Web Design As An Effective Digital Marketing Strategy
How web design can be used effectively as a digital marketing strategy to promote your product, service or business brand?
There are a number of reasons why brands spend a lot of time, money and effort on great website design. Many of them just want to have an attractive appearance. Only a few take into account the impact it will have on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Digital Marketing is mainly concerned with promoting your brand and what you offer. Therefore, you need to design pages within your website with this in mind.
A lot of brands have realized how important Web Design works as a digital marketing strategy. Therefore, they have made efforts to redesign their websites, though this won’t necessarily improve their rankings on search results. Instead, it affects how responsive their site is and even increases bounce rates.
Most websites are designed to fulfill only one or two aspects of digital marketing needs. That is why website owners need to start taking advantage of tools that improve online marketing campaigns as a whole.
Web Design for Effective Brand Building
When building your online brand, you need professionals to design the pages of your site. This is because technical malfunctions are easily noticed by any user. You can ensure that the quality of your website is maintained, by simply avoiding any design element that will slow down the loading speed of your site. Your website has to allow users to navigate easily and access your products. If not, they tend to ‘bounce off’ to another site. This will create a bad impression that will affect your brand. Therefore, make sure your site is engaging and gives users a great perception of your brand.
Colour, logo, and images make your website aesthetically engaging, but it’s wise to set up the overall layout to reflect the ideology of your brand.
For example, Steve Jobs promoted Apple as a brand that is focused on simplicity. He made users believe that Apple products are easy-to-use. Imagine going on their website and realizing that you can’t even navigate to the store. Would you still hang on said impression of that brand? That is why the design of your website has to resonate with what your brand is all about. This makes it easy for you to promote your products and services, eventually, leading to a successful digital marketing strategy.
Impact of Web Design on User Experience
When planning effective advertising of your brand, keep user experience in mind. There are likely to be multiple clicks on your URL simultaneously from different users. Therefore, your website needs to be designed to accommodate all of them at any time. Make sure the loading speed doesn’t slow down – regardless of the device being used.
Google considers page load time as a factor in ranking sites in its search results. Therefore, users with high-speed internet also expect fast-loading web pages. But when your website has a lot of embedded videos, it slows down the loading speed. Unnecessary plugins, widgets and large images also affect page load time. This has a drastic effect on user experience. Your main aim is to satisfy the user. Therefore, build your website with that in mind. Don’t keep uploading flashy images or videos that add no value to the page.
Videos and images say a thousand words, but you wouldn’t want to lose a thousand visitors who are tired of waiting for those files to load. You will need to compress the large files and delete those that are not important to the page.
When putting up ads, place them either at the bottom or top of the page. Users get turned off when they see ads taking up the whole screen. This makes it difficult for them to navigate through your page easily. You can either use sliding ads or include only relevant ads in the simplest manner. Keeping all these factors in place will help you execute the right digital marketing strategy making your company succeed online.
Does Web Design Affect SEO?
Indirectly, yes. Google updated its Panda algorithm some years ago. This made website owners avoid duplicating content for different versions of their websites. Google’s Mobile-First index also made others improve the mobile versions of their own websites. This is because duplicating the content on both versions affects your SEO.
When designing a new version of your site, it’s wise to for it. Tailor the pages to meet Google’s requirements. Make it easy for users to access any version via the device and browser it’s created for. You can index the version of your site that has the most or fastest-growing visits. Add outbound links leading to the other versions. Once a mobile device user can access your website’s mobile version from anywhere, you’re using the right digital marketing strategy. You wouldn’t want them zooming a Desktop version on their phone. Therefore, make it easy for them to find your call-to-action buttons.
How Web Design Optimises Conversion Rate
The way in which a site is designed shows the user how authoritative the brand is. It’s important to design your website with an overall feel of authority. No matter how simple the outlook might be, make sure it looks credible enough. Once visitors come to your page, they will want to feel comfortable. This will determine whether they will come back (or not). An engaging website donned with a flawless digital marketing strategy helps you convert them from potential customers to loyal consumers.
If your pages include Social Media buttons, visitors are likely to take time in sharing your content with other users. This will drive traffic to your website and convert more visitors into loyal buyers. However, a complex web design will not even allow users to locate your sharing icons easily. This doesn’t mean that you should make your welcome page blank and plain. There are themes and designs that are beautiful, abstract and creative. They are also simple enough to allow easy navigation. Make use of them and keep improving the user experience.
Conclusion
Web Design makes Digital Marketing easier. It’s also an effective way of promoting your products and services. But there are many other marketing techniques that can boost your sales. Take advantage of them and generate authentic leads that will drive traffic to your page. Social Media Marketing, Pay Per Click, email listing and Influencer Marketing are considered to be the future of Digital Marketing. These are strategies you can combine to achieve the desired results.
Therefore, bring the techniques together when designing your website. This will go a long way to keeping your customers engaged. There might be some strategies or tools you feel are more important than others. They may end up boosting your conversion rates or lead to an increase in bounce rates, but with the right Web Design and other Digital Marketing strategies, you can promote your brand and spend less on Digital Marketing campaigns.
Since, web design embraces a legion of variables including layout, graphics, content, Search Engine Optimization and Conversion Rate Optimization.