Why Every Industrial Company Needs a Modern Website Design
A business’s online presence, regardless of industry, can have a massive impact on its success. In this day and age, some businesses still don’t realize that a majority of their customers will visit their website before making a purchase.
Having a strong online presence, particularly a website, can be a make or break for generating more revenue. Yes, the quality of your website impacts results, but the purpose of this article is to stress the importance of making sure you have a website.
I’ve helped numerous companies of varying sizes create their digital presences. In some cases, organizations are hesitant to get online because they feel they are not tech-savvy enough and don’t understand how to manage a website. Other times, companies are concerned about the price.
The good news is that there’s a solution out there that will work for you. If you still need convincing, here are the top reasons it’s important for your business to have a website:
- Credibility
One of the main reasons you should have a website for your business is to increase your organization’s credibility. Chances are there are several providers offering a similar service to yours. One way you can stand out is by having a website that looks good and clearly communicates quality information to your consumers.
Without a website, people may question your legitimacy as a business. Having a website is an opportunity to make a great first impression and give people comfort that you’re a real business.
- Brand
Showcasing your brand to your prospective customers is one of the most important things that you can do. By clearly establishing who you are, what you represent, and what you stand for, you increase the chances of your customers buying from you.
This is also something that can set you apart from your competitors. Without a website, it can be incredibly challenging to do this because people can’t easily find quality and reliable information on your business.
- Leads
Perhaps one of the most intriguing reasons to have a website for your business is because it can increase your chances of getting leads.
Once people find you online, become interested in your product or service, and want to know more, they’ll know how to contact you thanks to the information on your website, which gives you the opportunity to increase your sales. Even though websites have a cost, when used correctly, they have a positive ROI.
- Organic Traffic
Once you’re online and have an SEO-optimized website, you have a chance of showing up in Google search results. This means that when people are searching for a product or service, there is a chance your website will show up in the results. This gives you the opportunity to drastically increase your customer base.
- Saving You Time + Customer Service
Many businesses get calls from prospects or existing customers asking simple questions about location and hours of operation. If you miss a call, the customer is left unhappy. Calls can also distract your staff from focusing on the most important parts of your business. A website can reduce these calls and increase internal productivity. At the same time, it helps customers find useful information without needing to call, which ultimately provides an all-around better user experience.
- Updates And Announcements
Since your website is on 24/7, it’s easy to post updates and announcements to your customers. It’s a way to keep them up to date on everything that you’re doing. When something is particularly relevant to them, it increases the chance of you being able to upsell them.
- Digital Marketing
If you plan on leveraging digital marketing to increase your leads and grow your business, you’ll likely want to drive traffic to a website or landing page. To do this effectively, leverage historic traffic that has been going to your website so you can target the most qualified customers and get the best ROI on your ad spend. This is something that can’t be set up retroactively, so it is best to get your website running early even if you’re not planning on running ads at the moment.
Websites have become essential to business today. I strongly recommend creating one if you haven’t done so already. You can improve it over time, but the key is to start.
Why web design is important
As you look into redesigning your website, you may wonder about the importance to website design. How does it impact your audience and your business? Let’s look at five reasons web design is important.
- It sets the first impression
When your audience visits your website, it gives them their first impression of your business. They will judge your business within seconds. In these first few seconds, you want to make a positive impact on your audience.
If your website looks unappealing or outdated, your audience will immediately have a negative impression of your business. They won’t find your website appealing, which deters them from your page. You’ll miss out on leads because they’ll leave your page for a competitor’s page.
Web design is important because it impacts how your audience perceives your brand. The impression you make on them can either get them to remain on your page and learn about your business or leave your page and turn to a competitor. A good web design helps you keep your leads on your page.
- It aids your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy
Many web design elements and practices influence how you publish content on your website, which in turn affects how search engine spiders crawl and index your website.
This is one thing you cannot afford to mess up. If your on-page SEO fundamentals are not up to snuff, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle for visibility from the start.
