Web designing is an industry where there are so many experts in the field that most leave a lot of space for clients to get suspicious of getting ripped off. You might hire UX developer who might ask you to opt for a full scale redesign if you have an existing website instead of focusing on the changes required. While you’ll see other designers trying to make websites unique to an extent that it loses its user friendly capacity.

Sometimes designers from a web designing agency are aware that they are not fulfilling all the requirements of making a fully functional website. And it is worse when they have no clue about how a website that is not optimized is nothing but drainage of money as the website then acts like an investment with no returns.

So how do you ensure that you are not one of those clients who fall in the vicious trap of draining your money on web designers from a web designing agency? Well, these are the 11 money draining mistakes no web designer will dare to tell you – either because they don’t want to work but get the money out of you or they themselves are not aware of it.

So if you hire UX developer from a Web designing agency, ensure that you know the basics yourself so that your web designers do not get the chance to make any money draining mistakes.

1. Giving importance to aesthetics than functionality

When you hire UX Developer, he might make you go through all the pretty sites they have made and impress you with how good they look. Despite the aesthetic appeal, they might not have the basic functionality attached. So if your designer directly jumps into graphics and animations and how to make your website more aesthetically pleasing without having a discourse on the functioning of the website then it can be a big red flag. This might mean that you’re going to pay for those amazing flashy graphics that do no good other than looking great.

2. Designing without knowing the target audience

Web designers often tend to jump onto getting the initial frameworks done without understanding your business or even your target audience. They’ll replicate the reference websites you give them but will not go through them to understand what business perspectives do those websites use. Understanding the prospective audience of a client is crucial. Answering what are the problems of the target audience, how can it be solved, why will they come to you, how can the website hook them to avail your services – all of these are vital to understand before going forward towards making a full scale website.

3. Your website cannot be updated on your own

The small or basic edits should not be difficult to do and you should be able to do simple updates like updating the ages or copy. But if your web designer has plans of ripping you off they will deny you the access to the back end and insist on making all the updates themselves and charge a lot of money for the smallest updates as well. In today’s world where content management systems have become easier to use, updating the page titles or making some changes in the blog posts due to grammar errors or typos is as simple as writing something in a word document. No web designer should charge you for just making the smallest of edits like changing a few words.

4. Not Designing for Mobile

If you hire a designer who does not make the website mobile adaptive and responsive and solely focuses on showing you how it looks on your desktop then it is a serious red flag. If he never brings up the conversation about mobile adaptability but charges similar to web designers who look into both desktop and mobile adaptability then your web designer is just draining your money. The future of the web is in the mobile and most of the traffic online is through mobiles. If mobile optimisation is not considered then your website will be more ancient than you can think of and your investment will yield no returns.

5. Not Planning for After the Site is “Finished”

If you hire UX developer from a web designing agency and don’t see him talking about how to keep the website updated and bring about the necessary additions once a while then he has just been eyeing to rip you off without any engagement in planning how to keep it new for visitors every now and then. This can be done by adding blog posts, creating some news updates, creating sources like calculators or other user friendly tools for your customers. If you web designer is not keen about looking into this, then the website launch and maintenance will just rip you off without generating traffic.

6. They’re not image conscious

If your web designing agency does not know how to consciously use images then it can be a real problem. Be it cheesy stock photos, file names that do not have search terms but are only automated scrambled characters, or take a long time to load the image – all are traffic killers. Cheesy images can be confusing with no clarity and no relation to your services and content. Ideally the images should reinforce the content to make your message simpler for the visitors. Usually, original photos are the best as it answers the questions or demonstrates something to the visitors. If your web designer did not talk to you about how to not use generic photos or how to make use of stock photos with meanings or does not optimize the images for fast loading – then you will lose out on traffic and it will only be a money drain.

7. Don’t know about SEO

SEO is one of the crucial practices that one needs to implement to ensure that the website gets organic traffic due to ranking in the search engines and people are more easily able to find you. Web designing is crucial when it comes to playing a role in SEO. If your website is not SEO optimised then creating and running a website is a waste of money and you’re also wasting time on the internet. No web designer will tell you of this money draining mistake, but you should be aware of it.

8. Not cautious about content

Often web designers do not care much about the content and do not try accommodating your copy or headline that makes sense in the homepage. You might find typos throughout the pages as you navigate them. The idea of a website is not only to WOW the audience with impeccable design but also to hook them and convert them who will balance your current assets. Therefore, tailor made copies drive the most conversions. If your web designer does not accommodate the copies to end up with a Call to Action then it can be a serious issue. Content in the website needs to be optimized to ultimately reach the CTA where conversions occur. If you hire UX Developer but he does not tell you about this and evades it then you will be draining money as there will be no conversions.

9. No Application of User Centered Design Process (UCD):

It is crucial to ensure that there is a positive user experience when they surf through your website sections. This means that there should be a seamless mobile usability, a proper navigation bar and the like. If while designing and trying to make a website unique you try adding pop up galleries and pop up messages every now and then, it takes away from the user experience making it difficult to convert them later. If your web designer only tries amazing visuals without using a UCD approach by placing users at the center of the design – then your money is just getting drained on this website.

10. Your home page uses carousels

Carousels are not always bad but can become terrible if they scroll by themselves. This can be your conversion killers as they look more like ads and cause banner blindness in turn reducing visibility. As they tend to distract your website visitors drawing their attention away from the focus, you will lose your traffic. So if your web designer only wants to include carousels and have design skills of ancient times, you will just be ripping yourself off because of these mistakes.

11. Your website does not follow design norms:

Usually being used to the usual generic design conventions, users expect all websites to follow it. Despite getting a lot of flexibility in this aspect, you will still need to be conscious while implementing any. If your visitors struggle with finding the search button or the navigation tool, you’ll lose them at the start of the funnel and lead conversion will be impossible. If you hire UX developer who does not include most of the accepted design conventions then you’re just setting up a website that appeals to you but does not drive conversions which ultimately is nothing but a money drain.