Given only 15 minutes to consume content, 66 percent of people would rather see something beautifully designed than something plain and simple. Your website design is an important part of your online marketing. To create a better website for your business, you need to understand the importance of web design.
In this article, we’ll discuss why design is important and give you seven must-have design elements for your website. If you need help building your dream website, call us today at (408) 982-5851 to speak with a strategist.
Why web design is important
When you look at redesigning your website, you might wonder how important website design is. How will it affect your audience and your business? Let’s look at five reasons why web design is important.
1. It sets the first impression
When your audience visits your website, it gives them the first impression of your business. They will rate your business in seconds. In those first few seconds, you want to make a positive impact on your audience.
If your website looks unattractive or outdated, your audience will immediately have a negative impression of your business. Your website will not be attractive to them, which will discourage them from your site. You will lose potential customers as they leave your site for a competitor’s site.
Web design is important because it affects how your audience perceives your brand. The impression you make on them can make them either stay on your page and learn about your business, or leave your page and go to a competitor. Good web design will help you keep potential customers on your site.
2. It helps your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.
Many web design elements and practices affect the way you publish content on your website, which in turn affects how search engines crawl and index your website.
That’s one thing you can’t afford to mess up. If your on-page SEO basics aren’t up to snuff, you’ll struggle for exposure from the start.
In addition to how content is published on your site, some elements of web design can directly affect SEO in and of themselves. Web design can be difficult to understand if you don’t know how it works, but simply put, your code needs to be SEO friendly.
The best way to ensure good web design practices (and subsequent search engine visibility) is to partner with a web design agency that includes SEO services as part of their package.
3. Creates an impression of customer service
People can judge how you will treat them when they look at your website. Your design gives them insight into how you see your audience. If you don’t put any effort into your website design, your audience knows you’re not going out of your way to help them.
Your website is like a customer service representative. If your website is bright, modern and inviting, your audience will feel welcome on your page. You will give the impression that you are open and welcoming to new people who visit your website.
On the other hand, an outdated and unattractive website will make your business look cold and withdrawn. People don’t want to check out a business that doesn’t value them enough to make a good first impression.
Think of your web design as the digital face of your business. If someone walked into your physical location, wouldn’t you want a friendly face to greet them and make them feel welcome? An updated and modern web design is the equivalent of a friendly face welcoming your new visitors.
4. Builds trust with your audience
People don’t trust poorly designed websites. If they see your bad design or the information looks out of date, they won’t trust your website. They may consider your website outdated or shady because you don’t have an updated web design.
Imagine a person who wants to place a bulk order with a manufacturing company. They spend a huge amount of money, which means that if your manufacturing website design does not convey confidence, they will find another company to fulfill their order.
On the other hand, a professional page signals trust to your audience. They will trust and feel comfortable with your business.
It is important to build trust with your audience so that they stay on your website. When visitors stay on your site longer, you create more opportunities for your business to acquire those leads.
5. Your competitors are doing it
If you need a reason why web design is important, here’s a big one: Your competitors are already using web design. If you want to stay competitive with them, you need to use web design for your website.
You want your website to stand out from the competition. If you have an old, outdated and poor quality website, your competition will outperform you. Their well-designed website will perform better than your website.
This means you will lose potential customers to your competitors. They will attract more potential customers to their page because their page is more attractive.
Your website design is an opportunity to differentiate your business from the competition. When you compete with other businesses, you generally have the same services and similar prices. You need one thing that will make your business stand out from the crowd.
A well-designed website is an opportunity for your business to showcase its unique features. You can show your audience why they should choose your business over the competition.
6. Creates consistency
When you’re trying to get new leads for your business, you want to build your brand. You want your audience to become familiar with your brand so that they choose you when they are ready to convert. Online website designs are important because they help create consistency across the page.
You must have the same fonts, styles and layouts on every page of your website. Having a different design on each page will make your website look unprofessional. It also makes it harder to build brand awareness because your audience won’t know which colors to associate with your brand.
If your website is not consistent, people will bounce from it to a website that looks more professional. By building consistency, you’ll keep potential customers on your page longer and familiarize them with your business. When you customize your website for this key element, you’ll get more leads and conversions.
7 important elements of quality web design
Now that you know how important web design is, it’s time to start looking at the elements that make up good design. Here are seven key elements you’ll want to incorporate into your web design.
1. Solid navigation
When users enter your website, they want to access information quickly and easily. To keep potential customers on your page, you need to implement navigation that is easy for your audience to use.
Your audience doesn’t want to try to find information. They want to be able to access your navigation bar and be easily directed to the information they need. If your navigation is poor, you will discourage your audience from interacting on your page.
