subject: Why A Professional Website Design Is Essential For Your Business [print this page] Before the internet, it was essential for all businesses to have a Yellow Pages listing for their products or services to be found. This worked well for years, despite the limiting sizes of the ads in it. Since the internet has been developed, more and more businesses have moved towards this platform, as it provides them with a far greater scope to deal with their customers or clients. And so, to provide a positive look to their potential clients, a professional looking website design is very necessary.
Why is this so? Consider your business to one of your competitors. You both have a website, yours is built by an amateur, prehaps a family member. It saves you money, it has all your information on it, but the look and feel of the site is lacking. It's fine, it's ok, but nothing special.
In contrast, your competitor has a professionally designed website. It has incorporated into it latest web technologies, it looks great, very professional, has plenty of media and user interaction, and of course has all the business information too.
A potential client is searching for a solution to a problem. By chance, he finds your site first. He clicks on it, and has a quick look around, nothing catches his eye, and so he clicks the back button.
Your competitor's site is next on the list. The potential client clicks on his link and is taken to his site. Instantly he is drawn to it. He can see that the site is professionally constructed, and spends more time searching for the information required. In fact, because it is well designed and the information is presented in a logical manner, the would be client finds it very quickly, and proceeds to make contact with the business.
Essentially, your competitor has snatched business right out of your hands because your site did not present your business in the right manner. On average, a website visitor spends around 7 seconds before making the decision to stay, or hit the back button. Therefore good website design is essential to keeping your visitor on your site, before leading them to a call to action.
Because a website is likely to be one of the first times a client has contact with your business, you want to present a good first impression. If your site is professional looking, pleasing to the eye, has easy to use and understandable navigation, along with clear and concisely written content, they are likely to stay and read more.
Their visit to your site gives you the first steps to forming a relationship with them, and building up trust. If this is done properly, then you may even have repeat business in the future with them. After all, it's far easier to keep the customer you have, rather than looking for new ones.
Good website design goes a long way to helping you lay the foundations to forming a lasting relationship with a customer. If you can be as professional in presenting your business with a great looking website, then the chances are you will be very professional to deal with. Presentation is everything.
