11 Common Website Building Mistakes To Avoid
Common Website Building Mistakes to Avoid (With Hilariously Relatable Examples)
Building a website can feel like decorating your dream home—until you realize you’ve turned it into a haunted mansion of poor design choices, mysterious navigation, and awkward content. Let’s dive into the most common website building mistakes, sprinkled with real-world analogies and examples that might hit a little too close to home.
1. Overloading Your Design
When Simplicity Packs Its Bags and Leaves
Imagine you’re entering a friend’s living room, and they’ve crammed it with neon beanbags, vintage furniture, disco lights, and a fish tank shaped like a pineapple. Overwhelmed yet? That’s how users feel when a website is cluttered.
Example:
You visit a bakery website, and instead of seeing tempting pictures of cupcakes, you’re bombarded with flashing gifs, a rainbow of fonts, and a playlist of elevator music that auto-plays at full volume. Within seconds, you’ve clicked away, unsure if you were visiting a bakery or auditioning for a 1990s web design time capsule.
Pro Tip:
Stick to a simple color palette and minimal design elements. Your website should be like a clean kitchen: organized, functional, and inviting—not a food fight between colors and styles.
2. Navigation Nightmares
Lost in the Bermuda Triangle of Links
Navigation is your website’s GPS. When done poorly, it’s like asking for directions and getting a map written in ancient hieroglyphs.
Example:
A pet shop website has a dropdown menu labeled “Creatures.” Inside, you find subcategories for “Floofy Things,” “Wiggly Things,” and “Things That Stare Into Your Soul.” Guessing where to find “cats” becomes a journey worthy of Indiana Jones.
Pro Tip:
Label your menus logically. Think of your visitors as toddlers in a toy store—they want to find their favorite section with minimal effort. Dropdowns, sticky navigation bars, and clear labels work wonders.
3. Mobile-Unfriendly Design
The Pinch-and-Zoom Olympics
In the era of smartphones, a website that isn’t mobile-friendly is like a restaurant serving spaghetti with no forks. Visitors expect smooth scrolling, easy navigation, and readable text.
Example:
You’re trying to buy a concert ticket on your phone, but the “Buy Now” button is hidden behind an unresponsive banner ad. After five minutes of pinching, zooming, and muttering, you give up and buy tickets from a scalper.
Pro Tip:
Responsive design is non-negotiable. Test your site on multiple devices and screen sizes. If your desktop masterpiece turns into a jumbled mess on mobile, it’s time for a redesign.
4. Ignoring UX
A Rollercoaster with No Seat Belts
User experience (UX) is the art of guiding visitors through your site like a graceful host at a dinner party. If you neglect UX, your visitors are left to fend for themselves, navigating broken links and confusing layouts like contestants on a bad game show.
Example:
A travel agency website bombards you with pop-ups—one for a newsletter, another for a free eBook, and a third asking if you’d like to “chat with our AI bot.” By the time you find the “Book Now” button, you’re ready to book a vacation just to recover from the stress.
Pro Tip:
Think of your site as a serene spa retreat, not a carnival. Minimize distractions, prioritize functionality, and test your site’s flow from a user’s perspective.
5. Slow Load Times
The Internet’s Waiting Room
Nothing tests a user’s patience like a website that loads slower than a sloth climbing a hill.
Example:
You visit an online boutique, excited to shop. As you wait for the homepage to load, you manage to brew coffee, scroll TikTok, and question your life choices. By the time the site appears, you’ve already spent your money elsewhere.
Pro Tip:
Optimize images, compress files, and use a CDN to speed things up. Remember, the faster your site loads, the sooner your visitors can fall in love with your content—or your products.
6. Accessibility Whoopsies
Forgetting Your All-Access Pass
A website that isn’t accessible is like a theme park with rides only tall people can enjoy—it excludes a significant portion of your audience.
Example:
A visually impaired user visits a site without alt text for images or proper keyboard navigation. It’s like inviting someone to a buffet but refusing to tell them what’s on the menu.
Pro Tip:
Implement alt text for images, provide transcripts for videos, and ensure your site is navigable by keyboard. Accessibility is not just kind—it’s essential.
7. Content Chaos
When Words Get in the Way
Your website content should be like a great conversation: engaging, informative, and free of awkward silences or incessant rambling.
Example:
A tech blog writes a 3,000-word article about “Why Our Headphones Are the Best,” but 2,900 words are about the CEO’s love of coffee. Users leave before they even find out about the headphones.
Pro Tip:
Focus on quality over quantity. Write for your audience, not your ego. And for goodness’ sake, keep keyword stuffing in the grave where it belongs.
