Your company’s website should be one of your best marketing tools. If you’re going to invest in a new website, make sure it has the features and performance to bring in more leads. Balefire Marketing + Advertising is a top Wichita web design agency, and we’ve put together 10 important web design elements to fuel your business growth.
1. Focus on the User
Here’s a marketing secret most web designers won’t tell you: your website isn’t actually about you. It’s about your customer and how you can make their lives better. When you build a user-friendly website that focuses on solving your customers’ problems, you’ll automatically spark interest and conversions.
2. Responsive Website Design & Development
According to HubSpot, more than 54% of all website traffic in the world came from mobile devices in 2021. That means a website with a responsive design that adjusts to fit any screen size is a must. This involves more than just having a hamburger menu for navigation – all the key elements of your web pages should be easy to see & use on a mobile device without pinching and zooming.
Businesses in every industry should have a website that’s designed to make it easier to use on tablets, smartphones and desktop computers. Even B2B companies can benefit from responsive web design, because your site should look great whether your customers are on a widescreen computer display at the office or using their phone to look up your company at a trade show.
3. Strategy
Every good website should start with a strategy based on a firm understanding of the industry and the expected user experience. This strategy will guide the elements on the page, the navigation, the content, the images used, and the functionality of your website. For example, a restaurant website needs to focus on the food and making it easy to order, while a home services company website needs to build trust and authority.
4. User Experience
A website should be intuitive and enjoyable to use, with plenty of white space and images. The navigation should be clear and easy to access from any page. Website visitors should be able to quickly tell what a site offers and how to get it. This is called user experience (UX) design. Everything from the colors and fonts to the buttons and page layouts creates a visual hierarchy that guides the user through their journey from website visitor to customer.
5. Custom Website Design
Building a website with a pre-built template seems easy and affordable, and it’s where many companies start. But they offer limited design tools and design elements so you’re really only able to customize the color scheme.
A customized website design allows you to include features that give your customers a better experience. You can have a visual design that showcases your brand, allows customers to configure products, get a quote online, or watch videos to learn more about your company. All of which will drive your potential customers to become buyers.
6. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) & Analytics
You can have the greatest website on the entire internet, but it won’t do any good if no one can find it. Your website should be designed and developed with search engine optimization in mind. That means it’s coded correctly, there are landing pages for specific offers and services, the correct keywords are used, and more. This will ensure your site gets indexed and shows up in search results so you can get more traffic and more leads.
Additionally, every website should have Google Analytics installed with tracking for all the important actions customers may take on your site. These conversions can include calling your business, submitting a contact form, downloading a PDF lead magnet, signing up for a newsletter, and more.
7. Content Management Tools
Consider what will happen if you need to make changes or add content to your website after it goes live. Without a content management system (CMS), you’ll have to pay a web developer every time you want to update your website. But a CMS like WordPress allows you to easily edit 95% of your website yourself.
8. Calls to Action
Don’t make your potential customers guess how to do business with you. Clear calls to action in the form of buttons and clickable phone numbers make it easy for a web visitor to become a buyer.
9. Social Media Integration
Make it easy for your customers to interact with you on social media and to share your website content with their friends. Integrating social sharing capabilities and adding links to your social profiles helps your business get in front of potential new customers without any extra work from you.
10. Branding
Your website needs strategic branding to build a strong, memorable web presence your audience identifies with. This goes beyond adding your logo and a complementary color. There’s a lot of science behind the impact typography, colors and even the words used on your website can have on your customers.
Time For a New Website That Sparks Business Growth?
Balefire Marketing + Advertising has been designing websites that get leads for more than a decade. We incorporate these top 10 important web design elements into every website we build. You can see our web design portfolio for examples of our work or learn more about our web design & development services. We serve companies of all sizes that are located anywhere in the U.S., and we’re not limited to specific industries, so if you’d like to find out how we could help your business grow, let’s talk.