Graphic design legend Paul Rand once said, "Design is the silent ambassador of your brand."  

We could not agree more!

While it is important to have a website that looks good, did you know that the design of your site could also help increase sales?

It’s true. Good web design can serve as a profit driver for your business. By taking the time to make sure that your website is modern, easy-to-navigate, and aesthetically pleasing, you can increase your conversion and customer retention rates.

Why do these things matter? With higher conversion rates and customer retention rates, you’ll have more traffic coming in and staying on your site longer. This means that you’ll generate more revenue from repeat customers who often return to purchase goods or services from your company.

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A Website with Your Goals in Mind

Every website is different. Each company has a different target audience and business goals. With this in mind, it’s important to find a web design company that aligns with your firm's objectives.

For example, one company might want to build credibility with the federal government. Companies that sell to the government work through federal procurement officers. Procurement officers expect to see specific content. For example, they’ll want to see a leadership page or capability statement.

In another example, you might run a commercial landscaping company, so you’ll want to illustrate the beauty of your craft. Accordingly, you’ll have a website that is filled with photographs and videos showcasing your work and client testimonials.

As you can see, these two kinds of websites will look and work very differently; however, businesses have objectives that go beyond how they market. Some firms want to attract clients as well as retain the best-skilled candidates.

If your business is heavily reliant on skilled personnel, job candidates will start researching your company long before they apply for an open position. In part, you’ll want to design your website with this point in mind.

Covering the Bases

It may surprise you to learn how many websites fail to include even basic information. There is information that every business should have on its website. This includes:

• Address

• Directions

• Hours

• Map

• Phone number

Whatever your audience expects, it’s vital to ensure that you display this information prominently.

For instance, if you own a retail location, you’ll want to display your phone number and store hours at the top of your homepage. You will also want to make sure that your information is always accurate and up-to-date.

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Technical Considerations for a Good Website

When it comes to your website, you will also need to think about what is under the hood. These characteristics of a website are called technical requirements. In general, you can define technical requirements in terms of visitor usability.

Google has served as a significant driver of improved website usability. In 2020, Google introduced its Core Web Vitals. These technical requirements serve as additional characteristics needed to rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs).

With this in mind, there are several technical requirements that Google expects.

Page Speed

Your website needs to load quickly. Most visitors will quickly find a competitor if they are forced to wait more than a few seconds for your page to open. Here, you want to consider both desktop and mobile users.

Mobile Friendliness

Today, more than half of website visitors browse the internet on a mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet. They will expect that your webpage will be easy to navigate. 

For instance, you want to create web pages with big buttons for mobile users. You don’t want “fat finger” syndrome to cause people to click on the wrong links.

Page Security

Sometimes, visitors must enter information into web forms. In these cases, they expect that you’ll keep their information secure.

For example, your website must have SSL certification. A lack of this security feature is most certainly a red flag.

Users’ browsers will show that there is a security problem with your website. These kinds of warnings drive visitors away.

Safe Browsing

In the same vein, internet users expect that your website will not inject malware or other malicious software onto their devices. This kind of software harms the user experience and will cause you to rank poorly with Google.

No Intrusive Interstitials

This phrase is a fancy Google term. In plain language, it means no aggressive pop-ups. These kinds of pop-ups ruin the user experience.

Still, pop-ups can improve the visitor experience. For example, they can guide users to useful content. However, the use of pop-ups in this way requires careful planning.

Largest Colorful Paint

Again, we have another fancy Google term. Simply put, it means how long it takes your webpage to load information. It must load information fast enough so that your website is useful to visitors.

Sometimes, pages take too long to load. When this happens, visitors leave your site and won’t come back again anytime soon.

This scenario leads to lower revenue as time passes. In part, you’ll lose revenue due to these abandoned sessions. You may also incur long-term losses due to poor user experiences.

First Input Delay (FID)

Yet another Google term describes the interactivity of your webpage. In other words, FID means how long it takes before visitors can interact with your webpage.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

Our final Google term refers to visual stability. In other words, Google doesn’t want your website to move around as the page loads.

This kind of error can cause users to click on the wrong links. If you’ve ever experienced this design flaw, you know first-hand that it’s quite annoying.

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Your Aesthetic Appeal Matters

Aesthetics start in the eyes of the beholder. You know a good-looking webpage when you see it. However, you’ll need to think beyond this point as a brand.

If your website is difficult for users to navigate, it will fail. If your site is attractive and difficult to navigate, it will still fail. Here, you want to think about how you define success for your website.