8. Skimping on SEO
A Lighthouse Without a Light
If your website isn’t optimized for search engines, it’s like opening a shop in the desert without a signpost. People won’t find you unless they trip over your URL by accident.
Example:
Your online store sells “luxury scented candles,” but your meta description says, “Welcome to our website!” A competitor ranks higher because their meta description actually mentions “luxury scented candles.”
Pro Tip:
Use relevant keywords naturally in your titles, headings, and descriptions. Think of SEO as your website’s secret handshake with search engines.
9. Security Fails
The Wild West of the Web
A secure website builds trust. A vulnerable website invites chaos, like leaving a vault unlocked in a bank full of hackers.
Example:
You’re filling out a contact form, and the URL still says “http” instead of “https.” Do you hit submit? Nope. You hit the back button faster than a data thief could say “thank you.”
Pro Tip:
Get an SSL certificate, update your software regularly, and conduct security audits. Security isn’t glamorous, but neither is losing customer trust.
10. Data Disasters
Ignoring Analytics Like a Bad Diet
Analytics are the eyes and ears of your website. Without them, you’re flying blind in a storm of assumptions.
Example:
A nonprofit launches a campaign and assumes users will donate via a clunky, 10-step process. Their analytics (had they bothered to check) would’ve revealed a 90% drop-off rate after step three.
Pro Tip:
Set up analytics tools correctly and regularly review your data. Knowledge is power, and analytics tell you exactly where to flex.
11. Brand Identity Crisis
Jekyll, Hyde, and Your Website
Inconsistent branding confuses visitors. If your website looks like it was designed by three different people with clashing visions, you’ve got a problem.
Example:
Your homepage is sleek and modern, but your “About Us” page looks like a comic book. Visitors don’t know whether to trust you with their business or their sense of humor.
Pro Tip:
Create brand guidelines for tone, color schemes, and design elements. Consistency breeds trust.
Final Thoughts
Building a website is an art—and avoiding these mistakes is your first brushstroke toward success. Keep it clean, functional, and user-focused. After all, a great website isn’t just about looks; it’s about creating a seamless experience for anyone who visits. And hey, the fewer mistakes you make, the less your visitors will giggle about your neon beanbag aesthetic.
I really enjoyed reading this article. Thank you for pulling it together in such detail. I am currently in the process of building a website myself so this couldn’t have come at a more appropriate moment, and I shall defintly be using this guide to help me with my own website.
Thank you and I look forward to more articles from you on this subject (as I need all the help I can get!).
Hi Chris!
Thank you so much for your kind words! I’m thrilled to hear that you found the article helpful, especially as you’re working on building your own website. It’s always great to know the content is timely and useful.
Best of luck with your website project! If you have any specific questions or topics you’d like me to cover in future articles, feel free to let me know—I’d be happy to help in any way I can. Stay tuned for more guides and tips coming soon! 😊
Fleeky
This is an excellent resource, Wapals, thanks.
I’ve been building websites for about five years now, and even I picked up a couple of new things from this post. The section on choosing the right hosting provider is important, something I wish I’d known earlier. I once made the mistake of choosing a super cheap provider and ended up with painfully slow loading times – lost a few potential clients because of that! The advice about clear calls to action is also gold. I’ve seen firsthand how a poorly placed or unclear CTA can tank conversion rates.
My only question is – What are your thoughts on using A/B testing to optimize these CTAs?
Hi Dan,
Thank you so much for the kind words and for sharing your experience! It’s always great to hear when seasoned web developers can still find value in our posts. Your story about hosting providers resonates with so many developers—it’s a lesson learned the hard way for many of us!
To your excellent question about A/B testing for optimizing CTAs: A/B testing is one of the most effective ways to refine CTAs and improve conversion rates. By testing variations of wording, placement, colors, and even button shapes, you can gather real-world data on what resonates most with your audience. Here are a few key points to consider:
Start with a Hypothesis: Before running tests, outline what you’re testing and why. For instance, “Will a green button perform better than a red button?” or “Does ‘Sign Up Free’ convert better than ‘Get Started’?”Test One Variable at a Time: To ensure accurate results, isolate a single variable per test. This could be the button text, color, size, or location.Use Data for Decisions: Leverage analytics tools like Google Optimize, Optimizely, or VWO to track the performance of your variations. Ensure you test long enough to gather statistically significant data.Audience Segmentation: If possible, segment your audience to understand if certain CTAs work better for specific demographics or traffic sources.Iterate Based on Results: A/B testing is a continuous process. Use insights from one test to inform the next iteration.
Finally, don’t forget to balance testing with your brand’s identity and messaging consistency. Sometimes, what works best in a test might not align with your overall strategy. It’s about finding that sweet spot between data-driven decisions and brand values.
Fleeky
The ultimate guide to A/B testing