How a Poorly Designed Website Damages Your Business and How You Can Improve It

Is your website driving customers away? A poorly designed website can do more harm than you might think. From frustrating user experiences to plummeting SEO rankings, the effects can be devastating for your business and your brand presence. Let’s talk about the critical ways a bad website design is affecting your business and what steps you can take to fix them.

Impacts of a Poorly Designed Business Website 

Your website is now the first interaction customers have with your business. Gone are the days when your physical store or a firm handshake were enough to create a first impression of your business in 2024, your website is the first and last impression. But if it's poorly designed, it will drive them away faster than you can say "bounce rate." 

A bad website doesn't just frustrate users—it can severely damage your business. Let's explore the ways a poorly designed website impacts your business and what you can do about it.

Poor User Experience (UX) From a Poor-Quality Website 

Frustrated Visitors & Potential Customers 

One of the most immediate effects of a poorly designed website is a terrible user experience. If your website's overall user experience isn't at par with your competition, it'll be nothing but a source of frustration for your visitors. 

Think back to the time when you landed on a food blog website looking for your favourite recipes. As soon as the site loaded, were you bombarded with banner and irritating pop ups? Were you able to find the recipe you were looking for or were you forced to scroll all the way to the bottom to find it? 

All of us are already stressed out with the rising cost of living, passive aggressive fights at our workplace and the long commute hours. On top of all this frustration, if we have to encounter websites with a terrible UX, we'll obviously hit the back button before reading a single word on it. 

Slow loading times, confusing navigation, and cluttered layouts can leave your website visitors feeling frustrated and ready to click away. 

Remember that you're not the only fish in this vast digital ocean. People have more options now. In physical stores, competitors were located far away whereas in the digital market, your competitor is just a few clicks away. 

If your users can't find what they're looking for quickly, they won't stick around. This directly translates to lost potential customers.

High Bounce Rates 

When visitors leave your site almost as soon as they arrive, it's called a bounce. Bounce rates can be tracked by integrating your website with tracking services like Google Analytics which will measure the number of people leaving your website in the first few seconds of entering. 

High bounce rates are a red flag for search engines like Google and Bing, and now even the AI search, signalling that your site isn’t providing a good user experience to the visitors. This can happen if:

• Visitors are confused as to where to go on your website
• They don't see relevant information
• They can't find the right product
• They are distracted by too many irrelevant pop-up ads or promotions 
• They have to fill in too much information in the forms
• They have to go through several steps to complete a purchase 
• They don't see anything valuable to them
• They find a better experience, product, or rate on a competitor's website 
• They feel they're being tricked or mislead
• They don't trust the content, brand, people, services or product 
• They can't access parts of the website cause of technical issues 

High bounce rates can lead to lower rankings in search engine results, making it even harder for potential customers to find you. 

If your website is connected to an analytics tool like Google Analytics or HubSpot, you can immediately view your website's bounce rate. 

Reduced Search Engine Rankings

Poor SEO Performance

Search engines like Google and Bing prioritize websites that offer great user experiences. No matter how aesthetically pleasing your website is, if the users don't find any value, search algorithms will bury your website on the 3rd or 4th page. We all know no one ever looks beyond the first 2 pages of search results. 

If your site is hard to navigate, slow to load, or not mobile-friendly, it won't rank well. Period. 

Poor website can also come from poor SEO practices, such as missing meta tags, unoptimized images, and lack of quality content. 

If you're posting poor quality content on your website with no authenticity, authority, or trustworthiness, you're damaging your search rankings. On the flip side, if your content is valuable but is not optimized for technical and non-technical SEO, the search engines won't be able to serve it to suitable users. 

All these factors can push your website down in search engine results, reducing your visibility, your traffic, and ultimately your business growth. 

Mobile Unfriendliness in 2024

Come on, it's already 2024 where everyone is glued to their smartphones. Apple, Google, Samsung, and every other manufacturer is releasing a new mobile every few months. And you're telling me your website works only on the desktop? 

My average screen time is 5-8 hours every day. I dare you to tell me in the comments if your screen time is less than this. 

