With more and more customers doing business and shopping on-line it is critical that you review how your site is performing!
The following article from the blog WebFX is essential reading.
The article discusses essential web site stats that are relevant in 2021. After all your website is the heart of your online presence so knowing what works and what doesn't will help you to build the best website for your audience.
Included in the stats are:
1) 94% of first impressions relate to your site’s web design
When someone finds your business for the first time, you want to set a good first impression. Your audience’s first impression can have a lasting impact on how they perceive your business. When it comes to your website, the majority of first impressions come from your site’s design.
What this means for your website is that you have to take your site design into careful consideration. Think about your audience and what problem you are trying to solve for them and build your website design around solving that solution. I see too many business going for theme based templates which makes not only makes their sites look like everyone's else's but they also do-not think about their customers and what problem they are solving for them.
2.) 75% of website credibility comes from design
One of your main aims as far as your website is concerned is to build credibility. How your site is designed will reflect how seriously you take your customers, stakeholders and your own brand. Good web site design which includes site usability can make the difference between a visitor becoming a customer or someone who rather chooses to buy from your competition. Remember, browsing is easy. It does not take a lot of effort to visit your competition.
3) 73% of companies invest in design to help their brand stand out from competitors
As the saying goes "Good design is expensive, but it's not as expensive as bad design." Ask yourself do you fall into the 73% of companies investing in design to help their brand. I think the operative word here is "investing". That is to say that as with all branding your website is not a once-off expense. Gone are the days where one could put up a website and leave it unattended for 4 years until someone decides it needs updating. You have to think of your website just as one would think of a 'brick and mortar' shop for example. Just as one would change their shop window with exciting promotions, purchase new stock, rearrange the shop floor to optimise the user experience and run promos and specials to attract customers so one has to to with their website and more.
4) Slow-loading websites lead to a $2.6 billion revenue loss each year.
Nobody likes a slow website. The Google recommended page load time is under two seconds: “Two seconds is the threshold for E-Commerce website acceptability. Google, we aims for under a half-second.
5) 57% of visitors leave a site if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
New research by Google has found that 53% of mobile website visitors will leave if a webpage doesn't load within three seconds. The average load time for sites is 19 seconds on a 3G connection and 14 seconds on a 4G connection.
A VERY SLOW SITE can be a NEGATIVE Google Ranking factor.
So what's the best solution?
I use Webflow as my design platform of choice. Working with Webflow from a designer and a clients point of view will help you check all five boxes.
1st Impressions count
Webflow is one of the best 'Web Design' tools currently available on the market in that one is not limited by templates and components that impede your ability to design. You start with an empty canvas. If anything, it challenges your ability to design a customer centric website rather than a website that has to be base around templates.
Powerful animations and transitions.
Thanks to Webflows own Javascript library a designer is able to design a site that has animations and transitions that are easily achieved and make for an enjoyable site experience.
No Plugins.
Webflow does not rely on plugins. The advantage here is that your website from the server side, will not be dealing with plugin conflicts that overload the server slowing your website down. Webflow hosts on Amazon servers providing fast and secure hosting as well.
Summary
With more and more customers doing business and shopping on-line it is critical that you review how your site is performing as well as how your audience is responding to your website. Even incremental design changes can make a big difference in converting visitors to customers.