Posted by Elizabeth
Web design can either make or break your website’s success. Sure, you might have a website, but is it driving the results that you want? Just as you would spend a lot of time, planning, and researching before designing and constructing a storefront, you would do the same for a website. Websites are merely digital storefronts for your potential customers to visit and acquire information 24/7.
Risks of Ineffective Web Design
Just as a bad floor plan for a storefront can hurt sales, so can a non well planned out web framework. If your website isn’t easy to navigate and unorganized, that can deter users from your website, ultimately leaving your site without conversion and possibly negatively associated with your brand. As a business owner, you want to make sure that you provide a great customer experience regardless of whether that is in person or online through your website.
Here are key website elements to consider when evaluating your web design:
- Is it organized and easy to navigate? Your website should be organized in a way to make it a breeze for your users to find information and explore your website.
- Is the messaging clear? It takes less than 15 seconds for someone to scan your site before they decide to leave. You need to make sure that your website visitors understand what your site is about and what you want them to do within those few crucial seconds.
- Is the site guiding the user to an action? A clear call to action telling website visitors where to go to buy, fill out a form, or whatever action you would like them to perform is a critical aspect of making sure your website is successful.
- Is the site interesting and engaging? If you aren’t providing relevant information to keep your users interested and engaged, they will leave your site without making it past your homepage.
- Is the site meeting its goal? Every website needs to have a clear goal and purpose in order to design a customer experience that will meet that goal. If your website is not providing results, that is your sign that you need to reevaluate your website.
Asking yourself these questions while evaluating your site will allow you to make more informed decisions when revising or creating your website. For most new potential clients, your website will be their first encounter and experience with your company and you need to ensure that you are still giving them a unique customer experience.
For instance, take a look at Target. They have stores all throughout the country, and they make sure to have a very specific layout in all of their stores that allows the user to navigate through the store seamlessly. They replicated this easy navigation in their website as well in order to make sure that their site continues to give their customers the most similar brand experience online as they would in-store. Not only that, but they even designed their website as an additional tool to help customers in-store when they need to find a particular product. They have a feature to search for a product, and the site will show what aisle in your current store you can find that product. Target is a great example of a well-planned web design.
Ultimately, your website is part of your brand presence and experience. Therefore, it needs to be thought out and executed carefully and tactfully to present your brand in the best light and drive optimum results.