A Unified Brand Identity
The three key components of a unified brand identity are font, color, and brand voice. Font and color are easy. Use Google Fonts to find a set of fonts you like and add them to your corporate style guide. The same goes for colors. Use Pantone to figure out good colors for your brand.
Your brand voice is present in all the content you create, and it should be based on your target audience. The best way to connect with a group of people is to speak their language, both literally and figuratively.
Educational Blog Content Centered Around User Questions
Internet buyers turn to search engines to ask questions related to their unique buyer journey. The purpose of blog content for a corporate website is to answer these questions.
Do a survey of your current customers to find out what questions they needed to be answered before they chose to patron your business. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and brainstorm what questions you would ask.
If you want to learn how to write educational blog content that will rank, read this article.
Use a Corporate Website Design Company to Take the Pressure Off Yourself
While DIY website services may seem simple, it is easy to get too carried away if you aren’t an expert on certain website design principles.
The information in this article is just an introduction to the vast amount of knowledge and effort it takes to create a well-designed corporate website. A successful business owner like yourself probably doesn’t have the time it takes to design, build and maintain a beautiful website.
A corporate website design company has the team of experts to take care of this for you with minimal stress. Schedule a call with us to learn more about how the professional and sophisticated websites we design for our clients.
