Your web design can make or break your business.
If given 15 minutes to consume content, 66% of people would rather see a beautifully designed website rather than one that’s plain and simple – and that’s according to WebFX.
However, that’s not the only reason why you should develop a solid website design strategy. Here are five others:
- Sets the first impression: Your web design impacts how your audience perceives your brand. They will judge your business within seconds after stepping foot on your website. If they like what they’re seeing, they’ll view you as a reputable brand. On the other hand, an unappealing- or unprofessional-looking website will give them the assumption that you’re not exactly a brand to align with.
- Boosts revenue: A strategically designed website tends to attract more visitors and eventually converts them into prospects. This can then result in increased revenue.
- Better search engine rankings: Web design plays a crucial role in SEO. Since Google values websites that provide a pleasant user experience (UX), an example of which is a custom website with responsive design, it rewards them with high rankings.
- Reduces bounce rate: A good design will keep your visitors staying on your page and learning more about you, whereas a bad one will lead them to turn to your competition and never come back again.
- Improves credibility: People become suspicious of sites with poor design, especially those that contain outdated content, causing them to leave and forget about your brand altogether. In contrast, a professional and modern website will signal trust with visitors, and they’ll feel more comfortable exploring further.
So, now that you’re aware of how crucial web design is, let’s talk about the point of this post: Developing a website design strategy – not just any website design strategy, though, but one that will give you optimal results.
Ready to find out how? Read on!
1. Create a Unique Seller Persona
First, come up with a seller persona, which is the company profile you’re marketing on your website.
List down the characteristics you want your visitors to view your brand. Would you like to be seen as a warm and friendly business? A company that resonates with young people? Or, are you all about sticking to the serious side, considering that you cater to entrepreneurs?
Whatever your brand traits are, make sure that they’re reflected on your website.
Additionally, the seller persona should be able to express through a certain voice, integrate a set of colors, and establish trust through key elements in a website.
2. Know Your Target Audience
With a seller persona in place, you may now proceed to your buyer personas.
A buyer persona refers to a detailed description of someone who represents your ideal audience. Although fictional, personas are based on careful audience research. They define who your ideal customers are, what challenges they usually face, and how they make decisions.
A good idea is to create cards that contain all the important information about your target audience, including demographics, behavioural traits, and interests. That way, you’ll gain a better understanding of their goals, pain points, and buying habits – making it easier for you to craft a web design and content that will appeal to them.
3. Set Your Goals
Now, it’s time to ask yourself the million-dollar question: What exactly is the website for?
That’s right, this is the part where you write down your goals. Ideally, you want to set one primary goal and at least three secondary goals that sustain the main one with adjacent results. Achieving your goals usually require a great team.
For instance, when considering website design for recruitment agencies, if your top goal is to increase traffic, you should focus on optimizing your web design for search. There are certain SEO practices that can improve your web design, such as making it mobile-friendly and providing seamless navigation. Implementing these tactics can be your secondary goal.
4. Create a Style Guide
Simply put, your style guide serves as the basis for how you want your website to appear to everyone. It’s up to you to pick the colour, layout, and typography for each web page.
So, why does this matter? One word: Consistency.
Creating consistency across your website builds brand recognition. Seeing your trademark colours wherever they navigate on your website makes it easier for them to remember you.
A consistent design also translates to a more cohesive website. Your visitors will engage on your site longer, helping you earn more conversions in the long run.
What’s more, your team can reference your style guide whenever they need to add an element to your website. This ensures that every time someone introduces a new element, it stays consistent with the rest of the pages.
5. Keep a Responsive Design
The rise of mobile devices is the reason why web designers are taking responsive design more seriously than ever.
Your audience won’t be browsing exclusively from their laptops or desktop computers. Those days are long gone.
In fact, the number of mobile internet users stood at 4.32 billion in 2021, implying that over 90% of the worldwide internet population use a mobile device to go online. Another study found that 51% of consumers discovered new brands and products through their smartphones.
These stats should be enough to convince you to strive for a mobile-friendly website. This means providing a good user experience to your visitors regardless of the device they’re using. In short, your site should be capable of adapting to just about any screen size.
6. Use Visuals Purposefully
Consumers today are 10x more likely to interact with a video than text, which is why more and more companies incorporate visual elements into their websites.
Although there’s no denying that visual elements are great at keeping your audience engaged and breaking up text, going overboard with them can hurt your website. Nobody likes seeing a website that’s scattered with images and videos, and it can only overwhelm them rather than get them invested.
With that point in mind, you should know how to strike a balance between text and visuals on your website. That’s a surefire way to generate positive results.
Avoid adding too many pictures just because you want to increase engagement. Instead, use visual elements purposefully.
For example, if you’re explaining your services in a block of text, you can integrate a video below that text for further details. Doing so allows your audience to have a point of interest to interact with you.
7. Always Have a Strong CTA (or Two) on Each Selling Page
While having a killer call to action is enough to get your audience to proceed to the next step in the marketing funnel, having two exact ones might even be better.
Placing two exact CTA buttons on every selling page is a tactic that has been successfully used by many digital marketers and e-commerce stores.
A good rule of thumb is to place one at the top of the page and the other one at the bottom. The first is meant for visitors who are in a more advanced stage of the decision-making process, and the bottom CTA button is the default location – right after your audience has read (or skimmed through) all the information on the page.
Also, make sure that your call-to-action buttons stand out so that they’ll capture the attention of your visitors immediately. Let’s say you have a black, grey, and yellow colour scheme. Since yellow is obviously the brightest, using it for your CTA buttons will no doubt draw your visitors towards them.
Final Thoughts
Developing and implementing an effective web design strategy will do wonders for your business. From driving organic traffic and reaching your target audience to increasing your revenue, the opportunities are endless.
We hope this post has given you a lot of clear insights as to what you’ll be doing for your web design to make it work. It won’t hurt to hire a web design company to get the job done either.
