5 Reasons Why You Must Have a Good Website Design
So here you are. Somehow you stumbled upon KeshiaMWhite.com, and you're probably a blogger or entrepreneur who has noticed that creating a good website design seems to take a lot of effort. It’s almost a catch 22 because it can be costly if you hire a web designer and if you take the DIY route, it can be time consuming because you'll probably be fumbling your way through it.
I bet you're probably wondering, "Why do I need to do all of this to create a good website design anyway? What’s the point? Will this even be beneficial for me?" Well...I know from personal experience that having a great website design is crucial to get noticed in your industry, to get offers for collaborations, and to grow your business and blog audience. This is because the main purpose of a website is to quickly show people what you do, who you are, and how you benefit them, in a way that is easy to understand and navigate.
“A website should quickly show people what you do, who you are, and how you benefit them.”
When I first started my lifestyle blog, The Queen Life, I designed my website myself, without any help. It was just a personal, passion project, at the time, and my website design was terrible. My website traffic was very low and the page views were even lower. By examining my website analytics, I could tell that most of my visitors looked at one page and then left my site. As time went on, I learned more and more about web design through courses and research, and I made vast improvements to my website. This helped me to greatly increase my page views and I even started to get offers for collaborations with brands.
The bottom line is: people are VISUAL and they’re judging your business or blog based on its appearance, whether you like it or not. If you’re doing it strictly as a hobby, then the appearance of your website doesn’t matter as much, but if you’re trying to monetize your efforts, you need to invest in a website design that’s quality, easy to navigate, and that showcases your blog or business in the best light possible. You can invest in this by hiring a web designer or by using resources online to develop a web design and brand on your own.
Here are the top five reasons why it is crucial for you to have a quality website design.
1. A quality website design makes you more credible and helps build trust
When you look like you “have your ish together,” people are much more likely to pay attention to what you’re saying or doing. If your website is hard to navigate, unorganized, or lacks a clear purpose, people are more likely to view you as someone who isn’t serious about what you’re doing. A good website builds trust and that makes people more prone to purchase from you or collaborate with you. Credibility CAN be built through the web, but you must present yourself in a quality way to do so. Think about the websites that you visit. If it’s hard to find what you’re looking for or if you are greeted with a dated and low quality web design, what does it make you think about that business or blog?
“A good website builds trust & that makes people more prone to purchase from you or collaborate with you.”
2. Good website design allows people to get a clear picture of who you are and what you do
People should be able to immediately tell what the focus of your business or blog is once they visit your website. I’ve seen lots of websites that seem “all over the place.” People with websites like that have the hardest time when it comes to building an audience or a customer base. If people do not know what purpose your website serves or what you want them to do once they get there, they’ll leave and you’ll never get a chance to get your point across to them.
3. An organized website design allows people to easily reach you for press, features, or collaborations
For bloggers and entrepreneurs, it’s crucial that people are able to reach you for collaborations, press features, etc. If your website is confusing to the point where people have to click around a lot to figure out how to get in touch with you, they will probably not reach out to you. You never know what opportunities and money you’re missing out on when you do not make it easy for people to contact you.
Related: 3 Tips to Make a Website Easy to Navigate for More Traffic & Page Views
4. People search for you on the web first and if your website is not up to par, that’s a bad first impression
Nowadays, people often search for everything on the web first to verify how legit it is. I know I do it all the time and if I visit a business website that’s vague or that doesn’t do a great job of showing off what they do, I immediately I get a bad first impression of them. It becomes harder for me to take them seriously as a business and I’ll most likely end up on the website of one of their competitors, who has done a better job of website design and branding. You want people to have an effortless and easy experience when they visit your website.
5. A good website design helps you to attract readers/customers that you wouldn’t otherwise reach
With a quality website, you have a chance to attract many more blog readers and/or customers via search engines, like Google. With the right keywords incorporated into your site, your website will be much more likely to appear in search results, and if you have everything up to par when someone arrives to your website, people will be more likely to stick around, to remember you, and to visit your site again.
Related: 4 Steps for Branding Your Business or Blog
Have you put any effort into improving your website design before, as a blogger or entrepreneur? Did you notice better results from it? Are there any particular improvements that you are planning to make to your website soon? Definitely share in the comments below. I love to hear how your businesses and blogs are evolving!