Visitors’ attention span is short. If you want to keep them on your page, you need to help them access information quickly. Properly designed navigation will help them get to the information they need.
Your navigation should be simple and understandable. Include broad headings that cover a number of subtopics so your audience can easily find the information they need. This is the easiest way to help your audience find information quickly.
2. Responsive design
With the rise of mobile devices, responsive design is more important than ever. Your audience will access your website from many devices, including smartphones, tablets and desktop computers. If you want these potential customers to stay on your site, you need to make sure everyone has a positive experience.
Responsive design ensures that your audience has a good experience with your website, no matter what device they are using. Your site will adapt to the device to ensure that your site is sized appropriately for their device. This is valuable in keeping potential customers engaged and interested in your website.
Responsive design will keep potential customers on your page for longer. If you want to have a successful website design, you need to integrate responsive design.
3. Style guide
As we mentioned earlier, one of the reasons web design is important is because it creates consistency across your entire site. Consistency helps your audience build brand awareness and keeps them on your page longer. A style guide will help you maintain a consistent brand image on your website.
Your style guide is the foundation of how you want your website to look. You decide the color, format, typography, and more for every page on your website. This ensures that every time someone adds an element to your site, it will be consistent with other pages.
You’ll also help your team create consistency across your site. Whenever they add an element to your site, they can reference your style guide. This will make it easier for different people to work on your site and add elements to it.
By having a consistent design throughout your website, you create a more cohesive website. Your audience will stay on your site longer and build brand awareness. It will help you get more conversions.
4. Purposeful visuals
Companies are quick to integrate visuals because they help improve engagement on the web. In fact, customers are 10 times more likely to interact with video than text.
While visuals are great for engaging and breaking up text, some businesses overdo it with images. Their site is overflowing with photos and videos. This makes the site feel overwhelming and crowded.
You might think it’s great to integrate and make heavy use of photos and videos to increase engagement, but too many can be overwhelming. Too many images make the page hard to read.
To be successful on your website, you need to create a balance between images and text on your page. Don’t add visuals in an attempt to increase engagement as much as possible.
Use visual elements effectively. If you have a block of text detailing your services, integrate a video below that text that further explains your services. This still gives your audience a point of interest to interact with and keeps them engaged.
Knowing why web design is important will help you make smarter decisions about your website. When creating your dream website, it’s important not to overload it with too many visual elements.
5. Good copy
Your audience visits your website to get important information. It is important that you write quality text when including information on your website.
Writing good copy will keep your audience on the page longer. They will read all your information and learn about your business. Your writing style should match the style of your website for consistency.
The content of your website is just as important as the overall design, so it is imperative that you provide your audience with the valuable information they need.
6. Call-to-action (CTA) buttons.
Once you have leads on your website, you want to convert them. A key element is your call to action (CTA). The importance of web design is evident when you are trying to get your audience to take action.
A well-designed CTA button will compel your audience to take the next step. These buttons blend into your design but stand out on the page. Your audience’s eye will immediately go to these buttons.
If you had a color scheme of black, white, gray, and yellow, the yellow CTA button would stand out on the page compared to those other colors. It still fits the scheme, but people will automatically be drawn to the bright yellow button.
Incorporating CTA buttons into your website design will help you get better results on your page.
7. Page speed
You can have an amazing website design, but it doesn’t matter if your audience will never see it. Page speed is an important element of web design. It will ensure that your page loads quickly so that your audience has quick access to information.
Your audience hates waiting for slow loading pages. If your page takes too long to load, your audience will lose interest. They go back to the search results and choose a competitor’s page instead.
You can check your page speed with Google PageSpeed Insights. This tool lets you see how fast your pages currently load and where you can make improvements. You must make these improvements yourself.
Another option is to rely on site speed services from a digital marketing company. This allows you to reap the benefits of a fast page load while focusing on running your business.
Xekera will help you create the website of your dreams
Your website design plays a vital role in the success of your online marketing campaign. If you want to get the best results for your business, you need to invest in a website design that makes people want to learn more about your business. At Xekera Systems, we have many years of experience designing websites.
We are a full service digital marketing company specializing in custom website development. Our team of experts will bring their knowledge and expertise to your campaign. We know how important web design is, and we can help you create a website you’ll love.
If you are looking for a company that delivers results, look no further than Xekera Systems. We know how to create websites that help our clients grow their businesses.
Get your dream website today
If you’re ready to start building your dream website, contact us online or call us at (408) 982-5851 to speak with a strategist.
We look forward to helping your business grow!
