First impressions can mean everything – especially for small businesses that rely on first impressions to snag customers from the competition. But did you know your first impression isn’t necessarily your product? For many customers, the first judgment they will make about your business will be based on your web design, and that’s why it’s vital to have a website that is modern, easy to navigate, and easily displays all the advantages of your products.

8 Reasons Your Web Design Matters So Much

So, what is web design? To put it simply, this refers to the concept of your brand, the arrangement of your products, and the visual details that customers will see when they visit your webpage. Good website design prioritizes the experience of the user while also building your brand and advertising your products. Here are a few specific ways the design of your website can help your business.

1. Be More Appealing Than Your Competition

Whether your a small business or a larger organization, you probably have a direct competitor who sells products that are similar to yours. While you can beat out your competition by simply having better products, it may be easier for consumers to realize this if your website design is also more appealing. When your webpage is more modern and easier to navigate than your direct competition, you stand a better chance of attracting customers and making better sales.

2. Increase Your SEO

SEO is a vital component of ensuring that your business can function online and that new consumers will be able to find you. Your website design should be optimized to pull up results on search engines.

For example, the content on your About page or the description of your products should include keywords that will make it easier for search engines to pull up your webpage during a search. Increasing your SEO can sometimes be an overlooked portion of good website design, but it’s just as important as selecting modern colors for your webpage.

3. Build Your Brand

A good website helps build the brand for your organization. Your brand is about so much more than your products or your place in the industry – it also refers to your trustworthiness and your reputation. When your brand has been built correctly, your business will be the first thing customers think of when they see your logo or hear about products similar to yours.

Your webpage can help build your brand by refining the content consumers can see and ensuring that there is consistency between your products and the mission of your organization. In other words, not only should your logo be instantly recognizable, but there should be a certain amount of company culture integrated into every page of your website so that consumers can build trust in your brand.

4. Connect to Social Media

An excellent website can help consumers connect to your social media as well as help consumers find you through social media. This is especially true for small businesses that are using social media for advertising. When your business has a webpage that consumers can navigate off of social media, it’s much more likely that they will trust your products and finalize a purchase.

Moreover, your website should have some direction that will help consumers connect to your social media pages. For example, icons for your social media accounts should be easy to find and use so that consumers can follow your pages. By making it easier for consumers to find and follow you on social media, you will be able to use your Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram pages to let consumers know about potential sales.

5. Help With Marketing Campaigns

That’s right – good website design can also be your foot in the door for the marketing campaigns your organization will use to stay in touch with consumers. The best example of this is a simple email subscription that will allow consumers to be notified of upcoming sales, new products, and other offers.

From here, you can use a consumer’s email to customize digital marketing and email campaigns that are curated to their interests or previous sales. Typically, this feature in your website design can come in the form of a pop-up when consumers first visit your website or after an order is placed online.

6. Better Design Means Better Sales

There’s no getting around it – websites that have better designs generally have better sales. If you really want to outperform your competition, then your webpage design needs to be modern and have logical UX that will make it easier for the user to navigate the consumer. So what is a good design for a webpage? Like everything else, there are trends for what web pages are most appealing to the public.

In general, your website design should stick to a simple color palette and an overall well-structured navigational template. That means you shouldn’t use more than three or four colors to accent your website. The navigation on your website should also be simple to use and follow some logical sense in how the pages of your website are organized into various categories. So not only does appealing website design help you win consumers from your competition, but it can also increase your sales overall.

7. Generate Positive Feelings

You may not think it, but the design of your website can generate several subliminal feelings the client will form about your company. This is about more than the way your website can build your brand – this is about how consumers will make a positive impression on your products based almost entirely on the design of the web page.

For example, a good webpage will not only feel trustworthy, but it will also reflect the “freshness” of your products based on the colors you use or the way symbols are integrated into your pages and products. And beyond the appearance of your website, consumers should also have positive feelings about their ability to use your website to find the products or services they are looking for.

8. Mobile Experience

Finally, these days it’s essential that your website also has a mobile version for consumers who are browsing on tablets and smartphones. Having a good mobile design will make it easier for consumers who search through your website for products.

In fact, some web designers will argue that a mobile website is even more important than a desktop version considering that most internet traffic is directed through mobile devices. Businesses that do not have mobile versions of their website are not likely to make as many successful sales as businesses that do.

Did you know that most first impressions are made in less than a second? While it might be nice to say your products will speak for themselves, the truth of the matter is that your website does most of the talking for you – and consumers are more likely to stay on a website that has a better overall design. Since the goal is to ensure that visitors stay on your website long enough to become consumers, it’s vital that your web design is appealing and well-organized. To learn more about how website development and design can help your organization grow, contact Life Improvement Media today.