As business owners know, their storefront promotes their business. Its appearance affects how customers respond to their brand, products, and service. Customers view it as a reflection of the quality of product or service they’ll get. That’s why a restaurant that looks unkempt and dirty won’t attract diners looking for a clean place that serves delicious and well-prepared food.
A website serves the same purpose. A tasteful and professional-looking design inspires trust in visitors, while outdated design elements and confusing user interfaces give potential customers a bad first impression. It won’t matter if they haven’t yet tried the product or service the website offers; if they’re not impressed, visitors won’t go through the conversion funnel.
Ensuring a positive first impression is not the only purpose of good website design. As we always tell our clients at Sievers Creative, a compelling website is the first stepping stone towards establishing a strong online presence.
Here are good reasons for entrepreneurs and business owners in Minnesota or Wisconsin to invest in professional web design services:
Good Website Design Enhances User Experience
The advantage of professionally-designed websites is they’re not just aesthetically pleasing but also user-friendly. You want to give your site visitors reasons to stay and learn more about what you’re offering, and a cluttered layout or poorly-matched color scheme that is tiring to look at will do the opposite.
Dropbox, one of the leading providers of free cloud storage, is often referred to as a perfect example of a good website layout and UX. The homepage is clean and clutter-free. It doesn’t have much content, but what’s in there succinctly describes what the service is and how its product benefits users.
Web Design Helps Promote Your Brand
As your virtual storefront, it only makes sense to ensure that your website reflects your brand. It must deliver, at a glance, the image you want to show to potential customers. Websites for corporate businesses and industries like law and finance, for example, are better served by a neat layout, neutral color schemes, and high-quality images. These websites should exude professionalism — glittery graphics and pop-outs won’t accomplish that.
Color palettes can enhance your brand personality. They make your products more relatable and desirable and your brand more memorable. The right combinations can help you establish your brand.
It’s also worth mentioning that colors and imagery evoke emotions. If used correctly, design elements can nudge visitors towards your calls-to-action and buttons and get them to click.
Smart Website Design Improves Ranking Signals
When you satisfy site visitors with your website’s aesthetics and usability, ranking factors involving bounce rates, on-page (dwell) time, organic click-throughs, and page loading time improve.
These are some of the metrics Google RankBrain uses to find out if users find a website useful. If users leave too soon, it suggests your page wasn’t helpful, and it can prompt the search engine to rank the said page lower. Furthermore, visitors are more likely to share or recommend websites that satisfied their needs. A high volume of social shares is also an indicator of user preference and helps increase page traffic — both of which contribute to your website’s search engine optimization efforts.
We can give you more pointers on how good web design can help your business attract customers, establish your brand, and generate leads and sales. Talk to our web designers here at Sievers Creative. Contact us today.
