Consumers often make purchasing decisions based on a sense of identity. A visually appealing and up-to-date website can instill confidence in a consumer; it can help them see your brand as part of their own. If a visitor to your website doesn’t like what they see, or if it makes them feel confused or uncomfortable, they aren’t going to associate with your brand.

Your website design also reflects on the personality of your business. An outdated design will tell consumers that you are obsolete. A messy, disorganized web page will present your brand as careless and cheap.

Getting the design for a website just right is probably the biggest challenge for most small businesses. The most common mistakes occur when a website is outdated or trying to do too many things at once.

In this blog post, we’d like to go over how you can make sure your website is fresh and up-to-date so that your ideal consumer will find it engaging.

Keep your website design features up-to-date

If you haven’t redesigned your website in more than a decade, it is probably looking quite archaic. We still see websites that haven’t undergone a redesign since the beginning of the century. Most of the time, when users come across an antiquated website like that, they immediately bounce off of it. If you aren’t keeping up with new design trends, your website may be lagging and growing stale.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help determine if it is time to update your web design:

Do you use a responsive, mobile-friendly design? There are many reasons to utilize a responsive design on your website, including optimizing the load time of your web pages. Sites that aren’t mobile-friendly or take a long time to load are not going to rank well on search engines.
Do you provide valuable content that is easy to find? The content on your website should be well-written and useful to your potential customers. They have questions, and they are coming to your site to find answers. Make sure your content is up-to-date, published consistently, and easy to find.
Do you have an easy-to-follow web page layout? A well-organized layout makes it easy for your visitors to find the information they need. Providing a clear navigation bar and including a call to action right away will quickly direct them toward where you want them to go and the actions you want them to take.

Make your webpages visually appealing and easy to read

You have mere seconds to grab the attention of a visitor to your website. That’s precious little time to pique someone’s interest. Maintaining a visually-appealing website is vital as it can capture a gaze, inspire intrigue, and lead a potential customer to take action.

But how do you know if your web design is captivating or intriguing enough? Here are some simple strategies anyone can use to ensure they aren’t making common mistakes:

Make sure your font color doesn’t clash with the color of the background. Red letters on a blue background, for example, can give someone a headache. On that same note, don’t use busy patterns behind your text. You want visitors to be able to read every word.
Avoid too many graphics and images. Clutter can be confusing and make it difficult for visitors to your website to find relevant information.
Make sure the images used are of high enough quality not to be blurry, but not so high that they slow the load time of your web pages.
Focus on one target audience. Don’t try to appeal to everyone; this will only confuse people. Use the research you’ve gathered to focus in on your target audience and make your website appeal to them.
Keep everything consistent. You want the voice for your brand to carry through every aspect of your website. From written content to the color scheme, make sure everything appeals to your target audience.

Your website is essential to your brand, and consumers respond to your website in relation to their own identity. Thus, you want to make sure to keep up with trends that matter to your target consumer and trends that will keep your web design up-to-date.

There are plenty of tools out there to help you design a website for your business, but if you feel like you need professional help, you can employ the skills of a website design and digital marketing agency. Just make sure you choose a website design company with the experience and skills necessary to build your online presence and represent your brand well.

Need help with your web design? Partner with Zeekee, a Bell Media Company, for help designing the perfect website!

Zeekee’s parent company, Bell Media, is a digital marketing and website design agency headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. We are dedicated to helping businesses of all sizes design and build great websites that will help grow their online presence. Our team has years of experience in developing websites and creating great content. Let us help your business stand out from the crowd through responsive website design, hosting & support, custom logo design, and marketing collateral creation. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your business build an engaging and visually-appealing website.