With the majority of people accessing websites via mobile devices, having a mobile-friendly site is crucial in today's age. 

When was the last time you opened your laptop or sat at your desktop to check the price of a product online? From filling out job applications to buying your favourite clothes, everything happens on the mobile these days. 

Gone are the days when websites were designed for desktop first and then made responsive to smaller devices. Now everyone follows a mobile first approach which involves designing and developing websites for the smallest screen first followed by adjusting them for tablets and laptop screens. 

If your website isn't optimized for mobile, you’re not only frustrating users but also hurting your search engine rankings. Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning it primarily uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking. 

You can even check and optimize your website's mobile version using the Google Lighthouse tool i.e. PageSpeed Insights that gives you the performance, accessibility and SEO score on a typical 4G connection mobile phone. If you are able to achieve a score above 80 across all the parameters, your website will be considered mobile friendly and ranked higher on search engines depending on the right use of keywords and content quality. 

Lower Conversion Rates

Trust and Credibility Issues

A poorly designed website can make your business look unprofessional and untrustworthy. 

Like business in physical transactions, trust is a critical factor in online conversions, and if your website looks outdated or amateurish, visitors are less likely to trust you. Beware of using too many colours, fonts and complex layouts the next time you feel like sprinkling some creativity on your website. It takes a professional web designer to play around with your brand design to create a website that leaves a lasting impression on your visitors. 

Moreover, it's not just about how your website looks but the quality and quantity of content. If you're selling premium watches, and you've no content to support the premium nature, who would trust your products? 

When I was working with ANA Design Studio as a digital marketing executive, an architecture firm based in Delhi, I came across a similar problem. Investing in an architecture firm for a project is a massive investment. They were struggling to attract clients for large scale projects because their website had no educational content at all. 

Luckily, they had over 26 years of past projects to prove their credibility but none of it was online in the form of content that could be shared with potential clients. They had past clients who were ready to give reviews and testimonials but none of it was ever recorded and published.

Without trust and credibility, why do you think a stranger on the internet will give you their credit card details to purchase a product. They're not even sure if it's genuine or not. 

Businesses are built on a strong foundation of trust. And trust sometimes takes years to build. 

Lack of trust on websites can significantly lower your conversion rates, whether you're looking for sales, sign-ups, or inquiries.

Ineffective Call-to-Actions (CTAs)

CTAs are crucial for guiding visitors towards desired actions. Think of them as the offer you're providing your visitors. Your visitors have landed on your website to achieve a personal goal. But you have a business goal to achieve. You need them to take an action that will help you convert these new visitors into loyal customers of your brand. That's where CTAs come in handy. 

If your CTAs are hard to find, poorly worded, or not compelling enough, visitors won't take the actions you want them to. You want them to sign up to your newsletter, but if the sign-up button is hidden in the website's footer, how do you expect them to find it? 

Good design places CTAs strategically and makes them stand out, encouraging users to convert.

Damaged Brand Reputation

Negative Perception

Your website is a reflection of your brand's identity. It is the most powerful brand asset out there. Your brand brochure, social media channels, ad campaigns are all secondary. They're all meant to attract and direct people to your website.

A poorly designed site can lead to a negative perception of your business. If your website looks outdated, difficult to navigate, or unprofessional, visitors will assume the same about your business. Imagine if there are certain pages broken on your website, or the checkout page loads forever after people enter their card details, or there's unprofessional low-quality images all over the pages. 

Don't you think people will form negative perceptions about any kind of further deals with you or your business? Do you think they will ever return back? When was the last time you went back to a shop where you had wait hours in a queue or had the cashier refuse to return the items you bought?

This negative perception can be particularly damaging if your competitors have well-designed, user-friendly websites. Of course, customers will go and buy in a shop where they get what they want without any hassle.

Lost Opportunities

A bad website can lead to missed opportunities. Potential partnerships, business deals, or media mentions often start with a visit to your website. If it's not up to par, you might miss out on these valuable opportunities.

