The Importance of a Good Web Design For Your Business

What if your business was turning customers away before they even walked through the door?

For most businesses, the company website serves as the first impression you make on a prospective customer. And all it takes is some bad (or simply out of date) web design to send those customers clicking over to your competition.

Simply put, good web design is the key to true business growth. Keep reading to discover more about why good design is so important to your own business.

The Right First Impression

Wondering why solid web design is so important? We already touched on one of the primary reasons: the need to make a good impression on prospective customers.

Most businesses focus on improving their products and services in order to leave a good impression. But modern customers are going to visit your website long before they personally experience products or services.

And even little things can lead to a bad impression. For example, a website that loads very slowly will turn people away. Or when a site is ugly on mobile because it was designed only for desktops: that will send people scrambling for the “back” button.

Ultimately, your website is an extension of your business and your brand. And you want customers to be just as impressed when they click on your site as they are when they walk through the door.

Building Your Brand

Sometimes, branding can feel like a very nebulous concept. But your brand also has very concrete elements that range from your font and colour choices all the way to your logo and slogan.

Your website needs to be an extension of this brand. You can’t just throw together a halfhearted blog and call it a day. Instead, you need a service that incorporates all the colours, images, fonts, and slogans that comprise your brand.

Because audiences are likely to visit your site first before walking through the door, your website will serve as the first real introduction to your brand. And by making sure your site is an extension of your business, any customer who goes from browsing your site to browsing your store is going to experience a nearly seamless transition.

Next-Level SEO

Not all of the elements of great web design are visual, of course. Behind the scenes, it’s important to make sure your site is optimized for SEO.

Good, organic SEO helps new customers discover your website and, therefore, discover your business. Without good SEO, your site won’t rank very high across different search engines. At that point, even the best-designed website in the world might as well be invisible to your customers.

However, a rookie mistake many businesses make is focusing only on the visual elements of their site. But you also need to focus on metadata, alt tags, backlinks, and other SEO strategies to bring customers to your site.

Not sure whether your SEO is in good shape or not? Don’t forget to schedule a website audit very soon!

Lead Generation

It’s not always easy to tell if your business is achieving its full potential or not. But you can always focus on smaller goals, including generating more leads from month to month and year to year.

And when done right, your website is one of the best ways to generate leads. And the best sites have several different ways of getting the leads you need.

For example, blogs are typically at the heart of your content marketing (more on this later). By providing expertly written information about a variety of topics, you can help to establish yourself and your business as an expert in the eyes of consumers. This will help you generate leads.

By putting up sign-up forms on your site and offering something of value to customers (such as a discount or a free e-book), you can get enough information to begin an email marketing list. And regular email marketing is a great way to generate more leads.

If you are running a social media campaign (which you should be), you may also get visitors to your site who enjoy your presence on sites like Facebook or Instagram. These leads are usually warm because they have had additional time to learn more about your business and your brand.

Business Growth and Content Marketing

If you want to rise through the ranks of Google searches, you’re going to need to create a lot of great content. Unfortunately, most businesses miss the mark when they try to engage in content marketing.

For instance, customers are instantly turned off by a hard sales approach. If all of your blogs and content are simply trying to sell a product or service, most of your audience will instantly tune out.

To build consumer trust, you need to offer content with real value. Someone browsing a furniture store, for example, doesn’t want to read a bunch of blogs encouraging them to buy furniture. But they will really benefit from blogs about interior decoration, moving furniture, and giving their home a makeover.

Find out what your audience really wants, using buyer personas as needed. Now, create regular content around your audience’s pain points. Finally, post this content on a regular basis and watch your business grow!

Beat Back the Competition

Still on the fence about whether to renovate your website? Well, we have some sobering news: your competition is likely improving their own site at this very moment!

For almost any product or service under the sun, there is quite a bit of competition. If your page loads too slowly, offers poor content, or simply looks ugly, a prospective customer will go seek out the competition.

But you can improve loading speed by optimizing and reducing images and other media. And you can use responsive design to make your site look great on mobile and desktop screens alike.

Honestly, the best thing you can do for your own site design is to find your competitor’s websites. Take note of what they do well and make sure you do these things even better!

Better Web Design: Your Next Move

Now you know why web design is so important for everything from growing leads to boosting your online ranking. But do you know who can help your site reach its full potential?

At ThinkFlame, we specialize in site audits, social media, online traffic, and more. To see what we can do for your site, just contact us today!