Good Web Design – Does it Make Sense?
Rand Fishkin the CEO of SEO software company, SEOmoz and co-author of “The Art of SEO” from O’Reilly Media made this simple point in his opening session at the Interactivity Digital conference this month in Florida,
“Beautiful websites are trusted. Ugly websites are not.”
It’s a simple statement with an utterly powerful meaning and something I’ve been saying for almost 11 years.
Good Web Design Builds Trust
Think about it. When you go to a website and it’s poorly designed, do you have second thoughts about handing over your credit card to them? When their page looks like it was designed by an amateur does it make you feel confident in the vendor? I mean after all, if this company were accomplished at all, couldn’t they afford a professional website? Doesn’t their website reflect on their success or lack of it?
In a competitive marketplace and a global meeting-place as populous as the web, we expect companies to be putting their best foot forward in order to make a great first impression in an attempt to win our business. And if they’re not, we’re right to assume that something is wrong.
Good Web Design Provides the Warms & Fuzzies
Think back to the last time you went out to eat and the food was terrible and the service was lacking. It took them 15 minutes to figure out you were sitting there and then they forgot the water and got your order wrong. Pretty safe bet you’re not feeling thrilled about going back.
It’s the same with your website. A good web design imparts a good feeling to the person visiting it. The visitor feels like they’ve arrived at the right place; they get more comfortable and relax; they can easily find what they’re looking for; you’re meeting their needs. If they need to learn more you can bet they’ll be back again.
Visually & subconsciously you made them more comfortable about your company and you’re well on your way to generating an inquiry or sale.
Good Web Design Allows You to Survive the Customer Filtering Process
People surf the web for many reasons but in the context of business, it can often be to acquire a vendor or purchase a product. When somebody hits Google and does a search and gets presented with dozens of companies offering similar services, what’s a customer to do? At this stage, it goes beyond merely having a top ranking. Faced with a dizzying array of choices and dozens of other websites to review, a person will tend to start going through a crude sort of filtering process to figure out who to contact. They’ve got to whittle the list down from 12 choices to 1 or 2. The first filter that gets implemented will be the “visual filter”. Whether correct or not, searchers will often tend to process websites visually, throwing them into bins of “yes” and “no” based on their visual attributes. If you can’t survive this first cut, you’re not even in the running to get a call.
Good Web Design Produces Higher Inquiry & Sales Conversion Rates
For most companies building a website is half the magical equation. The second part of the equation is marketing it by driving high quality traffic to it, so that you can generate leads and sales. As marketers its our job to figure out how to tweak this equation so as to squeeze more sales and leads out of a given quantity of website visitors (aka, your conversion rate).
The evidence is solid now. Better designed websites convert better – period. Ask any marketer who has spent any amount of time designing landing pages and they will tell you the same.
Good web design is about anticipating user’s intent and delivering the expected experience in a convincing way.
If you think you can slap up a generic website and get great conversion rates, you’re just kidding yourself and you’re handing off business to your competitors who are doing things properly.
Properly designed home pages and landing pages can increase conversions anywhere from 2 to 5 to 10 times more than run of the mill designs. As you start spending money on any kind online marketing, such as SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PPC (Pay Per Click Advertising), PR (Public Relations) or Social Media Marketing, you’re going to get killed unless you have good web design.
You Can’t Afford to NOT have a Good Web Site Design!
Sure, years ago you could skate by with a mediocre design but those days are over. The competition is getting clever, everyone is is upping their game and using more and more of these advanced tactics, now that the word is out.
If you’re a new company or an established company, you have to think this through and put having a good web design at the top of the list.
At ClearTech Interactive, we design great websites from a Marketing & Sales perspective. Our objective is to increase sales and conversion rates and drive more website traffic.
Great Web Design is a Phone Call Away
If you have a website re-design project or are looking for a good web design for your next project, look no further.
We’ve been helping companies for over 10 years build great looking, highly functional websites.
Send us an email or call us today at 727-562-5161 & Press 1 to speak with a web design specialist.