Your company’s website has one goal: to make your business grow and increase sales. This utilitarian approach may make it seem like stunning website design is a secondary concern, but the opportunity to display your product or service is paramount. This logic drives huge marketing budgets to be allocated to search engine optimization (SEO) or pay per click (PPC) ads. Of course, having your customers land on your page is only half the battle.
Want To Turn A Click Into A Sale? Website Design Is Key.
Make no mistake: the design of your display window matters. A vibrant, beautiful website will help you catch new customers, retain them, and even bring old ones back. On the other hand, a boring homepage that takes too long to load, doesn’t show the information potential customers are looking for, or simply looks passé, will turn all the money invested in the web ads into a waste.
So What Exactly Is At Stake When Designing Your Website?
1. Positioning. Potential customers who immediately click away from your page due to lackluster design will drive your bounce rate through the roof, causing your domain to drop down in search engine listings.
2. Credibility. A poorly designed, slow, or confusing web page can make your brand look improvised or unprofessional.
3. Satisfaction ratings. A visually appealing website will predispose new customers to be satisfied with your product or service and look at your company more favorably.
4. Customer loyalty. Studies show that a nice-looking website will make customers more willing to support you on a long-term basis.
First Impressions Are Powerful – And On The Web, They’re Very Brief.
Web-marketing interactions have been extensively researched by most major advertising companies, even Google. The overwhelming majority of these studies have established 50 milliseconds as the magic window your website has to provide the best possible first impression.
That’s right, milliseconds. That is a very short span of time. With that in mind, it’s likely that customers will have formed an impression of your brand before you even get a chance to start your pitch. So the question is, how to ensure the first glance is impressive enough to hold their attention for another ten seconds?
Design Needs To Be Visual First, Informative Second.
Once you have hooked a client into reading a paragraph, content will be king. Before that happens, however, their eyes will have to be drawn in by the following elements:
5. Logo. Your company branding is likely to be placed at the forefront of all other page content.
6. Central image. The main home or landing page visuals need to complement your logo without overshadowing it.
7. Color scheme. Traditional, print-based media has always preferred light color palettes, but in the online marketing realm, dark schemes tend to be more visually impactful.
8. Navigation menu. The structure of your website should make it easy and intuitive to locate necessary information, and typography should be elegant and legible to make everything digestible.
Website design is full of nuances and requires a tremendous amount of technical knowledge. At the same time, its impact is priceless. Place your website in the hands of qualified professionals who are skilled in captivating an audience through enticing digital design. Contact us today and we’ll help you create the best display for your brand.
