3 Ways Your Website Design Is Impacting Your Business

What kind of impression are visitors getting of your business when they visit your website? Every aspect of your website, from the sophistication of the design to the use of language, contributes to an overall impression of your business. Your

website is often the first opportunity you have to interact with potential customers, so that first impression needs to be good.

 

Think of your website as being like the first meeting with an important potential client. You need to look great, you need to communicate clearly, and you need to be well organized. Similarly, your website needs to make a great visual impression, needs to have good content that’s easy to understand, and needs to provide the visitor with a compelling and memorable experience.

1. Visual Presentation

If your website looks dated, clumsy, or just plain ugly, your visitors are going to come away with the impression that your business and products are also second-rate. It’s important that your website is professional, modern, clean, and aesthetically pleasing. Potential customers are going to assume the degree of professional in your website is a reflection of the degree of professionalism in your business, so that first impression is critical. It’s important to work with an experienced web designer and to keep your website updated. Websites look antiquated if they’re not maintained, and the last thing you want is to make your business look as if it’s past its due date.

2. User Experience

If your website is slow to load or confusing to navigate you’re giving your visitors the impression that your business is going to be frustrating and difficult to deal with. Your website needs to be logically laid out and easy to navigate. Everything needs to load fast, adapt to any browser, and look as good on any devise.

 

3. Content

Good writing matters. If you don’t describe your business or products clearly your visitors won’t see any connection between what they need and what you offer. Your content needs to be easy to understand and delivered in easily digestible amounts. A carefully crafted 200-word pitch is perfect for your home page. You’ll want to include information about your business and services on your website, but it’s also helpful to incorporate relevant content that doesn’t directly promote your business but establishes you as an industry expert.

Website design is critically important to a business, much more so than many business owners realize. To be truly effective, you either need to have some familiarity with web design principles or to hire a web designer who does. This article, The 11 Elements of a Great Website, is a great reference document.

If you get the basics right, your website can be an amazingly efficient tool for selling your business or product. Something as simple as the right website can put you far ahead of the competition and establish your business as a force to be reckoned with within your industry.

This article was contributed by Magicdust, a Sydney web design company specializing in websites and online marketing for small business.