Why Your Website Needs a Creative Design
Have you noticed that the number of visitors to your site seems stagnant? Are you frustrated because you’re not rising in the search engine rankings? Are you spending hours developing awesome creative content, drafting blog posts, and even sharing your site on social media – only to see minimal results?
The reality is that poor website design may be to blame.
We’re not just talking about ease of navigation, mobile optimization, and making sure your internal links are working properly.
Maybe what’s pushing people away from your site is the lack of creative design.
In this post, I’ll tell you everything you need to know about why injecting creativity into your website is so important to the success of your business. We’ll talk numbers, ideas, and more — by the end, I’m sure you’ll be convinced to re-evaluate the importance of creative design for your website.
Creative Design: By The Numbers
You probably got into business because you’re a numbers person. To convince you why creative design matters to your website, I know we need to show you some statistics.
If you’re wondering whether or not a great website design will really impact your bottom line, listen up. In a study titled, “The State of Content,” Adobe found that over 35% of users will leave a website if they feel the layout is unappealing or ugly.
Another study found that 94% of web users said that web design was the main thing that made them either stay on a page or navigate away from it.
Another mind-blowing statistic? How about the fact that close to 50% of users said that a creative design was the most important factor in figuring out whether or not the brand was credible.
Even the colors you use on your homepage can have a serious impact on your profits. For starters, using colors in your website design increases your web recognition by over 79%. Also, if you’re looking for a way to boost sales, you might want to try using darker colors.
It was found that sites with darker themes grew by 2%, while those with lighter ones grew by only about 1.3%.
So, what’s the ultimate takeaway here?
Creative design can and does impact your traffic, your conversion rate, your place in search engine rankings — and most of all — your sales.
Let’s talk more about why you need a website design that doesn’t look like everyone else’s.
Good Design Builds Trust With Your Market
You already read above just how much of an impact the design of your website has on your visitors. Let’s get into a little more detail.
So much of business today is done online, that essentially, your website is the equivalent of your brick-and-mortar storefront. Especially if you’re an e-commerce shop or a brand that is heavily active on social media, your website may be the first real interaction a consumer has with your brand.
Just like a window display should encourage customers to come inside, showcase the products for sale, and be pleasing to look at, so should your website – especially your homepage.
First of all, don’t spam your visitors with a lot of offers, pop-ups, and too many texts. Instead, when it comes to the homepage, focus your design around branding and navigation. Include more images than words, and make sure your logo is clearly visible.
Pro Tip: Your logo should always include a link back to your website’s homepage.
Make sure that your contact information is clearly visible, as well as buttons visitors can click to learn more about your brand and its history. Your homepage should be clean, include clear navigation links, lots of images, and, above all, awesome creative design.
Popular design trends include hand-drawings of products or even employees, bold type, collages of product images, and creative typography.
Creative Design Increases The User Experience
In addition to not wanting to visit a website that looks boring, overcrowded, or just unattractive, nobody wants to spend time on a website they can’t figure out how to use, either. The overall layout of your site has a huge impact on its usability.
If your color scheme is inconsistent, it can throw off your visitors, making their eyes jump all over the page. When different menu options are all crammed together in a font that’s difficult to read, no one is going to click on them. Anytime your website design is inconsistent, users may even start to think they’ve accidentally clicked a link to another site.
Design can even influence the purchases your customers make. Functional design will help customers easily find your best-selling products or most popular services. Guide users eyes with images, colors, and even creative typography. Try placing links to products and services you want to highlight in the center of the page.
Your website design should make it as easy, and as intuitive as possible for your visitors to make a purchase or book an appointment. You don’t want to create any friction that could prevent a visitor from converting. Also think about the overall message your design is communicating, and whether it’s really consistent with the message of your brand or not.
If you’re a financial firm, a neon pink and yellow website won’t exactly make you look professional. But, if you go for a black and white color scheme on an e-commerce shop selling swimsuits, people may be turned off. Good website design is all about helping you to find the right balance between accessibility and creativity.
It Can Help You Reach New Markets
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with your current market at all. Still, wouldn’t it be wonderful to reach even more people? Creative design can help you to do that.
Maybe you primarily target a younger demographic, but you recently released new products/services that an older market could also use. How will they know there’s now something for them on your site? Because you’ve optimized your web design to include them, as well!
One way to do this is by switching up the design of specific landing pages to reflect the interests of that particular target market. For example, let’s stick with this younger/older example. Maybe your brand sells sunscreen, targeted at college students getting ready to head out for a summer vacation.
Your landing page for the younger set might include pictures of students taking selfies on a beach, playing in the waves, or rubbing sunscreen on each other’s backs in the sand. It might have more products linked to images, instead of words.
However, you’ve realized that older markets can, of course, use this sunscreen, too — so your landing page for them might be customized differently. You might try to include photos of them helping their children/grandchildren to apply sunscreen, photos of them on the golf course, or sitting on a chair at the beach, reading a book.
It’s important to think about how good website design can help you tap into multiple markets.
Design Makes Your Brand Stick In Visitor’s Minds
Think about a great design you saw – whether online or in person. I bet you remember where you saw it, about when it was, the name of the company, and what they were selling — am I right?
I would also bet that soon after seeing that creative design, you researched and wanted to learn a little more about that company. Even if you didn’t buy anything, you probably spent some time on their website. Maybe you even checked it again a few days later. Maybe it even turned into one of your favorite brands.
The point is, that creative design, in addition to boosting your sales and user experience, leaves a lasting impression on visitors. They see your brand as an authority, as ahead of the curve, and as a place that values customer experience.
In today’s world of instant gratification, where people are always looking for the “next big thing,” you need to do everything you can to be a consistent presence in the lives of the people who visit your site.
You also need to show them that you’re interested in forming a long-term relationship with them as customers – not getting a one-off transaction and moving on. Your website design can help encourage people to follow your brand on social media, sign up for your newsletter, and even become unofficial brand ambassadors.
Creative website design hooks people in for the long haul because it helps to tell the story of a brand – a story visitors will want to keep reading.
Ready To Access The Best In Creative Design For Your Website?
I told you that this post would convince you.
Now, you understand that even if you have the greatest content and products in the world, none of it is going to matter if you can’t get people to stay on your website long enough to engage with it.
So, where can you find the most creative and obsessive minds in the design world? I’m glad you asked. We offer some of the most innovative web design techniques and strategies out there. The kinds of things your competition has never even heard of.
Good web design requires that “something special,” that “X Factor.”
We have it. Want to get it for your brand?
Get in touch with us today to set up a consultation.