Aside from how content is published on your website, certain web design elements can directly affect SEO in and of themselves. Web design can be difficult to understand if you’re not familiar with how it works, but to put it simply, your code needs to be SEO-friendly.
The best way to ensure proper web design practices (and subsequent search engine visibility) is to partner up with a web design agency that knows what they’re doing.
- It sets the impression for customer service
People can judge how you will treat them by looking at your website. Your design gives them insight as to how you view your audience. If you don’t put any effort into your website’s design, your audience knows that you won’t put effort into helping them.
Your website is like a customer service representative. If your website is bright, modern, and inviting, your audience will feel more welcome on your page. You’ll give the impression that you are open and welcoming to new people who visit your website.
On the other hand, an outdated and unappealing site makes your business appear cold and aloof. People don’t want to check out a business that doesn’t value them enough to make a good first impression.
Think of your web design as the digital face of your business. If someone walked into your physical location, wouldn’t you want a friendly face to greet them and make them feel welcome? An updated and modern web design is the equivalent to a friendly face greeting your new visitors.
- It builds trust with your audience
People don’t trust poorly designed websites. If they see your poor design or the information looks outdated, they won’t trust your site. They may view your site as seedy or shady because you don’t have an updated web design.
Think about a person looking to place a bulk order with a manufacturing company. They’re spending a tremendous amount of money, which means if your manufacturing website design doesn’t convey trust, they’ll find another business to fulfill their order.
On the other hand, a professional site signals trust with your audience. They will trust your business and feel comfortable checking it out further.
It’s important to build trust with your audience so they remain on your site. When visitors remain on your site longer, you create more opportunities for your business to capture those leads.
- Your competitors are doing it
If you need a reason for why web design is important, here’s a big one: Your competitors are already utilizing web design. If you want to remain in competition with them, you must use web design for your site.
You want your website to stand out from the competition. If you have an old, outdated, and low-quality website, your competitor’s will outrank you. Their well-designed website will perform better than your website.
This means you’ll lose leads to your competitors. They’ll attract more leads to their page because their page is more appealing.
Your website’s design is an opportunity for you to set your business apart from the competition. When you’re competing with other businesses, you generally have the same services and similar pricing. You need that one thing that will make your business stand out from the rest.
A well-designed website is an opportunity for your business to showcase your unique features. You can show your audience why they should choose your business over the competition.
- It creates consistency
When you’re trying to get new leads for your business, you want to build up your brand. You want your audience to get familiar with your brand so they choose you when they’re ready to convert. Online web designs are important because they help create consistency across your page.
You need to have the same fonts, styles, and layouts across every page on your website. If you have a different design on every page, this will make your site look unprofessional. It also makes it more challenging to build brand recognition because your audience won’t know which colors to associate with your brand.
If your website is not consistent, people will bounce from yours to one that looks more professional. By building consistency, you keep leads on your page longer and get them familiar with your business. You’ll earn more leads and conversions down the line when you redesign your site for this key element.
7 important elements of quality web design
Now that you know the web design importance, it’s time to start looking at elements that make a quality design. Here are seven key elements you’ll want to incorporate into your web design.
- Solid navigation
When users access your site, they want to access information quickly and easily. If you want leads to remain on your page, you must implement a navigation that is easy for your audience to use.
Your audience doesn’t want to struggle to find information. They want to access your navigation bar and easily be directed to the information they need. If your navigation is poor, you’ll discourage your audience from engaging on your page.
Visitors’ attention spans are short. If you want to keep them on your page, you must help them access information quickly. A properly designed navigation will help them get to the information they need.
Your navigation should be simple and self-explanatory. Include broad headings that encompass numerous subtopics, so your audience can easily find the information they need. This is the easiest way for you to help your audience find information fast.
- Responsive design
With the growth in mobile devices, responsive design is more important than ever. Your audience will access your site from a multitude of devices, including smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers. If you want these leads to remain on your site, you must ensure that each person has a positive experience.
