Let’s consider the facts: it’s hard — if not flat out impossible — to run a successful business today without a good web page design. In fact, recent studies show that nearly 87% of small businesses in the U.S. list their website as their most important marketing strategy.

There are tons of ideas floating around about how to optimize a web page design depending on what your business is about and what your audience is like — but there are a few common mistakes that you should always avoid no matter what:

1. No mobile web design, optimized for smartphones and tablets. Lacking a responsive web design is something that can hurt your business more than you realize, especially because mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, became so popular over such a short span of time. But regardless of how it happened, the fact of the matter is that more people are accessing web pages via mobile devices more so than ever before, and they’re very influenced by how well a business’s web page design loads. In fact, over 50% of users have stated that they’re less likely to engage with a company if its mobile website is bad, and over 33% state that it’s a complete waste of time to browse a business’s website on a mobile device if that website hasn’t been mobile-optimized.
   

2. Too much content. Stuffing too much content onto one page is bad for a couple different reasons. First, too much content will take more time to load, and considering that nearly half of all internet users will leave a web page if it takes longer than three seconds to load, your business can’t afford to lose potential customers before you’re even able to make an impression. And speaking of impressions, research has shown that about 94% of first impressions are design-related. If you have too much content stuffed into one space, or even if you use too many bright colors and patterns, the overall effect can be too overwhelming for users. Keeping your web page design as simple as possible is the cornerstone of a good web design.
   

3. Broken links and missing pages. Some businesses use the 404 page as an opportunity to get creative and show a little humor, but as a general rule, it’s best to keep these pages to a minimum. If you’re hoping to make use of SEO services — which many digital marketing firms also offer, in addition to web page design services — it’s imperative that you have working links. Not only will missing links send a bad message to your customers, but too many missing pages could also cause your keyword rankings to fall.

So what do you think? Are these some pretty good starting points for designing a good web page, or are there some other common mistakes that we haven’t mentioned? We’d love to hear your thoughts!