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Design has a 75% influence on a website’s credibility. If your site doesn’t impress consumers, they’ll leave. You could miss a chance to boost leads and sales as a result.

Meanwhile, your bounce rate will rise, hurting your search engine ranking. A lower ranking could impact your ability to generate traffic in the future. 

In fact, the majority of visitors won’t return to a site if it failed to meet their expectations. 

You only have 10 seconds to make a strong first impression on users. With these six tips, you can improve that impact. Instead of scaring customers away, you can draw more people to your business.

Discover how to improve your website design with these six simple tips today. 

1. Know Your Target Audience

Before anything else, learn about your target audience. The more you know your customers, the more likely you’ll impress them. You can appeal to their distinct needs and interests to draw them in. 

In fact, over 70% of customers get frustrated when a website has nothing to do with their interests. Over 60% expect personalization as a standard of service. 

Personalizing your website and content could benefit your bottom line. In fact, 80% of consumers are more likely to shop when brands personalize experiences. Personalization can deliver eight times the ROI on your marketing budget, too. 

First, determine who your customers are. If you’re focused on a broad audience, segment them into groups.

You can create your buyer personas based on:

• Age
• Location
• Gender
• Household income
• Buying behaviors
• Language
• Education
• Marital status
• Interests
• Pain points

Once you know who your customers are, you can adjust your language and design based on that audience. Try to write the same way your customers speak. You might have an easier time connecting with them as a result.

Your customers will see that you understand their wants and needs. They might decide to explore your content further.

Then, you can direct them to a solution to their problems by urging them to contact you for help. 

2. Boost Branding

As you adjust your web design, it’s important to keep your branding in mind. Brand consistency can boost brand awareness and recognition. Consumers might have an easier time recalling your business in the future.

Your brand includes your:

• Mission statement
• Vision statement
• Voice
• Tone
• Personality
• Logo
• Color scheme
• Font styles
• Image/photo styles

Once you establish your branding, keep it consistent across every page of your website. Otherwise, you could confuse people. They might think they’re on a different site.

Make sure your branding is consistent across your entire marketing strategy, too.

Usually, your website makes your first impression with customers. You can introduce them to your brand and remain top-of-mind. 

3. Optimize for Speed

If you want to impress your customers, make sure your website is fast. Otherwise, they could get frustrated. They might leave your site without clicking around.

Remember, if they leave, your bounce rate will rise. You could struggle to reach customers in the future.

Instead, run your website through Google’s PageSpeed Insights. Determine what’s causing your website to lag.

Consider working with an experienced web design and development agency. They can catch potential issues with your site. 

When making adjustments to your site, make sure to focus on the desktop and mobile versions. 

People who have a negative experience on mobile are 62% less likely to make future purchases. It doesn’t matter how beautiful or data-driven your marketing campaigns are.

Even a one-second lag in mobile load times can hurt your conversions by 20%.

Optimize your website for speed to improve the user experience (UX). A positive experience can keep people on your pages longer. You could increase the chances of gaining leads, sales, and conversions with a faster site. 

4. Use White Space

If you want to make a strong first impression with website visitors, take a look at your homepage. Does the page look cluttered? It’s possible you’re not leaving enough space between pieces of content.

Consider adding more white space to your pages. White space can give your content room to breathe.

It can also help you guide users down the page. Your dwell time and clickthrough rate could improve. Improving these metrics can benefit your search engine ranking.

As you use these tips for designing a website, try to see your content from the user’s point of view. What is the purpose of the page? What pieces of information are they looking for?

Make sure each page has a purpose. Remove content that doesn’t suit that purpose.

Removing content could help you find ways to add more negative space.

5. Get Mobile-Friendly

Make sure to run your site through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. If your site isn’t mobile-optimized, get to it! Google uses mobile-first indexing to determine rankings. 

About 97% of Americans own a cellphone. About 15% of American adults are smartphone-only internet users, too. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you could struggle to reach these customers.

Instead, optimize your website for smaller screens. Test both versions of your site as you use these tips for designing a website. 

Consider the builder you’re using, too. You can click here for more info.

6. Improve Readability

If you want to make a strong first impression with website visitors, make sure your content is easy to read. Otherwise, you could overwhelm visitors. They could leave.

First, make sure to organize your navigation bar. Make sure it’s easy for visitors to find the information they need.

Then, organize your page content into headings and subheadings. Most visitors skim-read. They’ll have an easier time finding what they’re looking for if the content is organized. 

Make sure your headlines are well-designed and eye-catching. 

You can also segment pieces of information using lists or bullet points.

Add relevant images throughout your content, too. Help your hyperlinks stand out from the text as well. You can boost the clickthrough rate and potentially increase conversions.

Otherwise, make sure to create eye-catching call-to-action buttons for each page. 

Wow-Worthy Design: 6 Tips for Improving Your Site’s First Impression

Creating a strong first impression with your web design doesn’t have to feel like a challenge. Instead, give these tips for designing a website a try. Otherwise, hire an experienced web designer to help!

Searching for more helpful tips and tricks? You came to the right place.

Check out our latest guides today to get started.