Is Web Design Important?… YES!

Do me a favor… Open up a new tab and try a simple Google search for something interesting.  Click on the first website.  What was that experience like?  Did you find the information you were looking for?  Was it hard to find?  Were you frustrated?  Was it hard to read?  Were the colors pleasing, or did they clash?  Was the site branded?

Would you go back to that website?

Your website is the window into your company  You should make it reflect the culture of your brand, while creating an experience that guides people to where you want them to go… whether that be buying a product, calling your business, or filling out a form.  It’s imperative that when focusing on your new cannabis website design that you work with a team that has a designer who’s specific focus is to enhance your brand and guide users to relevant content.

Aesthetics

It is abundantly clear that your website should look good.  It’s extremely important to keep usability in mind and not sacrifice it just for the sake of appearance.  The design should lead the eye from what’s most important to secondary items; this can be done with space and typography.  Images and colors can be used for calls to action.  And a professional, modern look can immediately build trust. The possibilities are endless but a good design will create trust and guide visitors to take action.

Organization

Just like your office, everything in a website needs to have a logical place, helping site visitors easily find what they are looking for. The site navigation needs to be in a logical and consistent place on every single page.  It should be apparent what is the main content on a page and what is secondary, based on size and location.  Everything on a page needs to have a purpose.  We have seconds to make an impression and if the organization doesn’t make sense, the visitor will leave.

A Visual Spark

You need to have a spark on your website that appeals to people, something that catches their eye. The internet is a visual medium and it’s important to use images or video without overdoing it.  Possibilities include slideshows, photo galleries and and YouTube videos (which also appear in search results as part of YouTube.com).

Putting it all together

A website’s design will make the site visitor decide whether to stay and take action or leave – it’s as simple as that.  It will need to create trust, make sense and allow people to find what they need quickly and easily – while doing what you want them to do.

Of course, there’s more to a website than looks – like coding standards and cross-platform compatibility – but those are things that site visitors don’t see that a web developer like myself takes care of.

Chew on these ideas and take a few minutes to review your website and consider if its design is doing what you need it to do.  If not, it may be a good time to contact us!

Good work sticking with this post, now here’s one of the best songs of all time…