Have you ever wondered why is the design of a website important? Studies show you only have ten seconds to make an impression on a visitor to your website before they move on. The design of a website is important because it has the most power to influence visitors during this first-impression stage. Your website design also plays a huge role in establishing trust with your visitors. One survey shows 48 percent of people name website design as the most important factor in determining if a site is trustworthy.
By the end of this article, you’ll be able to answer why is the design of a website important? We’ll be discussing the elements of website design that affect revenue, and then wrapping up with an explanation of how a web design agency helps clients build beautiful and functional websites.
Why is the Design of Your Website Important?
While there are a few reasons why the design of a website is important, the primary reason is the design of your business website is directly tied to your revenue. A staggering 94 percent of web users admit to disqualifying a business out of consideration due to the design of their website. Today’s customer wants to be able to go through their entire buying journey on your website. Therefore, each design decision needs to play a part in making it easier for visitors to get to your product or service pages. Let’s look at some areas of your website that have a heavy influence on how visitors judge your business.
Navigation
The first thing you need to know about good business website design is your user needs to be able to get to the information they need as soon as they want it. Even if it takes just a few extra seconds than expected for your user to figure out your navigation scheme, the damage is already done.
You want your website navigation to be direct and easy to use. Don’t get cute when naming your pages, as you’re more likely to confuse users than pique their interest. Typical page names include:
- About
- Products/Services
- Our Mission
- Blog
- Contact
Users expect to see these categories. Make sure you choose a strong font and contrasting colors to draw the user’s eyes to your navigation bar. Also, include your business’s name, address, and phone number in the footer of every page on your site. The easier you make it to contact you, the more revenue you’ll generate from your website design.
Content Quality
Many people think of content creation as separate from web design, but there are design choices related to content that affect your bottom line. First and foremost, you have to write great content. Check out our articles on SEO writing and business writing to learn how to write educational and authoritative content that answers the burning questions of your audience.
Once you have great content, choose your font style, size, and color wisely.
Your font style should be something professional and easy-to-read. The size should be big enough for people with less-than-perfect vision to read. You can also improve readability by choosing a font color that contrasts heavily with your background color.
Brand Identity
The choices you make about font are on the list of design decisions related to your brand identity. Remember how I said visitors form a first impression about your brand within 10 seconds? This first impression is based largely on your brand identity.
Your brand identity is your brand’s personality. Just like the clothes you choose to wear are a part of expressing your personal identity, your site layout, fonts, and color scheme are how you express your brand identity. If you do this authentically, you drive more revenue.
Technical SEO
Many think of content writing and link building when they think about search engine optimization. The reality is the design aspect of SEO is just as important. Each design decision should be made with optimization for search engines in mind.
One of the biggest factors of the technical side of SEO is page load speed. If your website design strategy relies on lots of videos, graphics, and flash animations, your site will take forever to load. Companies who keep their business websites sleek and minimal have the fastest load times.
Related to technical SEO is responsive web design.
What is Responsive Web Design and Why is it Important?
With dozens of brands producing phones, phablets, tablets, laptops, and desktops, there are thousands of screen sizes. Responsive web design is a design strategy that focuses on ensuring a website automatically adjusts its display according to the device of the visitor.
Responsive web design requires advanced knowledge of HTML and CSS. If you don’t understand these coding languages, you should consider hiring a design company. Responsive web design is important because today’s digital buyer is increasingly mobile.
Potential customers who are searching for companies on mobile are typically looking for a physical business in their area. This means responsive web design is important for your local SEO efforts.
Just like regular web design, a good responsive web design strategy puts the user first. It puts emphasis on the most important information and simplifies the main site without sacrificing functionality.
Designing a website yourself is overwhelming. Many business owners in your shoes hire a web design agency that they can trust to build them a high-performance website. Let’s talk more about what a web design agency does.
What Does a Web Design Agency Do?
The first thing a web design agency does is evaluate your current website design. They use Google Analytics to see how visitors are interacting with your site, and they also use tools to test page load speed. From this analysis comes a customized corporate website redesign strategy.
Next, a web design agency interviews you to learn everything they can about your brand identity and target audience. They then create a layout and color scheme that best reflects this identity. The most valuable part of working with a web design agency is their knowledge of code. They can build any feature you want with minimal stress on your end.
Finally, a web design company is aware of the latest web design trends. They can pick out which ones are fads and which ones are based on ever-changing user preferences.
Schedule a consultation with Titanium Marketing If you want to learn more about how a web design company can design you a business website that increases revenue.
