Your website is a very important element of your brand. A recent study highlighted the need for a good brand website as the majority of consumers expect a better experience from a brand than from a retailer. A survey conducted of online shoppers by Astound Commerce spelled out the high expectations consumers have for site design. Consumers’ expectations of your brand site include comprehensive product and service information, enhanced customer service, and better prices. In an age where consumers do a lot of research on the items they want to buy, it’s necessary for a brand’s website to be as effective as a salesperson.
But did you know that the conversion often relies on the look & quality of your web design? Web site design influences perceptions of trust, and lack of trust has been shown to impact online sales. No matter how brilliant your content marketing sounds, if the website’s overall design fails to impress, it won’t make a significant impact. The fact is that websites play a vital role in how consumers perceive and engage with your business brand. Design decisions that were planned and made years before will continue to influence new users. Creative web designs that are aligned with consumers’ needs can generate 3X more leads than an ordinary-looking website that is hard to navigate.
WEB DESIGN can be divided into FOUR KEY ELEMENTS
ACCESSIBILITY. The goal of accessibility within web design and content marketing is to not exclude people from using their products and services. A brand’s website is an important resource that should provide equal access and equal opportunity to all people. Accessibility can enhance your brand by improving overall user experience and satisfaction. Web accessibility standards help define accessibility requirements in web design. For example, as the site is being built, text alternatives can be incorporated to provide an equivalent user experience. Text alternatives serve as labels for images, navigation controls, and interact with voice recognition. Being able to navigate your site by voice control, keyboard, or mouse is another example of accessibility. Meeting this requirement helps people to navigate through web pages in different ways, depending on their particular needs and preferences.
Aesthetic Appeal of Content. Aesthetics can influence important factors related to online purchasing decisions such as attitude toward the company, credibility, and motivation. Users make judgments of the visual appearance of a website very quickly and those judgments are very consistent over time. The best web page designs pay attention to aesthetics to provide the best user experiences and the best results for website owners. A visually appealing website is easy to digest, more functional, enjoyable and inviting. A good layout is critical to aesthetic design. When a website is too cluttered or has no structure, it is not visually appealing.
Readability. Readability is vital for every online business. However, even the best sales copy won’t make sense if the readability is poor. Website readability is measured on several parameters but mainly measured on ‘complexity of words’ and ‘sentence structure’ in the copy. Some easy ways to improve the readability of your web copy include large fonts (the font size should be at least 14px), contrast b/w text & background, length of paragraphs, images, and typography.
Visual Elements. Visual elements of a website can be a great way to increase website engagement. Elements like images, videos, animations, infographics, GIFs, pie charts, etc., bring more value to the content – by making it more digestible. Besides influencing the audience’s perceptions of your brand, visual elements serve the marketing purpose by grabbing readers’ attention, providing them with relevant context, and clarifying concepts via subtle demonstration. Moreover, visual elements bring added value to your web content by making it look fun, inviting, and making it more engaging.
A user’s perception of a website can evoke a wide range of emotions and attitudes. Don’t neglect the importance of design and color treatments and their influence on your brand. We hope this blog has given you some insight into why you need to improve content marketing via creative web design.