5 Website Design Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Website builders made it so virtually anyone can create their own website in literal minutes. And while platforms like Site .pro, Squarespace, Duda, and Wix offer users a lot of pre-made solutions from templates to AI-generated text and images, there is always room for a beginner’s mistake.
It might be relatively easy to create a beautiful website with website builders, but to make it functional and properly optimized is a completely different task. No matter how pretty your website is designed, it also has to be user-friendly and to have good SEO.
By learning about these main five mistakes, you will be able to launch a successful website faster and get better traffic for your business. As people say, forewarned is forearmed!
1. Lack of UX Testing
UX means ‘user experience’ and includes every way people use and navigate through your site. You don’t need a team of UX specialists to conduct research and run experiments, you can do everything on your own. Of course, it will take some time, but it will drastically and noticeably improve your conversion rates and user satisfaction.
You can find out about a lot of issues on your website just by running a couple of tests with your friends and family. Otherwise, you will never know why no one buys your products or doesn’t go beyond the homepage.
How to fix it:
Show your website to other people and tell them to perform some tasks. For example, ask them to find contact information, or if you’re managing an online store — tell them to find an item and add it to the shopping cart.
Don’t give users any directions, watch carefully how easily they can find their way. Write down which parts are successful and which parts need improvement. Learn to accept that what might be obvious to you, for others — might not be.
2. Ignoring Mobile Devices
The truth is, the percentage of people browsing the web through their smartphones is no longer 30% or 40%. According to the recent 2025 studies via Statista, 64% of people from around the world access the Internet through mobile devices. By refusing to adapt your website, you actively lose all this traffic.
How to fix it:
Implement a mobile version of your website. Nowadays it’s not difficult at all — most website builders provide features for creating adaptive websites. It might not be obvious, but a couple of clicks can completely change the look of your website.
For example, to make elements of the website adaptive to mobile in Site .pro, you only need to check that all elements’ height and width settings are ‘Auto’. ‘Min’ and ‘Max’ checkboxes should be off.
Take a look at a preview to ensure that everything is displayed correctly.
3. Poorly Optimized SEO
If you keep noticing that your website doesn’t show up in the search results of Google or other search engines, the reason might be bad SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
It could be that you don’t have alt-texts for your images, poor URLs or inappropriate keywords. Search engines simply cannot find your website, which means that users cannot do it either.
How to fix it:
1. Change your keywords and descriptions. If you’re struggling with that, try using SIte .pro’s AI features:
- Go to settings on the top of a website builder.
- Go to ‘Pages’, switch to ‘SEO’ tab.
- Specify the title, description and keywords by clicking ‘Add Generate with AI’.
2. Always add alt-texts to your images. Not only does that help visually impaired people, but it also helps search engines better recognize images.
3. Create web addresses that are simple to understand. Simple web addresses are clear and readable. A sample of a well-made web address might look like sitename.xyz/blog/how-to-make-good-urls.
Meanwhile, a bad one would be a bunch of letters and numbers. User-friendly URLs help build trust with users, and websites with optimized URLs are always ranked higher by Google.
4. Bad Menu Navigation
Your menu might be too long or too short. You shouldn’t add too many links — otherwise clients will get confused, possibly leaving for another website that has better navigation.
Large menus also often make people leave, while a small one can be left unnoticed. It should be just right, and figuring it out is the hard part.
How to fix it:
Again, do your research. Look how your competitors organize their website, what type of menus they use. There can be vertical, horizontal and ‘hamburger’ menus.
While the first is mostly used by big online stores with huge catalogues, the second one is generic and can fit up to 7 main links. The third one is mostly made for mobile. Click through different menus yourself to figure out which one has the better feel.
Here’s another suggestion — put a navigation menu at the very bottom of your webpage. It can duplicate the top menu and have all the contact information. This is a small thing, but it makes your website much better for visitors.
5. Poorly Chosen Domain Name
Your domain name represents how people first see your site. It has to represent it properly and be able to give users an instant idea of who you are, what you do, and, preferably, where. In case your domain name is too generic, like ‘restaurant.xyz’ — users will never remember it, and some will even be hesitant to click on it because it looks a bit suspicious.
On the other hand, a domain name such as ‘smithspizza.ca’ gives both users and search engines a lot of information — you are a pizza place based in Canada.
How to fix it:
Include in your domain name a couple of relevant keywords related to your business or profession. Preferably you should also choose a trustworthy domain zone, users are more likely to click on something they are familiar with than on a website with ‘.xyz’ at the end.
Purchasing a custom domain will help your website appear more professional, so it’s worth spending budget on. Plus, it costs much less money than most people expect.
Buy a domain with Site .pro for the best and easiest experience. Domains can be purchased directly through the builder with all the pricing shown.
Why Join Site .pro
By building your site on Site .pro you can easily avoid most of the issues described above. Site .pro cares deeply about the experience of its users, that’s why its website builder is user-friendly and intuitive for everyone, beginners or professionals.
Site .pro offers a wide range of convenient tools to simplify web design, domain purchases, website import and SEO optimization. It offers some of the cheapest rates available, beginning at just $1.20 per year, making it budget-friendly for all users.
Site .pro provides:
- Free plan;
- Free AI website generator function to make building websites even faster;
- Free mailbox;
- Custom domain included in every plan;
- 200 templates for every website;
- Third party integration options for advanced users;
- And more!
Conclusion
It’s easier to avoid common mistakes when you know about them from the beginning. However, there’s no reason to fear them. Only by trial and error is it possible to create something truly great.
Not every solution might work out for you perfectly, but it’s fine! It’s always better to try something and fail than do nothing at all. Try various techniques and figure out which ones suit your individual requirements. The primary goal of this piece is to provide you with starting points and inspiration for your project.
Anyone can make a website, but more importantly — anyone can make a good website. Good luck!