When drawing in traffic to your website, it’s critical to provide the public with professionally-designed pages. Your website’s design is the first thing a visitor will notice when clicking on your site, and your visual design directly impacts the likelihood of retaining or gaining a new client or customer. 

People judge a website’s quality in only .05 seconds, and if they judge that your website is poorly-designed, they’ll likely assume that your brand and products or services are also of poor quality.

Your potential customers or clients will immediately judge your website’s design, so you need to provide them with a high-quality, enjoyable layout that keeps them on the site. Having a great website will also enhance your likelihood of closing a sale or gaining a new client.

First Impressions Are Everything

The first impression you leave on potential customers or clients is nearly impossible to change. Psychological research conducted by social psychologist Bertram Gawronski indicates that a person’s first impression dictates how they continue viewing a person or brand. If they have a negative first impression about your business, that impression will remain even if they have positive experiences later. Gawronski’s study showed that having a positive experience after a negative first impression results in people seeing the positive experience as an exception to their initial judgment. 

For example, if your website’s poor design leaves a negative first impression on potential customers, they’ll continue feeling negative about your brand even if they find your website’s resources helpful. They’ll view the positive experience as an exception to your brand’s overall quality, and the good experience will not reshape their first impression.

It’s crucial to remember this concept when it comes to web design because first impressions are almost entirely related to design. Your site’s visitors are far more likely to make an initial judgment about your brand based on your website’s design rather than your content or offerings. If you leave a negative first impression through poor design, your potential customer or client will likely leave your website. 

Set Your Site Apart from Your Competition 

With most types of products and services, customers will have alternatives to your site. You need to set your brand apart from your competitors by providing customers with a quality website experience. One critical reason you want an expertly-designed website is to keep customers on your site so that they eventually buy your products or services. If your website’s design leaves much to be desired, visitors will click away to view your competitors’ websites. 

Your web design also determines how people will view the quality of your products or services. Even if you sell top-of-line products, potential customers will assume your offerings are of poor quality if your site lacks quality design. 

Having a modern and professional-looking website illustrates that your brand offers the most up-to-date, high-quality products and services, and it distinguishes you from your competition. If your website looks like it’s from the early 2000s, people will likely assume that your products or services are outdated and mediocre.

This is especially critical when it comes to offering tech-based products or services. If you have a bad-quality site with an outdated design, why would a customer think you offer high-quality tech-based products or services? Customers are more likely to buy from well-designed websites, so you need to invest in great design.  

People Evaluate a Site’s Credibility Based on Design

In addition to showcasing the quality of your products and services, your website’s design also determines whether people will view your brand as trustworthy. According to a study conducted by Stanford University, around 75% of consumers make judgments about a business’s credibility based on its website’s design. 

Even if your website’s visitors find your brand trustworthy despite your poorly-designed site, they need to know that your website is secure so that they feel comfortable supplying personal information. 

Think about the last time you came across a poorly-designed or outdated website. Would you trust the website with your credit card information? 

Your site’s design directly impacts how people view your brand’s trustworthiness and security. 

Enhancing the User Experience with Great Visual Design

Delivering a great visual design is crucial for drawing in new clients and customers. The main factors that determine your website’s overall quality are simplicity, familiarity, and a positive user experience. 

Researchers at Google found that users prefer websites that are simple and look familiar. For example, when a person visits a clothing website, they have certain expectations about what the site’s overall design will look like based on their past experiences. If your website is complicated or breaks from the conventional visual design standards of other clothing sites, visitors are more likely to have a negative first impression of your site. 

People want to visit websites that look simple to use and are somewhat familiar, and ultimately, they want an easy, convenient user experience. 

Some common design pitfalls to avoid when creating your perfect site include small fonts, bad spacing, and long paragraphs. Additionally, your site needs to offer consistent quality. You shouldn’t spend time and resources on perfecting your home page while ignoring the design of your other pages. You need to aim to provide a positive user experience across the entirety of your site. 

EverEffect: Your Premier Digital Marketing Partner 

Your business needs to provide potential customers and clients with an exceptional website experience that sets you apart in your industry. Fortunately, your business doesn’t have to rely exclusively on its own resources to develop an expertly-designed site — you can partner with a digital marketing company for your visual design needs. 

EverEffect is a full service digital marketing agency and search optimization company based in Indianapolis and we work with our clients to find the most optimal visual design solutions for their business’s unique brands. We’ll help you create the perfect website and marketing plan for your specific needs so that you can draw in more customers or clients and keep them on your site. 

Contact us today — call us at 888-506-2183.