An organization’s website is their virtual curb appeal. Similar to the physical housing market, real estate on search engine result pages is increasingly competitive, which means it is more important than ever to keep your website both functional and visually appealing. According to a recent study on the psychology of web users, 48% of people cited website design as the #1 factor in deciding the credibility of a business. On average, you have 3 seconds to capture users’ attention when they land on your webpage. Therefore, developing a website to represent your brand is vital to making a good impression on your audience.
However, a productive website is so much more than choosing an appealing theme. A home with a beautiful facade is worth nothing if its foundation is unstable. In the same way, an aesthetically-pleasing website must be healthy on the internal side to truly be effective.
We live in a generation of the digital era that allows wide access to free website design software, where creatives can build a relatively impressive website with no coding experience needed. However, the good-looking templates fail to offer the custom programming that define your website’s performance and enhance user experience.
A gap occurs between a generic 2-dimensional design and a multidimensional experience. Strategically utilizing elements like hover effects, click behavior, conversion paths, and interactivity elevates a website to anticipate user behavior and improve their overall navigation. Not only does strategic design of a website’s internal structure optimize its functionality, it allows your website to be seen. Taking the time to strategically embed meta tags, or internal page descriptions, within a page’s source code will clue search engines to your website’s content and then assist the algorithm in distributing your site to the intended audience.
The fact of the matter is that Google and search engines alike do not care how the theme of your website looks aesthetically. Instead, their algorithms make their evaluations for results pages based on the internal quality of your websites. A strategic website design can improve how your website measures up to impress search engines and therefore effectively reach your audience. Google is now ranking websites higher based on their mobile optimization scores and load times. The bottom line to designing a quality website is to keep the algorithm in mind.
In our recent build-out of a client’s new website, Swanson Girard, we created a website that is externally
eye-catching, informative, and easy to navigate. Below the surface however, the website is so much more than what is visible to users. With the use of meta tags, mobile optimization, a content delivery network, and a secure web hosting server, we delivered a quality product to our clients that will be reliable, and more importantly, meet their goals of expanding their online reach and rankings.