Alex Toma — February 13, 2020 What is the purpose of your website?
It may seem like an incredibly simple question – and one you’d assume every business and web designer would know the answer to.
Yet, in most sectors, there seems to be a dearth of websites that are actually effective at answering this question.
Indeed, given a healthy budget, some web designers appear to believe that a new project is a chance to satisfy creative urges and add a new, trendy design to a diverse, expanding portfolio.
But it’s an approach that fails small businesses.
Because the first consideration when designing any website shouldn’t be ‘the look.’
An effective web design project should always prioritize usability, valuable content, lead generation, conversions and profit before design.
It should be built with short and long term search marketing goals in mind.
Creative design for the sake of being creative doesn’t convert a visitor into a customer.
What Is The Purpose Of Web Design?
Web design is the process of creating a solution to a problem and using a web page as the means of communication.
Creative graphic design fails if it doesn’t help improve conversions and engagement.
You will never lose customers if your site isn’t flashy enough, but you will haemorrhage visitors if they cannot understand how you will solve their problem or how they can quickly access a page that will do so.
Here are some not so surprising facts:
- Sometimes, your visitors won’t even notice your pretty design.
- Sometimes, ugly websites just work better (sorry about that…)
- Sometimes, designers fail to understand exactly who will be visiting the site.
Often, designers and clients lose sight of what they want visitors to do when they land on a web page.
Web design is about engaging prospects and converting them into customers…
Spending time and money on creative bells and whistles that fail to measurably improve this process is not productive.
So, If Too Much Creativity Can Be A Problem, Web Design Should Be Cheap, Right?
Overambitious creativity is something that usually only blights those with a reasonable budget to spend on a website.
Businesses that are searching for designers in the budget end of the industry, however, have an entirely different problem that compromises results:
Badly designed websites shoehorned into clumsy, unsuitable templates.
If you have an extremely limited budget and are intent on driving a hard deal with an already cheap design company, you cannot expect the level of creative input that produces meaningful results.
It may come as a surprise to you, but a couple of hundred dollars isn’t going to bag you a great designer who’ll spend time researching your project and effectively positioning your brand.
You’re more likely to get an off-the-shelf, clunky, cookie-cutter website with stock images, colours and logo inserted wherever possible.
Content, purpose and user journey a mere afterthought.
Why should I take notice?
Why should I choose you?
Why should I do so right now and how do I do it?
Creativity is not just about making things look prettier.
It’s about creating a distinctive, powerful and passionate brand; with a website that achieves its purpose.
What about SEO?
A badly designed website will also impact your search engine placement. Since most people nowadays search for products and services from a mobile device, Google has set strict guidelines for mobile-friendliness.
As of the 4th quarter of 2019, 61% of all Google traffic is mobile according to Statista.
Not only your website needs to be mobile-friendly, but it also needs to be fast on mobile devices. Page loading speed has become one of the major ranking factors that Google is taking into consideration when ranking a website.
Digital & Social Articles on Business 2 Community
(19)
