When the British Museum in London reported roughly 2,000 objects as stolen, missing or damaged in August, how did it almost instantly receive 60 items back, with a further 300 identified and due to be returned imminently? A well-designed website.
The tactic paid immediate dividends for the museum and demonstrates the power of a website within an integrated communications plan. Executing a winning website strategy is not always easy. This concept is especially true when you’re too focused on what your business does best to nail the essential elements of a website.
Too often, modern website design and development companies prioritize flashy designs and overlook the basic functional elements of a great website. In those cases, your website ends up in the “good enough” bucket — and fails to get your stolen items returned (or increase sign-ups, generate leads, build community, boost sales or whatever you’re trying to achieve).
We’ve all visited confusing websites that left us clicking away within seconds. Likewise, other websites hooked us and kept our attention. As experts in web design and WordPress development, we do the hard stuff, recognizing the integral elements of a website that attract visitors, reduce friction and convert them into customers through a seamless experience.
Your website should be optimized to convert brand heat into commerce. We commonly see companies that get public relations placements in major publications or that excel at digital marketing but have an average website that fails to move their business forward. Talk about missed opportunities.
Responsive Website Design for Seamless User Experience Across Devices
How often have you tried visiting a website on your phone only for the content to fail to load or display in a wonky fashion? Way too many times, we’d guess.
In a digital world where nearly 65% of traffic is mobile, sites must be optimized across screen sizes. If your website doesn’t deliver a seamless experience across mobile devices and desktops, visitors might view your organization negatively.
Responsive design allows your pages to dynamically adapt for optimal viewing on smartphones, tablets, laptops and everything in between. From different operating systems to browsers, screen sizes and resolutions, creating a consistent and user-friendly experience across Apple and Android mobile devices can be challenging. By using frameworks and technologies that automatically adjust the content and design, this approach enables effective engagement no matter how site visitors access the internet.
While mobile-first design is essential, it’s just the beginning of creating a successful business website.
Compelling Visual Branding
Yes, responsive design creates a smooth cross-device experience, but a visually stunning brand design makes a strong initial impact. Today, your website is often the first impression and primary touch point for connecting with potential customers, so the website design elements must communicate your brand’s identity and promises!
Eye-catching hero images and visuals can help create a positive first impression, while a visually appealing and clutter-free design that includes white space, an easy-to-use navigation menu and clear site map organization upgrades the user experience.
Of course, your website’s branding, color scheme, typography and other visual elements all affect how visitors perceive your brand. Branding is about consistency. Consequently, a polished, professional and constant appearance across online platforms (social, ads, etc.) can help capture attention and interest while also building credibility and trust.
Great aesthetics and consistent branding alone are not enough if potential customers can’t even find your site though.
BEFORE
AFTER
Discoverability via Search Engine Optimization
Enter search engine optimization, or SEO. The process of improving the quality and quantity of organic website traffic to a website or a webpage from search engines, SEO focuses on researching keywords, optimizing metadata and publishing high-quality web content to improve your rankings and visibility.
SEO targets specific keywords that reflect what your target audience is searching for, helping drive qualified traffic to your site by making it easily discoverable. But, at the end of the day, our team recognizes that content must balance what crawling bots are looking for with the needs of the humans who ultimately decide whether to spend their money with you.
And part of that process involves ensuring your site performs well technically to deliver an excellent user experience.
Technical Performance, Site Speed and Security
In today’s online ecosystem, fast load speeds, minimal downtime and robust security are must-have elements of a website vs. nice-to-have luxuries.
- Quick-loading pages keep visitors engaged as they surf your site.
- Reliable uptime prevents frustration.
- And rock-solid security protects user data and privacy, boosting trust.
Even though these factors positively influence the UX and even your SERP rankings, your website still won’t meet your business goals without strong messaging that coordinates with your sales and marketing efforts.
Engaging and Persuasive Content that Converts Visitors into Customers
No matter how visually stunning or discoverable, a good website cannot win without effective content.
Engaging content can be your MVP in today’s digital age. Well-crafted website content attracts visitors, creates and sets expectations, nudges them to become customers, and helps your business score big wins. Just like intuitive navigation, persuasive copywriting can help guide visitors to take the action you want.
From attention-grabbing titles that hook visitors and encourage them to explore further to well-crafted content that highlights the benefits of your products or services and speaks directly to your target audience’s needs and desires to a well-worded and well-placed CTA button, great, keyword-rich website content is where the website game is won.
A results-driven communications agency, we align our integrated communications strategies with each client’s unique business to consistently communicate a comprehensive brand identity on every online channel. We do the hard stuff across projects and campaigns that include website development, content creation, public relations, digital marketing, social media and more so that you don’t have to worry about your image online.
Bringing the Elements of a Website Together for Online Success
By incorporating responsive design, strong visual appeal, discoverability, technical performance and persuasive content, your company website can help you connect with customers, earn their trust and move your business forward.
A visually stunning site does little good without the substance to back it up, and substance without aesthetics won’t capture audience attention. You need both to succeed online. That’s why our team of expert web designers specializes in crafting website experiences that attract, engage and convert.
