Why website design is necessary for any business

We choose a design in anything we purchase from a car, furniture, clothes, watches etc then why not for websites. For a business, were solely based on e-commerce or an established business looking for digital space exposure, a website is forefront you present. If your business is an e-commerce or you are providing digital services like blog hosting, online course or domain hosting then this is something you have to get it right as your entire business depends on it. It takes 0.05 seconds for users to form an opinion about your website. 94 per cent of negative website feedback was design related. If you have any other business but want a website so that you can cater to a wider audience then your business website is the first impression of your business profile and a powerful means for business lead generation. There are nearly 2 billion websites on the internet and to stand you and compete you have to pull your designer socks.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. You cannot decide which design people find beautiful and which one not but what you can do is make use of different website designing tools, understanding colour palette, typography and many more tools and techniques to make an aesthetically pleasing website. You can get inspiration from the voted best-designed website such as seriously unsweetened, Crypton trading, Apple, lemonade etc. What makes these sites beautiful is that they are simple, minimalistic and in touch with what their brand represents.

What is web designing?

Web designing or website designing is a process of designing, planning, conceptualizing the web content that is to be hosted on the internet. Web designing is not limited to how good the website should look but also entails how it should work. Website functionality, navigation, action on any icon clicks or button press, an arrangement of content, display details for images, videos, layout, the shape of icons and buttons speed, animations, ads, cross-browser compatibility and cross-device compatibility all come under the purview of web designing.

There are two ways to create a website design

1. Adaptive website – There is two or more version of the website created to various devices and a user agent can inform the server to load which version.
2. Responsive website – These uses flexible grids that adapt to the screen size of various devices.

Although various tools such as WordPress, Squarespace etc are available online through which you can create your website without writing a single code. Some of these tools are based on WYSIWYG(what you see is what you get) approach. They make web designing a child’s play.

These tools can be used when you have to create a website based on individual content or small business. When a business scale is medium or large or business is solely based online then taking professional web designer help is advisable. Web designing is nowadays not just simple formatting through HTML but is more complicated than that.

Also Read: What makes WordPress the best CMS for SEO?

Why website designing is important?

A good website is something you cannot do without if you want to stay relevant on the internet. A business website is not just a website but your digital showroom for your products and services and it has to be appealing.75 per cent of consumers judge a business’s credibility by the design of its website.

First Impression

You cannot make the first impression twice. When you market your brand through any means like social media, word of mouth etc, you want people to reach out to you or visit your site and make some purchase. When people visit your website the first time, it makes a lasting impression on them. It is the first step a major step through which they form an image for your brand. If the design of your business is outdated or unappealing then visitor won’t return to your website. A bad design can also hamper the process of trust-building with clients and also make them think about a future issue like query or customer service issues could be solved through your website or not. There is a saying that never judges a book by its cover but in case of the website, it is the digital cover of the business book that people are judging and this judgment is long-lasting.

Defines your brand

A good website can make your brand image and a bad website could break it. Good website design is the one that is in line with your brand image and vision. Like you have a meditation, health and wellness centre then your website should be such that it conveys the peace that you are offering at your centre through the website. Light pastel shades, soft edge buttons and image display, the de-cluttered webpage with bare essential information will represent what your brand project that is peace and tranquillity. Every brand has a logo. The website of your brand should be in sync with the logo of your brand. The website colour scheme and typography should match the design and colour of your logo. Your brand vision should be reflected in your website design. 88 per cent of online consumers are less likely to return to a site if they’ve had a bad experience.

Engages the customer

When a customer visits a shop or a showroom the shop keeper will engage the customer to find out what he wants and what else he can be sold. In the digital marketplace, that salesman is replaced by a website. When a customer visits your website he or she should feel welcomed and find your website engaging. The interactive animation and link should take to the product that he was looking for and during this navigation, he should be made aware of the amazing deals that you are offering right now. Your website homepage should be simple enough so that customer doesn’t feel overwhelmed and attractive and aesthetically pleasing enough that it holds his attention.

Navigation is vital for pleasant user experience. As a customer accesses your various web pages, he should feel ease in navigation. Good design makes it possible. A good design will be such that it uses the basic online customer behavioural aspects into consideration. Like most visitor focuses on the top right part of the website when accessing through desktop or laptop so try to put the content you want the customer to focus on in that area. Your homepage can be used to make people aware of new product arrival, flash sales and discount you are offering.

Visual content like images, videos and animation can make your site eye-pleasing. As customer attention has shifted towards infographics, images and visual content, nobody has got time to read large paragraphs. If you try to cram content on your website it will look overwhelming and nobody got too much time in their hands these days to read each line. That is why quotes are more famous these days than poems and prose. Your design can make use of infographics and images to get your point across with minimum words.

Nowadays there is a paradigm shift in how the customer accesses your website. Most people are comfortable in navigating the web through mobile phones, mini-laptops and tablets thus your website design should be adjustable to accommodate various platforms. 85 per cent of adults think that a company’s mobile version of their website should be better than their desktop version.

Also Read: B2B Customer Engagement Strategy and How You Can Make It Work for You

Point of sale

Your website is the point of sale for your business. The customer visiting the site will contact you, view your products and services and will place an order. Bad design can make these simple tasks too complicated for the customer. Like if you are doing some online purchase and added few things in your cart now want to remove them or reduce and increase the quantity then the design should be such that allows that with ease or for example your have filled your entire details for subscription and loss the internet connection if website design makes use of cookies then you don’t have to type the details again. They will get an auto-fill. These are basic things that your website design will have to get right because sometimes small things grate on the nerves of your customer and make them abandon their session.

SEO optimization

Your website design is the placeholder for all the keywords that get your website on the top pages on search engine listing. Your website design will aid your SEO strategy to win the uphill battle for visibility on the internet. Your website design must be SEO friendly. There is no use of an amazing website if nobody can see it.

Also Read: 10 Things Google Loves to See on Every Website! Does your Website have them?

On-time

If your design is bad without javascript optimization, CSS optimization or poorly designed script it will increase your website loading time. 47 per cent of website users expect a maximum loading time of 2 seconds. If your website takes longer to load customer is most likely to abandon session in middle.

In conclusion

When so much money is spent on digital marketing through social networking sites, SEO optimization, web scraping services, data verification, data appending services, data mining services, data scraping, data scrubbing, skip tracing services, address search and email appending services then why make your site look like this

When it could look like this