Why Your Website Design Will Ruin Your New Year Goals

Christmas is here, and so is the New Year. So as 2022 approaches, you might think of all the new goals you want to achieve through your business and, honestly, why put a limit to your dreams?

But as it often happens, New Year’s resolutions aren’t always easy to follow.

You might think about increasing your revenues, finally releasing that webinar you have been daydreaming about for ages, or even launching a new innovative service that could upgrade your website.

And that’s absolutely terrific! The thing is that to be successful, you have to be ready for success.

Now, a winning content strategy, combined with an appropriate SEO campaign, can absolutely work wonders for your business. But to bring all of your New Year’s goals to life, you are going to need a more holistic approach to that. The bigger you dream, the bigger your efforts need to be.

For example… How’s your website doing? How updated is your web design?

Is your website up to the task you are setting up for the upcoming year?

Here’s why your website design could ruin your New Year’s goals and how to avoid it…

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Is Web Design Really That Important?

Think about the last time you’ve decided to give a sketchy website a go. Doesn’t happen that often, eh?

Website design is often the most overlooked of all the things that can significantly improve your revenues.

True, web design can only do this much without a proper content strategy behind it, but having an awfully looking platform certainly won’t help your rankings. Nor your customers’ experience.

What are the main reasons why website design matters?

#1 It Shows That You Care

If you had a shop, you would certainly invest a significant part of your time and budget to ensure that your potential customers and everyone in your target audience find it fancy. Indeed, you don’t want to give the impression that you don’t care about your business’ appearance and how the customers might perceive it. Believe it or not, when setting up a website, you want to do the same.

Not caring for your website design is just as bad as neglecting to clean your store and greet your customers in a dirty environment.

On the other hand, if you take care of your website design, your audience will perceive how invested you are in your business and will be more prone to trust you.

#2 First Impression Matters More Than You Think

While this shouldn’t matter in human relationships, first impressions matter. A lot.

Imagine that you’re on a shopping spree, and you decide to click on the website of a brand you noticed on Instagram. Once you open it, you have less than 5 seconds to determine if this website appeals to you or not. What if it looks dodgy? Well, then you definitely don’t want to buy anything from them.

#3 It Sets A Difference With Your Competitors

When someone steps on your website, be it by chance or because they were specifically looking for you, you have to leave your mark. Whether they want it or not.

An excellent design is the fastest way to ensure that whoever visits your virtual hub is captivated by your image and wants to know more about who you are and what you do.

But it also helps your customers recognise your brand and differentiate between you and your competitors.

This is because your website design should visually convey your message, your quirks and your tone of voice. In a sentence…

#4 It Helps You Define Your Brand Identity

Who are you? And what brings you to the world of business? This is part of your identity, and as such, it’s something that nobody else knows better than you do. Our favourite brands have a distinctive design that helps us recognise them amongst competitors or fakes. Think about an iconic logo of a famous sportswear brand: not only does it express the brand’s visual identity, but it also reinforces the very idea behind your brand. We humans prefer whatever comes as an image: it’s instantly way more catchy than any other written slogan. Plus, while written content might be misunderstood or underappreciated by those who don’t speak your language, the design doesn’t have the same problem.

By taking care of your brand’s design, you help your business express its identity to its fullest, helping customers recognise and idolise you in some lucky cases.

#5 Increases Your Ranking

SEO is what keeps your business alive in the vast jungle that it’s the internet. But to have your website ranked as relevant by Google algorithms, you have to comply with many different rules.

Two of them are user experience and the way your website presents itself. These two things are, of course, strictly related to one another: you cannot have a pleasant user experience in a website that it’s not well presented. But it doesn’t stop there!

Rankings are distributed according to the readability of one’s website, relevant content, the way it is formatted and the website’s speed. All of these things have in common is, of course, design.

You can make sure the website follows the correct format and combines pleasant images with speed through design.

#6 It Helps You Gain Your Customers’ Trust

When starting a new business, you must acknowledge that all of your revenues depend on your customers’ trust in your brand. Therefore, most of your efforts and investment should be aimed at building your credibility and gaining your customers’ trust. That is something you can obtain only through a thoroughly researched and planned branding strategy and, of course, through design.

With the help of a web designer, your website will look professional, you will have better rankings, and your customers will find it easier to rely on you for their purchases.

Revamping Your Website Design: Will It Help?

You want to launch a brand new webinar or a new service. Even better, you’ve written an incredible ebook on your business journey, and you are ready to upload it on your website.

How long has it been since the last time you paid attention to your design?

Like many other aspects of business, your message might have evolved since the first time you had someone design your website. Maybe you started with a particular vision in mind and later outgrew it: there’s no shame in that. It’s only natural!