How to Fix a Poorly Designed Website

After reading all the impacts of a poorly designed website, you must be wondering, "How the heck am I supposed to improve my website?" Let me tell you, it's not rocket science. Follow these simple steps to fix your website's user experience and see instant growth in your engagement.

Conduct a Website Audit

Start by conducting a thorough audit of your existing website. Look for issues such as broken links, slow loading times, poor mobile responsiveness, and outdated design elements. 

One of the best tools to identify potential problems with your website is the Google PageSpeed Insights that will give a step-by-step breakdown of problems associated with performance, SEO and accessibility. If your score is below 80 or in the red zone, it will even give you suggestions to improve them. 

Use tools like Google Analytics to understand user behaviour and identify areas for improvement.

Improve Navigation

Simplify your website’s navigation. Ensure that visitors can easily find what they’re looking for with clear menus and a logical structure. Use breadcrumbs and internal links to help guide users through your site. Remember that you need not put every page on your primary menu. You can segregate your menus based on categories and importance of the web page. For example, your privacy policy, terms and conditions, and other technical or legal data can be within your footer menu. 

Optimize for Speed

Page loading speed is crucial. Compress those high resolutions images, use webP format for images, implement lazy loading for images, leverage browser caching, and minimize CSS and JavaScript code to improve your site’s performance. If your website is built using WordPress, you cannot afford to install tons of heavy themes, unnecessary plugins, or add-ons. Again, tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can help you identify and fix speed issues.

Enhance Mobile Responsiveness

Ensure your website is fully responsive, meaning it adapts seamlessly to different screen sizes and devices. Use responsive design techniques and test your site on various devices to ensure a smooth mobile experience. Ideally adopt for a mobile-first approach when building a new website because even Google use mobile-first indexing for search results. 

Focus on Quality Content

Create high-quality, engaging content that provides value to your visitors. Optimize your content for relevant keywords, and ensure its well-structured with headings, subheadings, and bullet points for easy reading. 

Use Clear CTAs

Design your CTAs to stand out and be easy to find. Use compelling language that encourages action and place them strategically throughout your site to guide users towards conversion.

Regular Updates

Regularly update your website’s design and content to keep it fresh and relevant. A well-maintained website signals to visitors and search engines that your business is active and engaged.

Commonly Asked Questions

Why is user experience important for my website?

User experience (UX) is crucial because it directly impacts how visitors interact with your site. A positive UX can lead to higher engagement, lower bounce rates, and increased conversions, while a negative UX can drive visitors away, hamper business reputation, and reduce sale of products & services.

How does website design affect SEO?

Website design affects SEO through elements like loading speed, mobile responsiveness, meta data, quality of content, keywords and navigation. Search engines prioritize sites that offer a good user experience and valuable information, so a well-designed site is likely to rank higher in search results.

What is a bounce rate?

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page. High bounce rates often indicate that your site isn’t meeting visitors’ needs or expectations. It is advised to resolve this issue as soon as possible to improve your website's ranking.

How can I improve my website’s loading speed?

You can improve your website’s loading speed by compressing images, serving images in next generation format like WebP, simplifying the initial loaded content, enabling browser caching, minimizing unnecessary plugins and libraries, and minimizing CSS and JavaScript files. Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can provide specific recommendations.

What makes a good call-to-action?

A good call-to-action (CTA) is clear, specific, compelling, and strategically placed. It should stand out on the page and use action-oriented language to encourage users to take the desired action. Instead of saying 'Click Here to Begin' say something that excites the user to take a specific action like 'Estimate My Savings', 'Book a Call', 'Sign Up Now', 'Get a Quote', 'Explore My Options', etc. Think of adding a benefit and make sure it's bold and right in front of the user as soon as they enter the website. 

Lastly...

Your website is a the most important part of your business, and a poorly designed site can have far-reaching negative effects. From frustrating users to damaging your SEO and conversion rates, the impact can be significant. 

By addressing design issues and focusing on user experience, you can turn your website into a powerful tool for attracting and converting strangers into loyal customers. 

Don't let a bad design hold your business back—take action today to improve your site and boost your business or personal brand.