In the year of 2015, if your business doesn’t have a website where have you been? The internet has altered the way we gather information , it has changed the way we shop and the way we communicate with our friends. Having an online presence is extremely important for businesses, however doing a half-hearted job at creating your website is not going to help.

Here’s a look at why having a professionally aesthetic website can build your brand , and what steps to take to achieve this.

Why web design is important

Your website homepage should act as your store front window display, it will have significant impact on attracting and retaining consumers. Companies who implement innovative website designs gain a competitive advantage by ensuring their customers have a user-friendly experience on their website. (Visinescu,2014)

If your website design seems unprofessional it will immediately put viewers off and encourage them to bounce. Research indicates that trust is an increasing concern with consumers, if the quality of the website doesn’t seem legit this will thus affect their judgement towards trusting the site. (Seckler,2015)

The design of your website should project what type of business you are and imply what tasks users can do.(Zhang,2000) Many people face challenges when identifying factors that attract users to the website. Design factors that should be developed when trying to improve a website:

1) Increase usability to avoid frustration – this can be applied by making navigation from each website page easily acknowledgeable.

2) Help maintain users interest in the website – this can be done by making it more stimulating and visually exciting.(Zhang,2000)

Your website should therefore create an environment which minimizes user dissatisfaction and increases user satisfaction, it is important to create a website which reflects this in order to allow users to achieve the task (Seckler,2015) once they are aware that your site can enable them to smoothly and coherently perform the task needed it will encourage users to return, once you have a brand advocate it will encourage more consumers to visit your website.

Tips for creating a website

Below are some tips to help with the development of a website that is visually pleasing, navigate-able and full of creative content that is accessible. (Cyr,2013)

Create a clear layout.- A lot of websites have so much content on them jumping out at you in every angle. Pop up after pop up, banner after banner bombarding you, forcing you to leave the website within seconds as you can’t clearly see how to navigate through the website.

Make use of a colour scheme which implements two colours , this will make sure readers are focusing on your content and not getting distracted by vivid colours. Therefore use white space on your page, keep it looking sharp and minimalistic, that way readers will be able to see all the most important information without having to search for ages , getting more frustrated by the minute.

A technique to make use of is visual hierarchy, research reveals that viewers eye sight line travels from top – bottom of a website , then left to right. By creating a design which utilises visual hierarchy it will allow for important content to be optimised.

Apple’s website is an example of how simplicity works. The navigation is clear along the top of the website and the call to action is neatly placed above artistic shot of their latest release.

If you can get past the slightly cringey guy presenting , the above is a great video at demonstrating how keeping things simple can look more enticing.

 Implement a responsive web design – a responsive web design allows for your website to smoothly adapt to each platform , i.e tablet, mobile etc. If you haven’t noticed yourself, mobile as a platform for searching the internet is becoming far more popular, from people searching on their mobile phone on the train on the way home from work, too people streaming movies on their ipad.

By providing your viewers with a mobile-friendly experience on your website it will keep them coming back for more and not drive them to your competitors website.

 Incorporate social media – Being on social media is a great way for your business to connect with consumers and encourage brand loyalty. Incorporate your social media links onto your website , ideally at the top and/or bottom of the page, this will make your pages easily accessible and therefore increasing chance of your audience sharing your content.

 Make your content easily readable – your content is the key part of your website and its the element that you want you audience to spend the most time looking and and embracing.

Make your information easily readable by using a maximum of two fonts throughout the website, make sure your font is readable and not in a tiny font, think of you age demographic especially when sustaining the above , as a teenage audience may vibe a completely different style font than a 60 year old.

 Tools and resources to use when designing a website

There are lots of websites which give you a selection of web design templates to use and are fab tools to make a once difficult skilled task simple. Say goodbye to the days of coding.

Below are two i have had personal experience with and would recommend for people designing their first website.

Above is an informative demonstration on how to make a website with the first designing tool.

Freepik is a great website which you can use to find imagery to go on your website, its free but you must insert a code onto your website giving attribution to the website & designer.

I hope this blog has helped you gain an understanding of why innovative website design is a factor that should be crucially important to your company in today’s technological era. I hope you found the tips , examples and sources useful in aiding your website design.

References

Cyr,D. (2013). Website design, trust and culture: An eight country investigation. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications. 12 (4), 373-385.

Seckler,M. (2015). Trust and distrust on the web: User experiences and website characteristics. Computers in human behaviour. 45 (2), 39-50.

Visinescu,L. (2014). The influence of website dimensionality on customer experiences, perceptions and behavioral intentions: An exploration of 2D vs. 3D web design. Information and Management Journal . 52 (1), 1-7.

Zhang,P. (2000). Satisfiers and dissatisfiers: A two factor model for website design and evaluation . journal of the american society for information science. 51 (14), 1245-67.