Why Your Website Design Matters More Than Ever Before

In today’s digital age, having a website is no longer a luxury but essential for businesses of any size. After the events of recent years, it’s often the first point of contact between your business and potential customers. It’s because of this that it’s critical that the website design is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and responsive. Think of your website as your new shop window, if it was neglected or badly designed you wouldn’t be surprised if it negatively affected your businesses footfall and sales.

The increased competition that came from everyone creating websites at the start of the pandemic hasn’t died down in recent months. With the increased competition and ever-changing consumer preferences, your website design matters more than ever before for putting your best foot forward.

First impressions matter

The first impression is crucial when it comes to websites. Studies show that it takes only 0.05 seconds for users to form an opinion about your website, and it influences their decision to stay or leave.

If your website design is outdated or unappealing, visitors are likely to leave within seconds, resulting in a high bounce rate and lost opportunities. However, if your website is easy to navigate and interact with, visitors are more likely to stay, engage with the content, and potentially convert into customers.

For example, if you’re offering accounting services, your website design needs to convey a sense of trustworthiness, display your accreditations and guide someone to getting in touch. An outdated website design with no clear contact details will give users a negative impression and reduce the likelihood of them getting in touch with you.

Brand identity and credibility

A website is an extension of your brand identity and serves as a platform to communicate your message and values to potential customers.

It’s all very well if your physical premises are well maintained and look great, if customer go to find out more about you online and your website looks untrustworthy it can do untold damage to your brand credibility.

This is particularly important for businesses in high stakes sectors such as legal, financial and medical. Your website needs to demonstrate that you’re experts to reassure your audience and encourage them to contact you.

Increased Organic Visibility

While you may not think of website design impacting your organic performance, there are elements of cross over where a poorly designed website can harm your organic performance. Factors such as website speed and mobile-friendliness are known to influence your organic performance as well as your overall conversion rate and success..

How often do you look up a business on your phone while you’re out and about? In today’s mobile-first world, websites must be mobile-responsive and adapt to different screen sizes. Beyond this, websites need to be optimised for a mobile experience to ensure that visitors using devices are getting the same high quality experience as desktop users.

Optimise The User Experience (UX)

User experience is the overall experience that users have when interacting with your website. A website with a poor UX can result in a high bounce rate, while a website with a good UX can help improve engagement and conversions.

For example, a small fitness studio that wants to attract new clients may struggle to do so with a website that has a confusing navigation menu, slow loading and elements that move around the page as a user is trying to book a class.

It’s important to test your website on a range of browsers and devices so you can fully understand the user journey and optimise it to give your users the best experience and increase your conversion rate.

If you’re trying to improve your brand or get more sales online and your website isn’t looking ti’s best, we would recommend spending some time doing a thorough review of it’s performance. There are a range of tools online that allow you to collect feedback on your website design such as heat maps, screen recordings and even user surveys so you cna make improvements based on data rather than a hunch.

All of this can take a lot of time and be overwhelming. If you’re not sure where to start we can help you get started with a website analysis and recommendations if you don’t want to do a complete redesign.

However, if your website is showing it’s age and doesn’t represent you and your brand values anymore we would love to meet with you to discuss how we can help bring a fresh design to your website that you love and will help take your business to the next level.