A strong website design is just as crucial to your digital marketing as the content and images are. It aids the user experience to guide visitors through your website. To have a strong online presence, you need many things to work together, including:
- The content and images of your website should tell a story.
- Paid ads in search engines and social sites to direct people to your website.
- Consistent messaging across all platforms.
- A cohesive feel to all branded collateral.
The design of your website should follow the look of your brand as a visual representation of your company. The design is part of the big picture of your online presence. Here are six reasons your website design is important.
1. First Impressions Count
The look of your website will sway people in how they feel about your company. If the design is rough or doesn’t make sense for your industry, it could cause them to call a competitor instead of you. So, what gives a good first impression? Ask these questions about your design elements:
- How do the colors of your website work together?
- Is your logo prominent?
- Is your menu easy to navigate?
- Does your home page heading quickly tell what you do and how you help your customers?
- Is it easy to know how to contact you?
- Do you list your services so people know what you offer?
- Can people quickly see what your service area is?
- Do the images on each page match the text?
2. Help Your SEO Strategy
A well-designed website is created to allow Google’s crawlers to index your website quickly and efficiently. These search engine crawlers are programmed to mimic the user experience. If a website is challenging to navigate, has an outdated design, or is poorly structured, not only will the people who are coming to your site struggle to use it, but the crawlers will abandon it quickly as well. Making sure your website is optimized for human use to keep people on your page and raise your visibility, which in turn will give more credibility to your website and give you more traffic.
3. Set Customer Service Impression
Before someone even begins reading your blogs or digging deep into the services you offer, the design leaves a first impression. It will directly influence their perception of your business. Your website needs to be designed top to bottom to give the impression you can solve the problem they came to you with.
Like a physical store, a website’s design can encourage business or push customers to a competitor. If someone comes to your store and sees you have a leaky roof, dirty floors, unorganized shelves, and nasty restrooms (if they even make it that far), they are likely to leave quickly.
In the same way, if your website is poorly designed, hard to navigate, and doesn’t help people feel like your service can solve their problem, they will leave for a different company.
This is where a well-organized website with good, relevant content can make a difference.
4. Build Trust with Your Audience
After your website’s structure is in place (URL’s, page layout, etc.), you need to show potential customers you know what you are talking about. This is where quality content comes into play. Through website content, images, reviews, and blogs, you can show the customer you are an expert in your field. This is one area crucial to web design. You must have quality content showing the customer you can solve their problems. It should encourage them to engage with you. If you don’t, you risk losing them as a customer before they even begin communicating with you.
To build trust with your customers, you need to have a functional, well-designed website with relevant content that captures their intention and shows you care about their problem and can solve it. People expect a business to have a website in the modern age, and it is often the first place a person will look to get information on what you are all about. A good website design is the first step towards building trust in your brand.
5. Your Competitors Are There
If you haven’t looked up your competitors’ websites, you should. If experience holds, at least one will have a website with a well-thought-out design. Diversifying your budget in digital marketing increases opportunities for your company.
- Compete in your industry
- Increase your visibility
- Increase customer satisfaction
- Gain more sales
- Generate more revenue
Having a strong digital presence is one of the most effective ways you can grow your business. A surprisingly low amount of businesses invest in their digital presence as much as they should. Doing this can give you a lead over the competition when it comes to gaining customer traffic.
6. It Creates Consistency
Your website is often the Rome to which your other marketing leads potential customers to. Whatever your “roads” are, they all have the same purpose: reaching your website and doing business with you. If your website design does not deliver a message consistent with your company’s voice, your brand can feel disjointed. Keeping your brand consistent across your website and your social media platforms increases your chances people will recognize your brand more easily. They may not always travel to your website, but as they travel the roads of social media and see the signs for your website, it will grow awareness of your services and help them feel comfortable coming back to you when they are in need.
Art Unlimited would love to have the opportunity to collaborate with you on designing your website and helping you to spread your brand to the people who need your services! Give us a shout here!