The Importance Of Website Design For A Business

Featured article by Calvin Paige, Independent Technology Author

Building a business online is a no easy task. There are a lot of important aspects that entrepreneurs need to keep in mind. In order to be able to build an audience and maintain it for a long period of time, you need to generate good quality content, make it consistent and interact with your audience as often as possible. However, before going into too much detail about the relevance of the content for a website, it is important to mention that there are other aspects that mean a lot more when it comes to creating an impact on the readers.

Even though many bloggers and entrepreneurs are not aware of this fact, the website design has a big influence on their readers. They consider that as long as their website is functional, they don’t need to improve anything. That’s totally wrong! Outdated company websites are less likely to keep up with their competition. According to recent studies, a well-built website is able to generate more traffic and increase conversion. Thus, web design is one of the main aspects of your online presence. Nonetheless, that does not mean that you need to pay a huge amount of money to redesign your website, but rather that you need to customize your website according to your business. Here are a few reasons why the design of your website plays such an important role in your company’s success.

Better Navigation

Probably one of the main features of a website is the navigation. When looking at a website, customers are expecting to have a great experience and navigate with ease. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. These days, not all websites are designed as they should be. This aspect says a lot about those who are behind the website. In other words, a website design can either make or break it. For that reason, website designers aim to ensure that the user knows where they are and how to navigate with ease when trying to complete their needs. Thus, designing strong website navigation is one of the first steps to designing a website.

Website navigation usually includes a navigation bar. For quick and easy access it is good to make it easy to comprehend. Even though it might be tempting for website designers to go overboard when designing the navigation, in most cases, a simple navigation is much more effective. Some other equally important aspects include integrating a consistent navigation, including clickable links, including a working search feature and using accurate navigation titles.

Customer Service and Trust

Building trust and credibility for your customers is a truly important aspect. Therefore, a website can be easily compared to the representative of a customer service. All website owners wish to make a good first impression on their visitors. After all, if your website is not gaining enough exposure and leads, your company is going to fail. For that matter, a well-designed website is like a polite and helpful representative that does everything they can to help customers. On the other hand, a poorly designed website is like a rude and unhelpful customer representative. Customers love to navigate to trustful websites. By making your website look more trustworthy, you can increase your traffic and improve the business leads. Customers also love to access your website no matter what. If your website is not loading properly or can’t be accessed at all, that means that you haven’t chosen a reliable web hosting company. There are a lot of web hosting companies out there. The main idea is to pick the best web hosts right now. Remember to consider the price, features and rating.

Brand Consistency

Customers love the idea of visiting a website that is consistent. For example, if you have a logo that is frequently utilized, then you need to preserve the same design on all print materials (e.g. business cards, letterheads, etc.). At the same time, the same design has to be carried over to your website. This aspect allows your clients to recognize your brand across all platforms, both online and offline. Thus, they can also be consistent and stick by your side. If every single page on your website has a different font and it’s laid out differently, users are going to skip your website. Any successful website uses the same set of format, style and typeface.

This is the backbone of your website. Once you make sure that you implement it in your website, users are going to get a sense of consistency, facilitating the whole navigation process. Therefore, the main aspects that need to have the same format and design are the web elements (header, footer, sidebar), the design and last but not least, the content.

Conversions

The design of your website can have a direct impact on conversions. Smart marketers probably already know that their design can boost their website conversions. Even though the ultimate goal is to make the whole process as smooth as possible (only a few clicks), that’s not always possible. A new user trying to purchase an item online has to carry out multiple steps in order to confirm the payment. Some of the steps are: adding the item to cart, filling in the personal information field and confirming the order. For that matter, the end goal is to include as little distractions as possible.

There are a lot of elements that have an influence on the conversion rates. The first one is the placement of the call-to-action button, and the second one is the color scheme of the website. While the first aspect is meant to grab the user’s attention and guide them toward the end goal, the second one contributes to the personality of the website. People from different parts of the world might react differently to color combinations.

Search Engine Optimization

Businesses usually decide to redesign their website once their current one does not get high rankings on the main search engines. Duplicate content can lead to a low ranking on search engines. Usually, news pages or blogs that put content together generate duplicate pages. This problem can be easily solved by implementing a new website design.

Many people tend to read a web page just like they would read a book, from top to bottom and left to right. Many designers take that into account and make sure to place the most important information somewhere visible. By doing that they ensure that their message gets across in a more effective manner for current visitors who might become clients in the near future. Yet, there are a lot of people who have no idea that the way they place certain information on their website can improve your website’s SEO. Thus, when you include important keywords in the HTML-based text, search engines are able to give your website better visibility by increasing your search engine placement.

Website Engagement

Most marketers know that their website is at the heart of their business. Considering the fact that many users prefer to engage with content that is beautifully designed, it is critical to create a website that can grab the attention of users. Your website allows you to interact with a larger audience in a much easier manner compared to a brick and mortar business. You get much more exposure, and you can communicate with your audience with the help of a social media strategy. These interactions help marketers to understand better who their audience is and make better business decisions.

Even though social media marketing plays an important role in the development of a business in the online world, it is almost impossible to guarantee a strong web presence just by social media. When browsing through different social media platforms, users can easily become distracted by the competitor’s ads. By driving social traffic to your website, you are in full control of what users are exposed to.

User Experience

The key goal of your business website is to satisfy your user. It is important to remember that the design of a website plays a vital role in this case. It can influence the way people navigate on your website and the speed of your site. The speed of your site is an essential factor for customer satisfaction. As the speed of the internet increases, people are expecting to be able to access web pages that are loading in a short period of time. However, many users incorporate large images and other elements that might slow the load time of their website. Unfortunately, this aspect directly impacts the user experience.

Even though many websites complicate their website for the purpose of using flashy elements that eventually slow down the load time of the website, it is important to remember that there are efficient ways of decreasing the load time. First of all, one can try to minimize the HTTP requests, combine files, use JavaScript files or reduce server response time. Last but not least, it is important to make sure that the website is designed according to user’s needs.

Whether you’re developing a website from scratch or looking for effective ways of redesigning it, these aspects might give you an idea of the impact that the design of a website has on the overall user experience. Consider these aspects when redesigning your website and you might experience a sudden improvement of your business.