Any competitive business in the Twenty-First Century needs a web presence. E-commerce represents a huge portion of regular sales. Even businesses that don’t utilize shopping cart apps rely on the internet to reach new customers and clients. In order to reach your customers, however, you need a website worth visiting. This is where web design comes in. It makes the difference between a basic web presence and a thriving e-commerce site.
First Impressions
They say first impressions last forever, and this is certainly true of websites. If a customer clicks on your page only to find a website with a design scheme from the past decade, the chances of a purchase instantly fall. Informed businesses stay up to date. Even if you are on top of recent developments in your industry, customers can only judge by what they see. An antiquated online presence gives the impression that you’ve fallen behind recent advancements. Your products may not be trendy, useful, or fitting for the customer’s current needs. It’s possible to lose customers on the home page, and a clean, modern web design can put a stop to that loss.
Showcasing Merchandise
Art students learn how to lead a viewer’s eye through their work, and web design professionals also learn how to guide users’ eyes. If there are particular products you need to put front and center, the right web design makes all the difference. While clients still enjoy the thrill of discovery, they don’t like to work for it, especially not online. A wise web developer can lead your customers to the big ticket items you are trying to move through a clearance event. The same developers can showcase best sellers and top rated merchandise. The very best do this without leaving visitors to your website, feeling like they’re flipping through a catalog.
Not all web design is meant to lead to e-commerce. However, the website is still responsible for the launch of a new sale. Builders, artists, and other providers of large scale custom work cannot use a shopping cart application to bring in sales. Web design is even more important for these types of businesses. Through your website, customers will see what they can expect from you and get a taste of your work. Good design is an essential presentation aid. No matter how good the roofing work in your photos is, if they aren’t presented well, customers may take their business elsewhere. Think of your web design as the first step in a sales pitch to a customer. A professional leaflet or booklet will win a lot more work than a handful of nice snapshots with a little writing on the back.
Ease of Use
If a website doesn’t make a customer’s desires readily apparent, the customer will leave. Ease of use is all about intuitive design. This shows most clearly in web design through navigation. While it’s fun to add unique buttons and what you think may be clever pathways to products, customers usually want something much simpler. If they click on a link advertising your weekly ad, they shouldn’t need to go through three or more screens to get to there. Popular items, services, and features shouldn’t be buried in back pages. Most importantly, customers want layouts they understand and menus that offer them what they want.
Web design gives your website a logical progression. For instance, someone ordering a cake from your bakery shouldn’t need to jump through ten different pages to get to the order form. Lists of options should follow what customers expect. It makes little sense to figure out what kind of decorations someone wants on a cake if they haven’t even determined the size yet. There may or may not be room. Or maybe you don’t make such advanced decorations for such small orders. The order is important.
Potential for Return Sales
Web design doesn’t just help customers stay on your website. It can actually pull them back for more orders. Using your landing page to advertising upcoming sales and tease future releases is a great way to plant a seed in viewers’ minds. Web design can give viewers options to get instant savings by joining your mailing list or buyers’ club, too. Great web design allows for user feedback, too, which will bring customers back to your website to leave reviews and ask questions after making a purchase. Once they’re back on your site, you have the opportunity to tempt them with additional products and fresh deals.
From the moment a customer comes to your landing page to the day they leave their final product review, their impressions of your business will be largely founded on web design. The right design leads them through the purchase process like a well-trained associate. It also gives them the best possible first impression while fostering return sales. Web design does the work of storefront, associate, and customer service representative to sell your products in an online market.