Why You Shouldn't Overlook Your Website Design

When you attend a business meeting or a formal event, you do not show up with a sloppy attire. You take an effort in choosing a suitable wardrobe to make yourself look presentable and be taken seriously. After all, people will usually pay attention to your visual appearance before they become interested in what you have to say. The same is true when it comes to business websites. Visitors are more likely to stick around if a website has a stunning design.

To many small businesses, however, a good website design sounds more of a luxury than a necessity. They would rather use majority of their marketing budget for quality content than for improving the design of their website. We can't blame them because search engines find and rank websites based largely on keywords, relevant links, page optimization, and social media engagement.

But as former IBM legend Thomas Watson Jr. puts it "good design is good business," and here are the reasons why you should heed to that advice:

Your website design reflects your company's personality

When people run across your website they can quickly associate your business with powerful descriptions. That's because your website design alone is already communicating even before your visitors read the content.

A good design could mean professional, trendsetter, relevant, innovative, valuable, and productive. A poorly designed website could be labelled as ambiguous, outdated, boring, or disorganised.

Your website design shows customers you care

A good design is user-friendly and easy to understand. The colours are not screaming for attention. The typefaces are legible. The graphics do not overpower the pages. The buttons are well-organised. Your customers can go from one page to another and go back to a previous page with ease. They can quickly find what they are looking for without spending too much time. In short, the design gives an impression that you are serious in giving your customers excellent service.  

Your website design makes your business look big

A good website design makes even a start up or small business look like a major player. It shows your confidence to compete with the bigger names in your industry...even if you only have less than 10 employees. Investing on a good website design tells your customers and competitors that your business is reputable and should be treated as such.

Your website design influences trust

In the study Trust and Mistrust of Online Health Sites, researchers found that 94% of the participants reject or mistrust a website quickly because of its design. Some of the specific aspects cited were boring web design; corporate look and feel; complex, busy layout; and small print. What does that tell you? Simple, quality content is not enough to make a website successful and effective. It must be must be accompanied by a good design to attract visitors.