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The Importance of Web Design For Business
Offering a good and immersive website design & experience is imperative for the optimal functioning of any modern-day business. Websites no longer hold a mere ornamental value for businesses, and they can have a direct impact on the company’s bottom line.
We can understand the sizeable impact websites can have on businesses by coupling together the following two statistics;
- 4 out of 5 consumers prefer conducting online research in order to narrow down upon the product(s) of their choice.
- It takes a user one-twentieth of a second or 0.05 seconds to form an assumption about your firm’s website.
In fact, website design is the most important element of a firm’s online presence as 3 out of 4 consumers openly accept that the website design, interface, and experience a brand offers hugely affect their perception of its credibility.
However, even today, there’s an alarming lack of concern, attention, and capital expenditure directed towards website designing and optimization. A wide array of factors such as budget restrictions, general lack of trust in web professionals, and lack of technical knowledge heavily contribute to small-business owners often neglecting their brand’s web presence.
Many founders, owners, and entrepreneurs can not help but micromanage even their firm’s web presence, and due to a lack of professional web designing experience, often end up committing several avoidable mistakes.
Steer Clear of These Common Web Designing Mistakes!
Smaller businesses may become the victims of several web designing pitfalls and mistakes, especially if they haven’t secured the services of proven web designing professionals. Some frequently occurring web designing malpractices include:
Content Overdose:
Many business owners overfill their website with keyword-rich content in an attempt to boost their website’s SEO. However, this technique of putting up high keyword density webpages, also known as ‘keyword stuffing’, harms your SEO rankings & makes your website unappealing to web crawlers.
Obsolete Content:
Customers visit your website with the single-point agenda of having their queries answered and their needs addressed. Keeping outdated content on your website or sporadically updating your company’s blog, damages your credibility & makes your web presence seem amateurish. Having a content strategy is key.
Over-reliance on Stock Photos:
Stock photos are a convenient and relatively inexpensive method of adding visual appeal to your website but incorporating a huge number of popular stock images can form a negative impression on the consumer’s mind as there is a high chance that the consumer might have seen the stock image elsewhere.
Cluttered Layout
Visual elements such as pictures, graphics, videos, and flash animations do engage and impress potential customers if employed judiciously. A cluttered and disarranged website replete with unnecessary flash animations, graphics or CTAs, may end up confusing and ultimately, disengaging a consumer.
Non-responsive Webpages
Nowadays, consumers prefer accessing websites through mobile devices than through desktops making it crucial for your website to be optimized for every device and compatible with every mobile browser.
Broken Links
Gaining backlinks from reputed websites or effective internal links can help you ameliorate your website’s SEO performance. However, make sure to regularly check and update the links as broken or dead links to internal or external pages can damage your impression in the consumer’s mind.
Thus, the importance of a good website design cannot be understated, as an unoptimized or unmaintained website can not only drive away customers & affect your profits but also enhance your competitors’ consumer base.
How Does Bad Web Design Affect Your Business?
Bad website design can greatly harm your business and there could be potential issues you could be facing all traced back to incompetent design. Overall, here are the ill-effects of a bad web design:
Credibility at Stake
If you are a business dealing with serious issues such as the law, healthcare, etc. you do not want a website that has too much animation or flashy GIFs that take away from the tone of the website or service offered. Your website is a visual representation of your business and the same tone and confidence need to translate onto your website as well to remain credible in the eyes of your customers.
Makes you Outdated
A website that is not frequently updated will harm your SEO. It gives the impression that you are not up to date with the latest technological developments. This can be harmful if your competitors are adapting to the latest technological advancements and their websites reflect the same.
The Cost of Losing Customers
Every time you turn away a customer due to bad design, layout, useless content placement, or broken links, you have lost a potential customer. This customer could have generated revenue for your business had your website translated the services being offered. It is unlikely to find a customer land on a bad website again. Chances are you may have lost them to the competition.
Get in touch with Edkent Media as we have a stellar design team. We can help develop a compelling website for your business. This helps you gain more visitors that convert and bring in revenue.
Here are a few good practices to keep in mind whilst designing your website:
SEO-optimized, Fresh & Relevant Content
Focus on putting up non-plagiarized and SEO-optimized content on your web pages by judiciously incorporating industry-oriented keywords. Regularly update and populate your company’s blog with current and relevant content, which caters to the needs of your audience.
Effective Use of Whitespace
Use whitespace or negative space to reduce the clutter. This increases the legibility of your web pages. A relatively straightforward way of incorporating whitespace is by breaking down the on-page content. Convert it into smaller, easily readable chunks rather than overwhelming the reader’s cognitive faculties with huge paragraphs.
Crisp, Direct CTAs
Apart from addressing your site visitors’ queries, your firm’s website should also be optimized to convert them into customers. Placing short, direct, and effective CTAs at strategic positions can encourage consumers to take action. This in turn helps you increase your sales. Putting up your contact details at relevant junctures is also recommended. Customers may choose to call you up in order to seek further clarification about a product or service.
Smooth & Swift Navigation
It is recommended that every internal webpage within your website should be accessible to customers within two clicks. Additionally avoid putting up heavy media files on your web pages such as long, high-definition videos, graphics, or pictures as nearly 40% of consumers don’t return to websites with high loading times, which increases your web page’s bounce rate & thereby negatively impacts your SEO ranking. Ensuring a smooth navigational experience with minimal loading time communicates to your consumers. It shows you prioritize addressing their needs over bombarding them with marketing or promotional messages and CTAs.
Why a Professional Website Design or Redesign Makes Sense
A good website’s impact is analogous to the impression a good resume has on the mind of an employer or recruiter. Therefore, invest a few extra dollars for a comprehensive website design procedure. This will help make a favorable impression which can prove beneficial in the long term. This is a prudent and justifiable expenditure.
Here at EdKent Media, we have a proven pedigree of web design in Toronto and Markham and offer bespoke, innovative website designing and content marketing solutions. Our trustworthy and reliable team of professionals is eager and highly capable of helping you. Get in sync with the times, by bridging the gap between its offline activities and online web presence.
Get in touch with us at (647) 361-1074 and book a consultation today!
