Let’s assume you started to watch a movie and found that the voice is not synced with the scenes properly. Obviously, the next thing you do will be downloading or streaming another file of the same movie. Right?
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It’s similar when it comes to Web Design and Content Marketing, so to speak. If your web design is unprofessional or not aligned with your contents, the audience is not going to access your contents. Also, they might opt for your competitor.
Here is a fact.
38% of the website visitors abandon a website if the design is not up to the mark.
So, to carve better results, you have to serve everything on the platter for the visitors – that is, both your web design and content should have quality. You can’t expect your audience to go through your content if your website is not professional and user friendly.
How Web Design Impacts Content Marketing
1. Good Web Design Impresses the Visitors
The first impression is the best impression, always.
Imagine that you are looking for information or products or anything of that sort on the internet and you accessed a website you stumbled upon during the search.
At first glance, you came to know that the website’s appeal is below par. In other words, your first impression was bad. Wouldn’t you just leave the website and look for a website with a professional appeal?
The same is the case with other visitors. Before they dive into your content, they judge your website on the basis of its design.
In fact, as per Sweor, it takes only 0.05 seconds for them to judge a website.
That’s not all, the same source states that
75% of the customers decide whether a company is credible or not based on the company’s website.
In a nutshell, having an attractive website can not only impress your audience but urge them to dig deeper and access your contents. Furthermore, a good-looking website can elevate your credibility.
Therefore, make sure your website looks appealing or your quality contents will go down the drain.
2. Good Web Design Leads to Easy Navigation and Accessibility
What purpose does your content serve if it’s not easily accessible?
It’s obvious that when a website is cluttered, it reduces user-friendliness. This means that the chance of a visitor accessing your content will drastically drop.
If you are lucky enough, they might have a look at one of your contents.
But do you expect them to keep on scrolling through your website and dive into the remaining contents if your website looks unprofessional or is not user-friendly?
Moreover, if visitors find your website complex, they might not return to your website in the future. Hard to believe?
A study by Sweor showed that 88% of visitors may not revisit a website after a bad experience.
This not only underlines the importance of having an appealing website but also reminds us that we may not get a second chance to impress the audience.
That’s not all, visitors can tell about this bad experience to others, which ultimately creates a further negative impact.
As per the above-mentioned study, 13% of visitors will share their website experience with 15 or more people.
On the other hand, if your website is compelling, it can impact positively because 72% of consumers will share their good website experience with 6 or more people.
Long story short, a good web design helps visitors seamlessly navigate and find the content they want. Also, this can lead to better brand awareness since visitors share their good experience with others.
3. Excellent Design Means Better Readability
Today, we have many online tools to check readability.
Readable is one great example.
Try testing readability in one of such tools and analyze the results.
If the readability score is not good enough, try redesigning and formatting your content in a way the audience can perceive easily. Break long sentences into smaller ones, use easy words, and add subheadings to highlight your points.
If the score doesn’t cut even after that, the problem is with your website’s design most likely.
Yes, you read that right. Bad design can make your content complex to read. This is said with regards to the text size, text colour, text style, background colour and the elements surrounding the content.
Here is an interesting stat from Sweor.
2/3rd of the people would opt to read something beautifully designed rather than something plain.
Therefore, make sure to check whether the text size, style, colour, background etc are appropriate in a way pleasing to the eyes. This is a must if you want your contents to pan out successfully.
If you think you can’t design your website by yourself, entrust the work with some custom website design company who have expertise in the same. That would be the best bet.
Be it anyway, the design should be up to the standard.
4. Visitors Understand Better When the Design Is Standard
Your website should be user-friendly for your audience. They should have a clear idea of what each element of your website leads to or else your contents would be in vain.
Let’s assume you have uploaded a new blog and you want your visitors to read that blog. So, you placed a button linking to your blog on the homepage. However, the visits are not increasing.
Most likely, the problem will be that the visitor does not understand the purpose of that button or the button isn’t properly placed.
You could either improve the visibility and placement of that button or you could design a pop-up button. However, make sure the pop up doesn’t annoy the users. As per WebMeUp, annoying pop-ups are the #1 reason why people block websites.
You could also include apt pictures or videos when you design the content. This also can make it easy for your audience to comprehend and take the desired action.
The point is that a good website design can enhance the understandability of the audience, which further enhances the chance of your content being accessed. Furthermore, it can keep the bounce rate at bay.
5. Visuals Can Work Magic on Your Content
Including videos, images or GIFs in your website can keep the audience glued.
Just walk in the shoes of a visitor and think which engages you better: a website with appealing visuals or a plain website? The former, right?
That’s the power of visuals.
If your content plan has a video of your brand’s story or an explainer video of your product, integrating it into your website would be a great option.
In fact, a whopping 96% of people watch explainer videos to learn about products and services according to WordStream.
Visuals can not only convey your message properly but also let the message remain in the mind of the audience.
A stat by WordStream shows that 95% of the message is retained when it’s conveyed through a video.
Incorporating visuals into your blogs would also be a great way to help your content be a success.
This altogether shows that a web design with visuals can engage the audience and in turn, this benefits your content marketing plan.
Bottom Line: A Good Web Design Benefits Content Marketing
We all want our content marketing strategies to be successful. To that end, we should do everything possible from our end for it.
Even if your content has quality, it won’t fetch you traffic or engagements if your website design is below par.
On the other hand, shaping your website professionally can make your content easily accessible, and enhances the possibility of other contents being accessed.
If the analytics is showing a hike in the bounce rate even if your content has good quality, your website needs to be redesigned to make it a content-friendly website.
This way you can stop your content marketing strategy from being negatively affected.
Confused about how to align your website design with your content marketing plan? Our experts would be happy to help you. Feel free to contact us for further details.