Web design mistakes might ruin your blog before it even gets a chance to shine. And it’s not only a matter of style and visual attractiveness of your website. Poor design can slow down its work and complicate navigation, which will both lose you readers. If you are creating the blog yourself, be aware of the most common pitfalls you have to avoid.
4 Beginner Web Design Mistakes to Avoid When Building Your Blog
1.Overloading the website with plugins and visuals
No matter what kind of online business you run, page loading speed is one of the most important factors that will determine your success. Surveys indicate that over 50% of all web users expect a website to load in 2 seconds max. And Google ranking bots take this factor into account when deciding how high to place your link on the Search Results page.
Overloading the website with plugins and visuals (especially if they aren’t well-optimized) are some of the most common problems that can increase the page loading speed. These issues also often lead to website crashes. Bloggers who start using WordPress are particularly prone to this mistake as this platform gives you an opportunity to use a huge number of great plugins.
Google itself offers a tool to help with this problem. Try TestMySite to see not only how much traffic you are losing but also get suggestions of improvements to reduce that number.
You also should remember that your hosting package matters greatly in determining how fast your website will load. If you plan to have a blog heavy on the visuals, take your time studying a hosting guide for beginners. You need to find out what kind of hosting service package will be sufficient for your requirements.
2.Posting too much text too close
The readers of today prefer to skim content instead of reading it thoroughly. Even if they do return for a more detailed read later, they first assess the content with a quick look to see if it’ll provide the information they need.
This means that you should never post textual content in a single huge body of letters. Short paragraphs (about 100 words) are the best and make sure they’re interspersed with subtitles that stand out clearly.
Consider adding images as well. It’s believed that inserting a relevant image every 150-300 words enhances memorization.
3.Badly placed social media sharing buttons
One of the main web design mistakes to avoid for a blogger is not placing social media sharing buttons in clear view. Having people share your posts on social media is one of the main sources of traffic generation for a blogger. That’s why you should motivate them to do this.
Place the buttons at the top and end of the post or use a plugin that will ensure the buttons are unobtrusive, yet move when the reader scrolls down the text. Consider making some small parts of the text shareable as well, for example, use a quote from the post between images with a ‘Tweet It!’ button attached.
When choosing the design of your social media sharing buttons, pick an option that matches the overall style, but not too much. Remember that these buttons have to stand out.
4.Filling all the whitespace
Whitespace is so important for a blogger that using a minimalist web design (one with maximum whitespace) might be the best choice. Filling all the whitespace on your pages means packing them with text and imagery to a point that it becomes difficult to actually read the text.
The purpose of this ‘negative’ space is increasing readability. As texts are the livelihood of a blogger, making your site unreadable is one of the main web design mistakes to avoid. In fact, you should do your best to increase whitespace on the page to give it a cleaner look.