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<span style="font-weight: 400;">The importance and value of web design becomes clear when you compare a well-designed site with a poorly designed one. It can be difficult to put your finger on the elements of a site that don’t appeal to you, and sometimes the problem is combination of design issues overlapping. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">If you’re hiring a web designer to build and design your small business’ website, take note of these 5 common web design mistakes that will tarnish your website and how you can avoid them.</span>
<h2>Web Design Mistake #1: Flash with no function</h2>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">A website that looks nice but doesn’t let a user do what they came there to do is not a functional website. Users get frustrated with websites that aren’t functional and leave. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Good web designers know how to properly balance text, white space, graphics, images, and sections so that the overall effect of the website is aesthetically pleasing and easily usable at the same time. </span>
<h2>Web Design Mistake #2: No search box</h2>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Users come to your website in search of information or products. If the things they’re looking for aren’t on your homepage, and the user can’t find it within 3 clicks, you’ll lose a potential customer and wish you had put in a search box. </span>

It’s imperative that your web designer include a search box on every page so users can always find their way around and go directly to the content they want to see.
<h2>Web Design Mistake #3: Bad font choices</h2>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Some websites aren’t badly designed, but feature poor font selections that make the website appear dated or designed by a beginner. This is not an impression you want to leave on your visitors, so steer away from or sparingly use fonts that have a lot of ‘character’ and can easily overwhelm your page, like Comic Sans or Blackadder. </span>

Talk about your font preferences with your web designer to avoid a misunderstanding.
<h2>Web Design Mistake #4: Complicated forms</h2>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Any barrier to a sale is bad for business, and complicated forms on your website fall into that category. Your goal is to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to find what they want and, if applicable, purchase it. </span>

Have your web designer make the process of filling out a form simple for your visitors, and you could see an increase in sales and conversions.
<h2>Web Design Mistake #5: Forgetting social media</h2>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">A good web designer will include highly visible links to your social media accounts on every page of your website. This is the only way your business can hope to successfully use social media for marketing. Your visitors will only click ‘Like on Facebook’ if they know the process will be quick and simple--after all, it doesn’t hurt them at all to </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">not </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">click Like, and the urge to do so can pass rather quickly. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Keeping your social links prominently placed on every page ensures it’s simple for visitors to move between the sites, engaging with your business on social media and on your website, and making sure you’re consistently linking to your website and blog on your social media pages can kindle a good flow of traffic back and forth between the two pages.</span>