Responsive design ensures that your audience has a good experience on your site, regardless of the device they use. Your website will adapt to the device to ensure that your website is sized appropriately for their device. This is valuable for keeping leads engaged and interested in your site.
Responsive design keeps leads engaged on your page longer. If you want to have a successful website design, you must integrate responsive design.
- Style guide
As we stated previously, one reason why web design is important is because it creates consistency across your entire website. Consistency helps your audience build brand recognition and keeps them engaged on your page longer. A style guide will help you keep a consistent brand image on your website.
Your style guide is the basis for how you want your website to look. You decide the color, format, typography, and more, for every page on your website. This ensures that every time someone adds an element to your site it is consistent with other pages.
You’ll help your team creates consistency across your website, too. They can reference your style guide anytime they add an element to your site. It makes it easier for different people to work on your website and add elements to it.
When you have a consistent design across your website, you create a more cohesive site. Your audience will engage on your site longer and build brand recognition. This will help you earn more conversions down the line.
- Purposeful visuals
Companies are quick to integrate visual elements because they help improve engagement on a website. In fact, customers are 10 times more likely to interact with a video than text.
While visual elements are great for engagement and breaking up text, some businesses go overboard with the images. Their sites are crowded with photos and videos. It makes the site feel overwhelming and cluttered.
You may think that it’s great to integrate and abundance of photos and videos to increase engagement, but it can become overwhelming if there are too many. Too many images makes it difficult to read on the page.
If you want to see success with your site, you must create a balance between images and text on your page. Don’t add visual elements for the sake of trying to increase engagement as much as possible.
Use visual elements purposefully. If you have a block of text detailing your services, integrate a video below that text that explains your services further. This still gives your audience a point of interest to interact with and keeps them engaged.
When you know why web design is important, you make more tactful decisions about your site. As you build your dream website, it’s crucial that you don’t overload your site with too many visual elements.
- Good copy
Your audience visits your website to obtain important information. It’s important that when you include information on your site, you write quality copy.
Writing good copy keeps your audience engaged on the page longer. They’ll read all your information and learn about your business. Your style of writing should align with the style of your website for consistency.
The content on your site matters just as much as the overall design, so it’s necessary for you to provide your audience with valuable information they need.
- Call-to-action (CTA) buttons
Once you have leads on your site, you want to guide them towards converting. A key element of that is your call-to-action (CTA) button. Web design importance is evident when you’re trying to get your audience to act.
A well-designed CTA button will get your audience to proceed to the next step. These buttons fit into your design but stand out on the page. Your audience’s eye immediately goes to these buttons.
If you had a color scheme of black, white, gray, and yellow, a yellow CTA button would stand out on the page compared to these other colors. It still fits with the scheme, but people will automatically be drawn towards a bright yellow button.
By integrating CTA buttons into your website’s design, you’ll help drive better results on your page.
- Page speed
You can have an awesome website design, but it won’t matter if your audience never gets to see it. Page speed is an important element of web design. It ensures that your page loads quickly, so your audience can access information fast.
Your audience hates to wait for slow loading pages. If your page takes too long to load, your audience will lose interest. They will return to the search results and select a competitor’s page instead.
You can check your page’s speed by using Google PageSpeed Insights. This tool allows you to see how quickly your site currently loads and where you can make improvements. You must make these improvements on your own.
The other option is to rely on page speed services from a digital marketing company. This allows you to reap the benefits of a fast loading page, while focusing on running your business.
Industrial Website Design Must-Haves
Everything on your website — images, content, navigation, and other website basic elements — needs to be customized specifically to your audience and your industry if you want it to work as a lead generation tool. With that in mind, there are definitely certain traits that all great websites have in common and that your website needs to be successful. They are:
- Clean Design
- Branded Elements
- Prominent Logo
- Mobile Responsive
- Intuitive Navigation
- Easy-To-Use-Forms
- HTTPS Encryption
- A Contact Us Page
- Great Content
A truly effective website gets found online, engages visitors, and encourages them to submit a form to be contacted.
