In a post-COVID world, a strong online presence has become necessary for all types of businesses. Global online retail sales surpassed $5 trillion for the first time in history.
The inception of digital and social marketplaces has brought a paradigm shift in how businesses operate. While nearly 80% of customers shop online at least once a month, the e-commerce share of many retail businesses has increased to nearly 20%.
There are many advantages of using e-commerce and social media platforms for any business, particularly those that are striving for growth in a smaller retail market such as Thornton or Denver.
To expand their sales beyond the physical boundaries and skyrocket their revenues, businesses in Thornton are increasingly relying on digital platforms.
Promoting brand identity is one of the most significant benefits of a strong online presence. A strong brand image can boost a business’s credibility and develop customer loyalty and recognition.
A website is usually the first place where your prospective customer directly interacts with your brand. To promote brand identity, a business must ensure great customer experience, which is only possible through excellent web design. This article explores the merits of a good web design and how it helps promote your brand image.
Table of Contents
Elements of a Good Web Design
A website is more than a collection of webpages; it’s the digital face of your business which promotes your organization’s objectives, provides a channel to offer services, and showcases your brand identity.
For a business market as limited as Thornton, creating a website can open new avenues to expand operations and become part of bigger local, national, or international markets. To create a good web design, a web developer in Thornton recommends incorporating the following elements into a business website:
- Quality content that grabs customer attention
- A navigable website with no dead-ends, broken links, and errors
- Customer interaction through instant chat, chatbots, contact us forms, email subscriptions, and social media links
- Cross-linking with official social media accounts
- Responsive web designs to support all types of devices and screen sizes
- A balanced website that is not overloaded with links, images, or text
Also, if you decide to use a design service, make sure that the service is well versed with your industry. For instance, if you are a real estate firm, consider going for a service that specializes in website design for estate agents.
Now let's look at the five reasons why good web design is necessary for your brand image.
1. Creates a Great First Impression
A website is usually the first thing people look at when interacting with your brand. It directly contributes to creating your customer’s first impression. A great customer experience can build a lasting impression on your customer, potentially leading them to the sales transaction.
Almost half of the prospective customers online believe web design is extremely important for a business’s brand image. If you keep your customer’s attention on the webpage during the first 8 seconds, your chances to convert visitors into customers will increase.
Use balanced colors, impressive designs, and a stellar business logo to create a winning website that grabs customers’ attention.
2. Quick Loading = More Traffic
You can have an amazing website design, but it will be useless if your target audience never sees it. According to the latest statistics, 53% of visitors tend to exit websites that take more than 3 seconds to load.
A visitor is more likely to stay on a website that loads faster. With an efficient web design, you can draw more traffic to your website, which directly translates into a better brand image and online reputation.
Moreover, Google’s new core web vitals include a website’s loading speed and responsiveness as a major measurement for ranking in search engine result pages (SERP).
There are numerous techniques to improve your website’s loading time. Some of the most effective techniques are the smart use of compressed images, lazy loading, content delivery networks (CDNs), optimized JavaScript and CSS files, Gzip compression, etc. Use images only where necessary.
A website packed with images, videos, links, and text take longer to load, and the visitor gets overwhelmed with abundant content.
3. SEO-Optimized Contents Increases Search Visibility
A prospective customer only views your great web design when they can see you in search results.
More than 54% of customers only click the first three links appearing in the search results. Incorporating SEO best practices in each element of your website, namely meta description, page titles, links, image names, alt texts, and written content, can improve your website's visibility in search results.
You won't have to work as hard for visibility if your website is well-designed and kept up-to-date.
Expert web designers consider off-page and on-page link-building and SEO practices while creating a website. The more visible you are in search results, your brand image will be better.
4. Interactive Customer Service
People will form opinions about your brand based on their experience with your website and customer support service.
New visitors and prospective customers have loads of queries regarding your product or service. By incorporating customer services modules like chatbots, WhatsApp chat, direct messaging, or contact us forms and being quick to respond to customer queries, you can successfully engage your customer with your brand and win their trust by showing you’re a real business.
5. Stay on Top of the Competition
A great web design is imperative to compete in a saturated digital marketplace. If your competitors are making good use of a striking web design, you need to ensure your web design outperforms your competitor.
Your website design is a chance for you to differentiate your company from the competitors. Ensure your website uses contemporary layouts, stays up-to-date, and includes quality graphics and content.
When designing a website, ensure it fulfills customer requirements in terms of aesthetics, functionality, and ease of use.
Moreover, you require that one item that will set your brand apart from the competition. Research your competitor’s website to identify what they’re missing and incorporate it into your website.
You can outclass your competitor and win more leads when your website has all these essential ingredients.
Final Thoughts
As the world rapidly shifts to e-commerce and online retailing, creating a strong online presence has become inevitable for businesses in Thornton.
Competing in a saturated digital marketplace and creating brand awareness are one of the biggest challenges for businesses. A good web design is the first step in building a positive brand image and generating more leads. However, websites must be equipped with SEO best practices to improve visibility in search results.
Businesses must also follow an omnichannel approach to promote their website. This includes using web development platform like ASP.Net 2.0, effective digital marketing strategies, word-of-mouth marketing, and conventional mobile, email, and hard-printed marketing campaigns.