There are now over 1.58 billion active websites online. It’s not enough to have a small business website, though. If your website is old or outdated, it could impact your plans to achieve business growth.
In fact, design has a 75% influence on a website’s credibility. Consumers might struggle to trust you if your website is unappealing and they could take their business elsewhere as a result.
Don’t risk it. Instead, consider these 12 benefits of having a stunning website as part of your digital marketing strategy. With a well-designed site, you can boost your online presence and start scaling your business!
On the fence about hiring a web designer to update your website? Keep reading to discover the benefits of good website design for your business.
1. Make a Strong First Impression
You only have seven seconds to make a strong first impression. The same can be said for your small business website design; however, online you want to make an impactful first impression within 5-seconds! In that time, consumers can make a lot of assumptions about your business based on your website including:
Does your business provide what I need?
Can I find what I want easily?
Is your business trustworthy?
Will I be able to buy or get what I need from you easily?
You can use your website design to make a strong first impression. You can impress potential customers and draw them in.
Your website design can say a lot about your company’s personality. Design can make you look fun, professional, or somewhere in between.
If your site looks old or is difficult to navigate, however, consumers might think you’re old and out of date, too.
2. Boost Brand Awareness and Recognition
It takes around six impressions before your business starts generating any brand awareness. To develop brand recognition, repetition and consistency are key. Brand recognition can keep you top of mind with potential customers.
Your small business website can improve your branding initiatives. You can infuse your brand across every page of your website.
In fact, consistent branding could improve your revenue by up to 23%.
If your brand isn’t consistent in every marketing initiative, however, you could confuse customers. You’ll fail to build an omnichannel experience, too. Consumers might think you’re a different business.
They might struggle to trust your brand as a result.
In fact, nearly 60% of consumers prefer shopping from familiar brands. Building brand recognition can help you retain customers in time, too. A 2% boost in retention could reduce costs by as much as 10%.
Building relationships with your customers can help you boost retention rates.
Updating your website design can help you boost brand awareness and recognition. Then, you can set your business up for growth and success.
3. Improve Your SEO Strategy
About 70% of all online activities begin on search engines like Google and Bing. Unfortunately, 75% of search engine users never look beyond the first page of results. If your small business website isn’t reaching the top of the first page, you might not appear in front of customers.
There are a number of reasons your website might not reach the top of a search page, including your website design.
Google’s search engine algorithm crawls and indexes your website content before determining your ranking. It also looks for websites with a positive user experience (UX). A strong UX indicates your website is easy to explore and use.
An old, slow, unappealing website could scare away users.
In fact, nearly 40% of visitors will stop engaging with a website if the content or layout is unattractive. Meanwhile, 60% of people are likely to read something beautifully designed, rather than something plain or boring.
Google looks at your clickthrough rate and dwell times to determine if your site creates a positive user experience. If these metrics are low, you likely have a high bounce rate. A high bounce rate means people are leaving without looking at your content.
Your search engine ranking could drop. People could struggle to find your business or web content as a result.
Instead, consider using your small business website to set yourself for long-term business growth.
How SEO Supports Your Business
Search engine optimization (SEO) can boost your rankings on Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s). A higher search engine ranking can:
- Boost brand awareness
- Build brand recognition
- Help generate website traffic
- Position you ahead of competitors
- Establish your credibility
- Position you as a thought leader
- Help you gain leads and conversions
- Build brand trust and loyalty
- Improve your ROI
Before you can improve your search engine ranking, you need to improve your website.
Google runs a Core Web Vitals report to determine if there are poor user experiences across your website. You can make design changes to your site based on Google’s Core Web Vitals. Then, your search engine ranking might improve.
One of the benefits of stunning website design is its ability to boost your SEO ranking. Once you start appearing in front of more customers, brand awareness will grow. You can attract more people to your site, giving you a chance to boost conversions.
If you continue ignoring your website design, however, you might struggle to accomplish business growth.
Instead, hire a web designer that understands UX design trends, SEO, and Google’s Core Web Vitals. Their experience and expertise could set your business up for growth and success. You can start scaling business as a result!
4. Set Your PPC Campaigns Up for Success
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can help you boost brand awareness and draw in more web traffic quickly. Your cost-per-click can increase if you’re not creating a positive landing page experience, though.
In other words, your small business website could cost you money. Your campaigns might become too costly to run. You’ll miss a chance to start scaling your business as a result.
Instead, use your small business website to set you up for long-term business growth and increase your organic SEO using the tips here.
When you’re ready to run PPC Campaigns, turn to a professional agency for help to maximize your spend and ROI.
5. Offer the Best Customer Service
You can use your website to improve your customer service, too.
For example, you might want to add a chatbot to your website. Consumers can find the answers they need with ease. Otherwise, make sure to update your contact information.
If consumers can’t find your contact information on your website, they might grow frustrated. They could even take their business elsewhere. Updating your business website with new designs and content can improve the user experience.
Consumers will see how easy you make it to find the information they need. They could come back to you for help in the future.
6. Improve Your Credibility
Your website’s design can establish your credibility in the industry, too.
Consumers will compare websites before choosing a company they can trust. If your website is dull in comparison to someone else’s, you could lose a customer.
Instead, you can use your design and content to demonstrate your credibility.
For example, you can add information blog posts to your site. You can also add trust badges and social proof to establish your credibility.
As brand trust and loyalty grow, you can retain customers for long-term business growth.
7. Generate Engagement
If your website is difficult to use, people won’t engage with your brand. Instead, you can use your business website to boost engagement.
For example, you can add polls and quizzes to your site. You can start learning more about your target audience. Then, you can use the information you gather to make more informed decisions regarding your digital marketing.
8. Boost Leads and Conversions
You can use lead generation strategies throughout your website to boost leads, conversions, and online sales. If your website isn’t designed to generate conversions, however, you’ll miss a chance for business growth!
Instead, hire a web designer who understands the importance of lead generation. They can help you find new ways to reel in customers.
9. Gather Helpful Analytics
If no one visits your website, you’ll struggle to gain information about your visitors.
What pieces of content do they enjoy reading? What questions are they asking?
Without answers to these questions, you might fail to adjust your digital marketing strategy. Updating your website design can help you acquire more traffic. Then, you can start gathering the information you need.
10. Remain Competitive
Remember, consumers will compare your website to other business websites. Hire a web designer who is up-to-date with the latest trends. They can help you remain competitive.
You can wow visitors with 3D and immersive experiences. You can add more interactive page content to your site, too.
You can set yourself apart from the competition and start wowing customers.
11. Appeal to Your Target Audience
You can also use your small business website to better connect with your target audience.
Take the time to understand your customer’s values, needs, and pain points. Then, redesign your website to appeal to their interests and preferences.
Designing your business website with your customers in mind can help you appeal to their needs.
12. Improve Your Overall Marketing Strategy
Improving your small business website can benefit every touchpoint of your digital marketing strategy. After all, customers are bound to visit your website to learn about your business.
Learning how to create a website with your customers and the latest design trends in mind can set you up for success. Otherwise, your marketing initiatives could fall flat.
Design It Right: 12 Benefits of Small Business Website Design
Updating your small business website can help set you up for business growth and long-term success. You can boost your online presence, reach more customers, and generate fresh leads. Your digital marketing strategy will grow stronger, improving your ROI as a result.
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