5 Scariest Website Mistakes To Avoid This Halloween!

If you’re a business owner who is terrified of tech, but you want to DIY your website, take a look at these scary website mistakes that you’ll definitely want to avoid.

Need the headlines in a hurry?

This article about website mistakes to avoid includes:

1. Blood curdling colour combos

2. Petrifying pop-ups

3. Frightening fonts

4. Horrifying headers

5. Spine-chilling SEO

(It’s Halloween themed, ok, but you get the idea!)

Let’s take a closer look at these 5 scariest website mistakes to avoid if you want a website that not only looks good, but converts too.

Blood Curdling Colour Combos

Your website should always be a reflection of you, your brand and your business.

Don’t shy away from expressing yourself through colour (spoiler: you don’t have to go all neutral just because it’s trending!)

However, you mustn’t alienate your potential ideal client.

If you want to attract 40+ year old professional women, but you have a website that is very “masculine” in its tone, then you risk losing those clients because it doesn’t appeal to the right person.

The good news is that, usually, if you stick to the colour scheme that appeals to you, it’s likely that you’ll still attract aligned clients.

Another important aspect to remember when placing colours is that you make sure your text is readable. It may seem like common sense, but if you’ve got a dark background, it’s no good using a similar colour for your text because it’s not going to be easily readable.

On Wix, there is a handy tool for premium plans that allows you to check how accessible your site is. It includes a tool that assesses colour contrast, so if you’re not sure, use that to be certain there is enough difference between the colours you have used.

Petrifying Pop-Ups

This is a bit of a controversial topic.

Web designers wouldn’t add pop-ups on a site if they didn’t work.

But, and it’s a big but, make sure they’re not spammy.

Imagine a potential client finding your website only to be bombarded by pop-ups asking them to sign up for your newsletter, download a freebie, get a discount, etc.

If that person doesn’t already know you, it’s highly unlikely that they’re going to immediately sign up for your newsletter, so why waste vital website real estate with an annoying pop-up like that?

How to use pop-ups effectively?

If you’re a product-based business, the perfect time to use pop-ups is during sales promotions. Potential customers often know when there are regular sales, so they’ll almost expect a pop-up offering a 20% discount, for example.

Why not add a pop-up when the user is about to move away from your site? This works better because it allows the user to explore your site without being interrupted, and just as they’re about to leave, a well-placed pop-up offering a free downloadable might just be the offer they need before they leave.

Remember to use pop-ups strategically. If you’re trying to build your email list, don’t just tell people to join your mailing list, but offer them an incentive to do so.

Frightening Fonts

Your website needs to be user-friendly first and foremost, so make sure you use fonts that can be easily read.

Since it’s Halloween, I’ll use that as an example.

As a product-based business, you might be selling some themed items for different seasons. In this scenario, it’s fine to temporarily change some fonts to a Halloween style, eg in a pop-up advertising those products, or on a section of your products page.

But make sure it’s still readable, it’s only for that particular season, and it doesn’t overwhelm the page.

It’s common practice to use 2 or 3 fonts maximum, one as a headline font, one for the main body of the text and one as a decorative font.

If you use more than that, your website risks looking messy and incohesive.

My top tip for website fonts is to choose a font, especially for the main body of the text, that can be made bold or italicised to create further contrast while still maintaining consistency with the same font.

Horrifying Headings

Did you know that section titles on your website contribute to good SEO practices?

Headings are not just about style and breaking up the page; they’re also useful for categorising the page on your website.

If you make all headings on a page H1, this will confuse Google because it won’t be able to differentiate the importance of each section or understand the flow of the page.

It can often be confusing because on the Wix platform, if you add text, you’ll get a list of headings and paragraphs. So, to those of you DIYing your websites, it may seem as if it’s just a style choice.

It’s not.

Always make sure your section headings follow the pattern of H1, H2, H3, etc.

Spine-Chilling SEO

Everyone’s worst nightmare!

This is why I love using the Wix platform.

They have a very handy SEO assistant that will lead you through the SEO basics you need to implement to get even a chance of ranking on Google.

What are the SEO basics you need to be aware of?

You need to add keywords to your site. Keywords are words and/or phrases that tell Google exactly what your site is about and also what people are likely to search for if they’re looking for a product or service you provide.

If you’re a location-based service, a good one to use is “hairdressers near me” for example.

One of my keywords is Wix Website Designer because I want people searching for that service to find me.

You need to add meta descriptions to each page. This is a short summary of the page; it will also appear on Google’s snippet under the main heading of that page. You’ll want to make it clear what that page is about; if you can add a keyword to the description, even better!

Adding Alt Text to images is also an important SEO basic. This is essential for accessibility requirements, but it also tells Google about that image and therefore helps categorise the image so that it may appear under the image tab in Google.

User experience also plays a part in good SEO practices.

If you overcomplicate your website by adding too much text, not making the menu bar clear enough or having too many unnecessary pages just means a poorer user experience overall.

This can have a big impact on how Google views your site, for example, if someone clicks on to your site but immediately clicks off, it suggests that it has a bad user experience.

Google wants to know that your website is a pleasant experience that encourages people to linger and explore longer than a few seconds.

The subject of SEO is complex, but mastering the basics gives you the extra step up in the rankings game.

So there you have it, some of my 5 scariest website mistakes to avoid.

I hope this helps you navigate the weird world of website design a little better!

Keep in mind your colour and font choices, how you use your headings, when you use pop-ups and implement good basic SEO practices.