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The Goals of Good Web Design

A custom-designed website will help you achieve your desired goals, but it will also cost more than a cookie-cutter solution. 

We’ll assume that you operate a for-profit business. In this case, sales growth is probably a top priority.

With this in mind, there are a few things that you’ll need your website to do. The following are a few goals to keep in mind.

User Engagement

Users want concise information and they want it fast. However, it’s fine to add some personality to your website, whether that personality is amusing, casual, or professional.

Entertainment Value

You can’t bore someone into buying your product. Depending on your offering, entertainment is part of the brand experience.

Informative Value

Delivering informative content is part of moving potential customers through the buying journey. Alternatively, you may want to provide informative content to explain your offering to customers.

Lead Capture

You don’t want people to come and go without giving you their contact information. It is vital to use your website to capture leads that you can contact with future marketing initiatives. At a minimum, you want to provide visitors with an option to subscribe to your marketing messages.

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Designing for Growth

With good website design, you also want to think about your long-term goals. Your future needs should serve as part of any website design and development project. With this in mind, a competent digital marketing agency will ask you about your future objectives.

No one knows what is going to happen in the future; however, you can develop an understanding of the bigger picture of your industry. With this information, a skilled marketing consultant can help you design a flexible website that is built for growth.

Here, it is important to think of your website as a tool to drive growth. You must design it for this purpose. By doing so, you can keep up with any changes that come your way.

The following are a few principles of growth-centered design.

Fast Time to Value

You don’t need a website that is a coding marvel to reach your audience. You want a highly functional but straightforward website that requires less upfront energy and resources to maintain.

Results That Drive Revenue

Many brands have fallen victim to a “set it and forget it” mentality when it comes to website design. Today, continuous improvement is a best practice strategy for sustained growth.

Customer Satisfaction

Growth-oriented websites are customer-centric. Companies are happier with the results.

They provide measurable benefits early and often. What’s more, they’re designed for growth whenever needed.

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Website Performance

Good design also results in better website performance. The performance of your website is a measurable metric.

In fact, you can most likely collect more data about your website than you could ever hope to analyze.

A skilled digital marketing agency understands the complexity of good web design. More importantly, however, they know how to explain what matters in a way that you can understand.

They’ll provide you with ongoing reports to help you measure your digital marketing progress. A skilled marketing agency will also help you identify your goals if needed. Moreover, they’ll help you discover opportunities for improvement.

A great marketing agency will listen to your objectives. They’ll help you identify the right digital path for your business.

Also, the agency will work with you to create a strategy that is tailored specifically to what works best for your company. What’s more, they’ll make sure that the strategy gets implemented in accordance with your goals.

Growing Your Brand with the Right Partner

For the most part, businesses thrive on contracts, deals, leads, and opportunities. They need these resources to generate revenue.

There is a direct correlation between marketing activity and revenue. This correlation is called attribution. For example, you might hear a marketing professional call the money that they make a company attribution revenue.

Generating attribution revenue is labor-intensive and complex; however, it is quite manageable with the right automation tools. As with metrics, attribution revenue is measurable.

A skilled design partner can help you develop the right automated system for measuring the success of your marketing efforts.

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Choosing the Right Design Team

There are many metrics that you can monitor to track the success of your website. It’s critical to use this information to make improvements.

For instance, you might analyze the traffic your website receives from organic and paid sources. You may also assess what visitors do when they visit your website.

Of course, you’ll want to track the previously mentioned metrics, such as speed; however, you also need to consider important metrics such as uptime. You will also want to track the technical performance of your website, such as technical errors and security notifications.

A growth-oriented digital marketing agency will consider these metrics along with your entire sales and marketing process. They will make sure all of these many moving parts align with your business goals.

A digital marketing expert can help you develop an effective strategy. What’s more, they can improve your chances of realizing a positive return on investment from your digital marketing efforts.

Most importantly, a good digital marketing agency won’t try to wow you with technical jargon. They will teach you the important aspects of running your website in plain language.

What’s more, they’ll consolidate that information into an easy-to-understand report. With this information, you can make informed business decisions to drive your company forward.

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Boost Conversions with Good Design

Now that you know more about how good design can be a profit driver for your business, you need a digital marketing agency that will help your company thrive and grow.

Welcome to Design Epicenter. We are a digital marketing agency that helps brands grow their business.

We know what it takes to make your brand stand out online. We have the expertise to get you where you want to go.

If you are looking for an agency that will deliver results, give Design Epicenter a call today at (818) 351-2791. Alternatively, connect with us online to schedule a call.

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