Virtually every business today has a website; but is the web design functional and responsive? Companies large and small make substantial investments in establishing their online presence, attempting to make an attractive and creative site that is appealing to customers. However, that creativity could have a negative effect if it’s too difficult for prospective customers to navigate the page. Customers today aren’t primarily interested in flashy sites. They want to find what they’re looking for quickly. Below are a few characteristics of an effective and well-developed site that every business owner should consider if they want to attract and retain targeted customers.
Functional Goals
Your business needs to have clear goals prior to starting work on the web design and development. Common goals include lead generation, registration, communication, and e-commerce. Furthermore, a web design company like Houston’s Convergent1, can ensure that your site’s functionality also helps carry out these goals through an online presence. Fortunately, all your goals can be achieved on different domains; thus, defining them before purchasing domains can further help build your website based on set strategies. Even more, your business could avoid adding unnecessary links, pages, and information that will only confuse new customers.
Functional Design
Flashy busy home pages are NOT okay, as they’re extremely difficult to decipher. However, beautiful and creative homepages are great, if they’re just as fast and responsive as they are appealing. For the most part, however, consumers prefer clean, aesthetically crisp designs that load quickly; and when the site is extremely intuitive and easy to access, that’s the icing on the cake. A functional web design has a clear path for first-time visitors to get to the page they need. Most people won’t stay on a page long enough to figure out where they need to go, especially when there’s too much going on within the site. And they won’t click more than once or twice to get the information they want. Thus, site responsiveness should quickly pick up on visitor needs by offering simple, yet effective, call to actions on each page.
Functional White Space
The most crucial element of functional web design and programming is white space. Blank space in the background draws a viewer’s eyes toward what the company wants them to see. There’s no good reason to add elements that won’t guide a consumer toward taking the desired action. In some cases, the extra features distract them and take them away from the website; and in other cases, the customer isn’t sure what to do, so they leave the page to look for the product, service, or information they need elsewhere.
Fortunately, business owners don’t have to figure all of this out on their own. With help from the Houston web design experts of Convergent1, businesses that need a new website, or need to revamp a site that isn’t performing as it should, can get what they need and reach their business goals. To consult with Convergent1, give us a call at 713-690-0707, or learn more about our services online. We’re happy to help, and we’re in it for the long haul!