Now, if you have a design that doesn’t reflect your identity anymore, your audience will find it more difficult to trust you. They might be confused between what you want to say and what you’re choosing as a visual representation of your business.

This is even more important if you’ve worked hard to build a personal brand.

An Example Of Why A Revamp Might Be A Good Idea…

Stacy is a businesswoman and influencer who launched a lucrative skincare company in the last 5 years. She has over 100k followers on Instagram, and although she started her journey as a beauty influencer, reviewing other products and making make-up tutorials, things have started to change.

In the last 2 years, Stacy started practising yoga, embraced a vegan and cruelty-free lifestyle and has decided to extend this philosophy to her skincare company.

After launching a successful social media campaign against animal testing, she has written an eBook that she would like to include on her website to help her followers choose cruelty-free beauty products. Such as the ones that she’s now selling.

There’s only one problem, and it’s her website design.

Stacy still has the same design she started with 5 years ago. But now, her brand has evolved; some elements of the first site clash with her new lifestyle.

What would happen if she was to launch her ebook there?

At best, her followers would be startled. At worst, she would lose thousands of them who would be annoyed by her negligence or think that she’s a hypocrite.

Stacy needs to revamp her website over the next few months. And possibly, remove embarrassing traces of her non-vegan past. (Although there’s something to be said for turning it into a tale of transformation and discovery instead!)

The Perfect Website: How To Make Sure Your Website Design Works

Changing is good, but it takes a lot of effort. When thinking about a revamp, you might think that you just need a little “reshaping”, but we’re afraid it won’t be that easy.

If you want to improve your website design, you have to go the extra mile and ensure that it complies with the newest algorithms, follows your audience’s trends and runs smoothly.

What are the first few things you should consider doing to revamp your website? Well…

#1 Work On Your Website Accessibility

Making your website accessible means optimising it for user experience. Browsing through your platform should be a pleasant experience, and there shouldn’t be any significant inconveniences such as broken links, ill-fitted graphics or unreadable text.

Make your website user friendly and…

#2 Develop A Mobile Version

Everyone wants to have the ability to access their favourite platforms from everywhere in the world and whenever they want to. So whether they are commuting or simply chilling at home from their laptop, you want to give them the best experience you can by developing a version of your website that is suitable for every device.

By doing this, you will positively impact your customers’ satisfaction and their user experience, actually increasing the chances of conversions.

#3 Your Brand Image: Do You Have One?

In setting up your website, keeping in mind your brand image is essential. It’s how your customers can recognise you and how you show that you are an actual professional who believes in what they do.

But quite often, many people start their internet adventures with simplified versions of the websites of their dreams, ending up with a platform that doesn’t really have anything special to it.

You might have chosen to rely on a pre-set template that you have randomly found on WordPress, and that is not going to work in the long run, as it is not done explicitly on and for your brand.

And if you already have a brand image, have you considered tweaking it to be trendier? Is it updated? Does it still respect your identity and mission?

To achieve all of your new year’s goals, take some time to talk with your marketing team about jazzing up your image and coming up with something that better represents who you are and what you do.

#4 Use Engaging Visual Elements

We started spending more time during the pandemic than we used to scroll through our phones. And, to a certain measure, we became accustomed to a fast-paced form of entertainment where videos and content are interactive, fast and colourful.

We cannot focus on things for extended periods, and we quickly get bored and distracted by what we see.

Now, you can’t possibly translate the “TikTok” experience to your website. Still, you can adapt it by adding engaging visual elements that keep the user scrolling and, possibly, generating the desired conversions.

#5 Improve The User Experience

User experience is fundamental. It’s essential for rankings, it’s crucial for your business image, and it’s vital because regardless of what your mission is, without users, your business has virtually no purpose.

But of course, every experience has to be carefully tailored to your target audience’s trends. Find out how to improve your website according to this, and you will give your users more than a reason to visit your website.

#6 Add CtA Buttons

Call To Action buttons are more than essential when it comes to websites. Yet, in some cases, they are nowhere to be found. Can you think of anything more annoying than looking everywhere for a “sign-up” or “add to cart” button without finding it? You want to make the experience quick and easy for your users to come back more quickly.

#7 Improve Your Copy

And finally, while thinking about improving your website design, don’t neglect your content. When you decide to revamp a website, you generally need a holistic approach through which you basically re-do the whole thing.

Copy included.

Would you want to have a website where graphics and content clash with each other? Of course not.

Optimise your content so that you can have your SEO done correctly and you can start seeing tangible results of your hard work.

Dream Big: Give Your Brand New Colours!

To give your website the proper revamp, think about hiring a team of experts that can guide you through the whole process and will be able to develop the right strategy for you to achieve all of your New Year’s goals.

Book a consultation with us -IT’S FREE- and let’s start by giving your brand some new colours!