In the ever-growing age of the internet today, no business can survive without an online presence with website. A website has become a vital part of marketing strategy, and every element must serve a purpose. Every detail is essential to the customer experience, from visual aspects to usability. This, in turn, significantly impacts the brand’s ability to retain customers and attract new ones.
A good website design always gains customers’ trust and builds long-lasting loyalty that positively impacts the conversion rates of your business. In fact, according to the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA), given 15 minutes to consume content, two-thirds of people would read something beautifully designed rather than plain.
Hence, in this article, we will look at factors of good website design that influence your customer retention time. And also, how you can improve your website design.
1. Engaging Homepage
A homepage is the most vital part of website design, as in most cases, it is the first point of contact between your business and customer. Therefore, the homepage must be designed beautifully to cater to the customer’s needs in a short time. In fact, as per research, you have only 8 seconds to capture users’ attention once they land on the homepage. Within these 8 seconds, you need to show your brand’s uniqueness and compel them to make a purchase. If a user experiences an awful design and undecipherable message the moment they enter your website, there’s no way to retain or compel them to purchase.
So, how do you design a compelling homepage for your website visitors? Numerous ways can help you to create your website beautifully. Some of them are:
- Use a clean, uncluttered layout that resonates with your brand identity.
- Include relevant and attractive visuals like bold typography, clear images, and videos.
- Use colors that resonate with your brand and motivate users to take action.
- Use a clear call to action button and messages.
- Provide all information like location, contact info, and reviews to gain trust.
Though these aren’t the only things you can do with your homepage, they are the perfect starting point to improve your website’s first impression.
2. Website Navigation
Navigation is an element of website design that helps users explore and move through your website. Hence, the navigation process needs to be effortless to use. The moment the user gets stuck and confused, you lose the opportunity to build or retain the customer.
The secret to good website navigation is clarity. When a user explores your website menus, they should be clearly defined to understand how your website is organized and which text, tab, or link to follow to visit the desired page. For example, if you provide tours, include links to different types of tours in the drop-down menu on the homepage header. On the tour page, provide straightforward navigation tools and links to booking, images, videos, blogs, etc.
3. Content Arrangement
While exploring website pages, users don’t read content deeply. They scroll the pages, focusing on snippets of information. It means all the content, including headlines, product descriptions, call-to-action text, and offers, should be easily visible and easier to read.
The best way to organize your content is by writing easy-to-understand sentences and text and dividing the whole content into blocks. You can start with the most relevant information at the top, followed by images and other content categories below. Organizing your website content in such a way immensely improves website design and enhances user experience.
4. Responsive Design
Over the years, mobile users have grown significantly, and the trend seems to be going up in upcoming years. This means you can’t afford to ignore the mobile users and need to focus on the responsive design aspect of your website. Today responsive design has become the standard against which your website experience is judged. Thus, your whole website, including pages, text, images, videos, etc., should adjust to all screen sizes, making the website visually appealing and easy to navigate. An effective responsive design will do wonders for your customer experience by eliminating all the screen adjusting errors.
5. Security and Transparency
Security and transparency are influential elements of website design in building customer trust. You need to design the layout of your website in such a way that it emphasizes security and transparency. You can use different approaches to develop such a layout depending on requirements.
- If you have an e-commerce website, you can design page layouts focusing on security features like security badges, security policies, etc.
- If you have a service-based website, you can build trust by designing team pages, easily accessible contact info, certification badges, and customer reviews.
- You can use design elements to draw attention to an explicit explanation of how you protect customer data.
Apart from these, maximize legibility, readability, and simplicity of website design so that users can easily understand your message and develop trust.
6. Design Consistency
Another vital component of a good website design is maintaining consistency throughout the website. Suppose a user exploring your website suddenly notices that an element of a website is different than the others. In that case, the user will have a bad experience and might not revisit the website. The user will lose their trust and become suspicious of such a change. Therefore, it is essential to maintain design consistency throughout your website.
7. Professional Brand Image
Users tend to avoid purchasing from websites when they’re unsure about the brand position in the industry, experience in the market, and how it has impacted the customers.
When the website layout consists of professional content and represents your company’s mission, values, and overall outlook, it creates trust among users. Having a website with professional design is key to building trust with your customers.
Conclusion:
Now you must better understand the impact of a good website design on your customer experience and retention. Besides, website design is much more than just visual elements. How you design your website to give your user the best experiences is in your hands.