Your website acts like a window – it is the first impression which the customer has about your business. This means as the customer begins a search for a product or service, the first point of contact is your website.
In such a situation, if your website leaves a negative impression or if it fails to engage your visitor, your competitors will have an advantage. Your website design should be able to provide an immediate impression of your business. If your website does not function properly, if it is not easy to navigate or it does not care to provide updated or relevant impression, it is certainly going to cost you business.
Your visitors will come to your website, but they will not be able to establish their trust or rely on your product/services. Many people believe that investing in a good website is non-essential, but if one measures the lost business which a bad design brings, it becomes quite clear that this is not just a necessary but also a wise investment which shouldn’t be ignored.
Now, let’s consider the damage a bad design can do!
When a customer visits a website, it is expected that the page will load in just two or three seconds. Any visitor usually sticks around for 10 seconds if the page loading starts. If the page does not load or loads partially, the visitors will go and never return. It is known that 50% of the visitors contact a site through a specific tertiary page or a secondary page. They usually reach a website from social media shares, forum posts and search engines. If you do not have an impressive main page, your visitors might never return to your website.
It is seen that a large percentage of users disengage from any site, if they are not attracted towards the layout. Though attractiveness is quite subjective, and it is not possible to please everyone, there are a few designing techniques and standards which graphic designers can use to ensure that a site is visually appealing.
In the recent times, the number of users who are accessing a website through tablets and other mobile devices are increasing. There are many sites which are exclusively designed for laptops or desktops. Responsive and adaptive web designing is quite critical now and these are a few things which a professional designer should implement in the design. When this is implemented the site will automatically detect the device which the user is viewing and then adjust accordingly.
There are a few bad designing elements which can prove quite costly for any website. Here are some of these:
Auto Playing Audio and Videos – Businesses find this quite profitable in certain demographics and hence these are often used. However, in case of many other sites, this can be quite a poor choice, especially if it is a small business and has a limited focus. Auto playing videos can be quite annoying and customers usually do not appreciate them. Besides, these videos tend to slow down the loading speed of the website which hampers its search engine ranking as well.
Bloat – Are there too many widgets which are not providing real value? Often websites have poorly programmed widgets, there might be some uncompressed graphics or there might be a few videos and audio on a page which is often found to be offending.
Navigation is Confusing – There might be some sections of navigation schemes which are confusing for the visitors. These include the usage of white space which doesn’t actually add value or have any other purpose. There might also be a few non-intuitive symbols instead of words. There might be some elements which have to be hovered in order to determine what they are and what their use is.
When the website design is not as per expectations of the users, people or your visitors might feel you do not care. When they are dissatisfied with the site, they might think that the company doesn’t care about what the customers want. In such a situation, people usually search for other companies whom they feel can help this. If any company starts neglecting something which is important, visitors might think that they are neglecting their interest.
If the website isn’t appealing enough, people might doubt the credibility of the company. They might even think about not investing in the products and services as they feel the quality of product delivered is not up to the mark. Though such assumptions are not true, they might impact the demand for quality and value of products which is offered.
Thus, the design of a website does have a strong impact on the growth of your business.