Do you know about the top 4 key areas to focus on for a high-ranking website? In this article, we will tell you everything you must know. Have you been feeling as if your business is struggling to stand out in a crowded industry? Well, you’re not alone. With an ever-changing marketplace, it’s getting more and more difficult for brands to become established without significant effort and investment. Fortunately, there are web design services in London that can help cut costs considerably, whilst ensuring your success. Let me take you through my experiences and detail what high-quality web design professionals did to help my business grow.
One of the first considerations I was made aware of is that visual appeal, paired with functionality, has become an increasingly important criterion of web design. Working with experienced designers helped me to save time and costs, whilst increasing profitability.
Visually attractive websites with good usability will help you to achieve your goals. Simply put, your website should be focused on driving visitors to your site and giving them the content they’ve come to look for.
What have web designers in the UK taught me?
Your website is more than just a digital flag that people travel to on the highway that is the internet. Your website is your representative and ambassador, working hard to increase brand visibility, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And just as in the physical world, your rep will be required to be informative, smart, intuitive, presentable, and most importantly – business-generating.
When building a website, the designer’s end goal is to create a site that ranks as highly as possible on search engines. Ranking highly with search engine results pages (SERPs) means that a high amount of organic traffic will be directed to your webpage. There is a myriad of parameters that search engines like Google and Bing use to identify websites and attribute them with a higher ‘score’. A number of these parameters can be categorized as ‘UX’ – the user experience.
Google has established the bedrock of good user experience and it includes four major ‘hows’:
- How engaged the user is
- How fast the website is
- How responsive the site is
- How reliable is the content/site is
Engagement
For a website to be considered engaging, it needs to grab the attention of visitors who know exactly what they’re looking for. When visitors are not able to find what they’re looking for or are confused by the way the site is designed – the ‘bounce rate’ is sure to rise. This means they leave your website seconds after their arrival, without making a purchase or seeking contact.
As times have changed, so have the sentiments of the average consumer. A dull and unappealing website throwing a tonne of information at visitors is not likely to succeed, no matter how much the business tries. In fact, in 2021, a poorly designed website will actively damage the reputation of the company or brand it represents, the ripples of which may be felt for years to come.
According to a battery of studies conducted on the effects of web design on consumer behavior, it was revealed that it took no more than 50 milliseconds for a visitor to make a judgment on whether they would continue using the website, or leave. The same study also found that visual appeal was the sole factor that determined their choice.
Speed
The fact that search engines use load time speed as a metric should not be a surprise to anyone. Times have changed dramatically from the age of dial-up connections. Practically every nation on the earth has access to the internet. Most countries today enjoy the privilege of high-speed connectivity, which has enabled us to consume tremendous amounts of content, almost instantaneously.
Patience is no longer considered a virtue, but a mark of bad service. Having to wait for long periods of time to retrieve the information you need is not a good investment of time. If your webpage is slow to load, you can be sure that the user will have left your site for a competitor within the first 3.5 seconds of waiting.
A good example to consider is the social media platform Pinterest. By decreasing the load time of their website by one second, Pinterest.com recorded a 15% increase in registrations. Inversely, data collected by the Search Engine Journal revealed that a one-second delay in load time has cost websites nearly $2.5 million in annual revenue. Take note that these numbers are not merely statistics, they are researched, and documented and prove that slow-loading websites are more likely to fail in comparison to quick ones.
Statistics from e-commerce juggernauts like Amazon.com reveal that users now expect instant gratification when they search for goods online. If and when things do not go the way they want them to – bounce rates increase
Responsiveness
Research-backed data teaches us a great deal about the nature of present-day consumers. In the United Kingdom, recent estimates suggest that 90% of all search engine queries are performed on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. A majority of these queries are directly related to making a purchase online.
The number of mobile shoppers globally has experienced a tremendous increase over the past decade, and the UK is no exception. For this reason, search engines like Google and Bing prioritize websites that look great and deliver a good experience across all devices. The term for this is ‘responsiveness’.
A responsive website is one that allows users the opportunity to view content from any device of their choosing, without having to compromise visual appeal or function. Responsiveness has now become a fundamental component of effective web design.
Content
Images and text make up the majority of your website. If information is what people come to your site for, the content you present them with has to be relevant, well-structured, and attractive. In many cases, there is little to no attention being paid to the quality of content being published.
In the digital world, content is king, and the king demands attention. Poorly designed content with broken structures or unattractive layouts will not only confuse visitors but also drive them away. What are the chances of you recommending a business or website that has given you a poor experience? The answer is zero.
Companies that do not focus on the fundamental design aspects of their website are setting themselves up for failure. It’s no surprise that many mid-sized businesses like mine have begun to realize the importance of their digital presence, and hence invest millions of pounds each year on creating relevant, engaging experiences. Web design agencies offer tailor-made solutions to address current and future business goals.
In my experience, WebChoice UK is one of the most reliable web designers in the UK. I found the solutions they provided to be focused on the value my business would generate. Their team carefully explains the finer details and chalks out a plan that’s been customized to fit my requirements. If you’re looking for ROI-oriented web design services in the UK, my suggestion would be to connect with WebChoice UK today. These guys know what they’re talking about!
