Everyone you want to do business with these days will look at your website – sorry, but it’s a fact!
All of your outbound marketing and brand and image-building initiatives are built on the foundation of your website. Your well-designed website makes it easy for potential customers to find, understand, and remember your company.
However, this will only happen if your website is professionally built from the ground up; otherwise, it will be simply another terrible site that will turn away more of those hard-earned prospects than it converts (if you’re lucky, no one will find it, or notice it even when they do!).
When money is tight, such as in the current environment, it’s tempting to save money by opting for one of those cheap offers, such as “get your own website for just £9.99 a month – 100s of superb templates that work” or having your sister’s boyfriend’s mother’s cleaner’s cat whose previous owner worked in IT do your website cheaply as a favour.
So, what are the important characteristics that will make your website stand out and attract precious potential clients’ attention? It’s critical that the design of your website be appealing, impactful, entertaining, and professional. No one will bother to learn more about your company if your website does not look beautiful and hold their attention.
And, in order to be truly effective and hold people’s attention, your website must be structured to clearly communicate the essence of your business proposition – and in language that your clients, not you, understand (more on this later!). And you have only 10 seconds to create an impression.
What if your website design doesn’t manage to accomplish all of this?
FACT 1: A poorly designed website will affect the image of your company.
It’s critical for your company’s growth that visitors to your website perceive you the way you want them to. A poorly designed website will mislead your company and harm your brand’s reputation. If visitors can’t figure out what your company stands for from your website, they’ll make all kinds of assumptions. You want them to understand exactly what you do and why they should choose you.
FACT 2 – A Bad Website Design Can Hurt Your Business
No one wants to inadvertently send the wrong message through their website. However, if your website unintentionally sends out a false or negative message, it may cause people to despise you and your business, and you may never be able to recover. It’s difficult to alter people’s minds, and one of the amazing things about the internet and social media is that information spreads quickly – but keep in mind that this may also work against you!
FACT 3 – A bad website will harm your business slowly and silently.
If sales aren’t reaching expectations, many firms will devote time and resources to treating the symptoms, but fail to see that it’s their brand image that’s causing them problems in the first place. Your brand image is largely recognised through your website these days, and these businesses continue to use a poorly designed website, scratching their heads as to why all of their efforts seem to be ineffective. This will harm your business significantly, but it is a reality that many businesses continue to operate with a poorly designed website, convincing themselves that it is good enough and that a top website will cost a lot of money.
FACT 4: A Low-Cost Website Design Will Cost You More.
Small and medium-sized businesses, particularly startups, have a tendency to try to conserve money by spending as little money on marketing as possible. There is thus a strong temptation to either do it oneself (which is rather simple if you have basic IT abilities), enlist the help of a friend, or hire a low-cost designer.
If they’re savvy, they’ll discover that their website isn’t helping them grow their business because it doesn’t appear professional. As a result, they’re on the lookout for a new designer. This time, however, they engage a high-priced designer, believing that the more you pay, the better the product. This isn’t a guarantee of success; there are some fantastic graphic designers out there who don’t realise that good graphic design isn’t the same as website design.
If they’re lucky, they’ll discover a marketing and design firm that can advise them on how to construct a website that looks nice while also working hard to generate a steady supply of outstanding pre-qualified leads to fill the sales funnel.
Doing it themselves or enlisting the help of their sister’s boyfriend, a cat whose former owner worked in IT, or hiring a low-cost website designer will end up costing more in the long run.
FACT 5. If you have a bad website, your marketing efforts will fail.
Businesses commonly utilise a website as a venue to promote their business by various ways such as literature, direct mail, e-marketing, radio advertising, and so on after establishing a website. You’ll spend a lot of money to bring all those fantastic prospects to your site, and they’ll be dissatisfied if they don’t see something professional. You’ll waste hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds, and those marketing campaigns aimed at driving traffic to your terrible website will completely backfire, further damaging your company’s image.
As a result, you’ll be able to avoid all of the hassle!
You can’t afford to go through all of this as a small or medium-sized business – or any business for that matter. All of this can be avoided by making the first smart decision, which is to hire an experienced designer who is a proven website designer who understands the power of great graphic design, the various technology options for website development, and who truly understands the fundamentals of SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing). Be a successful business owner by doing what you do best and enlisting the help of genuine experts. With high-quality website design, you can successfully promote your business and place it in the market.
Matthew Simmons is the in-house marketing consultant at Snap Marketing, a full-service marketing agency based in Reading that delights clients with a complete and bespoke graphic design solution, strategic marketing, brand building, website design, SEO, and SEM.
For additional marketing ideas and website design reading, go to website design reading. Also, if you liked this essay, check out my other Mightywarner writings.
