The title of this article may sound like a fairly obvious statement. Your website should work in harmony with your marketing efforts in an effort to add value and improve your brand image. Unfortunately, companies and brands often forget this sentiment and miss out on a golden opportunity to improve their value in the eyes of the customer.
Website Design Ledger offers some extremely helpful advice for companies looking to add value to their brand through web design. These tips are not only helpful in improving brand image, but it also helps in giving your customers an easy, comfortable experience.
If your site is too full of content or overly complicated, potential customers may be turned off or they might believe your company is trying to do too much. A simple and clean design not only helps direct the user, but it portrays a more professional image for your company.
Don't try to do too much with your website. If you keep your goals simple and your website design simple, customers should feel more confident in your business.
Your website might be the first thing a user sees from your company. Is it leaving a positive first impression? From the buttons and links to the colors and graphics, make sure you're creating a warm and welcoming experience from the first moment the user logs on. If the user isn't sure where to go or if they have a hard time finding an answer to their question, the odds of them trusting your company are slim to none.
Make sure your site addresses the needs of the customer. Too often a company will view their site without considering the needs of those actually using it. It's important to stop and consider why the user is checking out your site and what they hope to gain from it. Consider their perspective and design your site from that angle.
Your marketing efforts (social media, email, online and others) should all be tied through your website. If you're using one color scheme and design for your emails and a completely different one on your site, the customer may have trouble linking all of your efforts together. Your site and your marketing materials should all be connected.
There you have it. Those are just a few tips you can use when assessing your site's effectiveness when it comes to promoting your brand's image. A strong design and simple layout can be the difference between a new customer and a lost opportunity. If you'd like to discuss your site's appearance and functionality further, shoot Seafoam Media a message. We'd love to make your website work for you.