Homepages have become the face of businesses and should be the most engaging page on your website. Besides being engaging it should also give your visitors a feel for what your website is about and set the tone for the rest of your site. There are an endless number of do’s and don’ts when it comes to designing your homepage. Below are the worst 3 mistakes you can make on your homepage, avoid these at all costs!
1. Overloading
A very common mistake we see all too often on websites is overloading, or overstuffing the homepage with so many images and text that it makes it difficult to not only read but to make sense of what the website is about. Instead of cluttering your homepage with every bit of information you can stuff onto the one page, break up the content into summaries with links to other pages on your site. Try keeping the content on your homepage to the point. The design should always be neat and clean, and definitely nothing like the example above.
2. Flashing Text & Images
It used to be the latest in web design but these days anything that blinks or flashes is just plain annoying. It is more than an eye sore to be confronted with a home page that has any flashing images or text. It is also a distraction and can take away from your visitors navigating through your website. Blinking texts look unattractive and very unprofessional. Keep your homepage free of anything that flashes or blinks.
3. Broken Links
Every website should be well maintained with regular checks that everything is working as it is designed to. This should should be conducted on a frequent basis to check if there are any broken links that need to be fixed or removed. Besides looking unprofessional it is also frustrating for visitors that are restricted from viewing certain links.
Website design is an ever-changing process. It's best practice to keep up to date on what the latest design trends are and learn how to best captivate your visitors with a clean, professional homepage.
