There are a whole range of misconceptions and myths out there around web design and the whole process of creating a new website. I have picked 5 of the most common myths that I come across.
Appearance is the most important aspect of a website – Design is Everything!
You don’t need a mobile friendly or responsive website – a well-designed desktop version is good enough
Once my website launches people will visit it and contact me straight away
Once my website is launched, I don’t need to keep updating it
Appearance is the most important aspect of a website – Design is Everything!
While design is an essential part of a successful website, it is key to understand that it should be a tool used to support your website content, not the other way around!
Web design isn’t just about making a website look good, many elements need to work cohesively together to make your website a success and this is all based around your content.
So when deciding on a new website focus on creating relevant, accurate and engaging content, this is what will keep visitors engaged in your website long enough to convert them to paying customers!
You don’t need a mobile friendly or responsive website – a well-designed desktop version is good enough
The number of people on mobile devices compared to desktops has been steadily growing for some time and is only likely to increase further in the future.
A website that is not responsive may well look ok on a mobile device, but there will be elements where users will need to zoom in and out to view or text may disappear off the screen, among other things. All of these aspects will only make your visitors experience frustrating leading them to click away to a different website instead. If that isn’t reason enough, search engines are now favouring mobile versions of websites over desktops due to the fact that the majority of searches are now carried out on mobile devices.
So even if you feel that the majority of your own website visitors would be on a desktop, a responsive designed website for mobile devices is crucial to the success of your website.
Once my website launches people will visit it and contact me straight away
Once you’ve launched your new website, no matter how great the design and content are, unfortunately people won’t instantly find it and start enquiring. This is purely the first step; it takes time to build you audience and gain theirs and search engines trust.
After your website has been launched you need to monitor and adjust accordingly as you go. Monitoring the activity on your website and update your website regularly. If you notice that visitors are engaging with a specific part of your website more, explore why that is and then use that to update your website so that your visitors are seeing more of what they want. This will help to make your visitors stay around longer, which will help search engines to recognise you as a trusted source and display you in relevant results more often.
The home page is the most important page on my website
While the home page is important and it may well be where many visitors start your journey, you would be surprised to know that a lot of visitors will enter at completely different pages of your website. This is because search engines will display the most relevant pages based on the search query visitors have made. For example, if they search for your company name, your homepage is most likely to show up first in the results. However, if they search for a product or specific service, then that product or service page is most likely to appear higher in the search results.
So although it is worth putting time into your homepage, it is also not necessary to focus everything on that as a central hub for your website. Instead, you want to consider every page as a potential entry page, ensuring that it is easy for people to navigate around the rest of your website from all pages.
Once my website is launched, I don’t need to keep updating it
Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy. The internet is ever changing which means content, images, links can become irrelevant or go out of date quickly, along with new security risks that can appear too.
Outdated images, content that is no longer accurate and dead links can really damage the trust you have built with your visitors and search engines, resulting in less activity, less search engine visibility, less visitors and ultimately less leads or sales. Not to mention your website would eventually be left vulnerable to security risks if it isn’t regularly updated.
Your website should be part of your digital marketing plan, ultimately making your website a tool for leads and sales.
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