8 Reasons Why a Bad Web Design will Cost You
“First Impressions are the last”- this statement basically sums up the importance of developing a good website. If a company or business neglects this factor, it will have to pay a hefty price for that. A poorly designed website has harmful consequences for your business. It is the root of all problems. It affects your brand’s credibility and reputation. Web design is not limited to just aesthetics. Efficient web design has a positive impact on every aspect of your online presence. Your website is the first thing people see when they want to know more about your brand, and it’s also crucial in boosting your business. Provide a good user experience to all users who visit your site. Your content should be easy to navigate and well organized.
The longer a company/business has a bad website, the more clients and revenue it will be losing. In today’s competitive market, the brand that engages and appeals the most to clients and dominates web presence is the winner. A balanced site that looks professional and sophisticated and caters to customer/client needs and also is creative and unique is the key for your business/company’s success. A good web design results in the best return on your investment.
Let us learn more about the consequences a poorly designed website can have on your business/company.
1) Lower Search Rankings
User experience has become an integral search engine ranking factor. The design and structure of your website, the way users interact and engage affect your site’s rankings in the search results. Search engines like Google and Yahoo rank websites by crawling them with bots. Bad web design will affect your page’s search rankings due to bad user experience. Search engines may not be able to crawl and index a poorly designed website fully, thus resulting in lower rankings. If a business doesn’t have a visibility factor on search engine result pages, it will eventually lose innumerable potential visitors of its website.
The average page on time, bounce rate, engagement and conversion rate is directly associated with your website’s navigation structure. The better your navigation structure, the more positive impact it has on all these metrics. These factors contribute to better search rankings in the search engines and cater to increased revenue and profits. If users cannot find relevant information on your website easily, they become frustrated and you will end up losing them and the money. A good website is key for efficient search engine optimization. Developing a well-designed and creative navigation menu that also positively impacts a website’s Search Engine Optimization strategy is the best thing any company/business can adopt.
2) Costs your users/customers
The most crucial characteristic of a website is its ‘ease of use’. Users expect to have a seamless experience when they scroll through a website. Broken links, complicated forms, long load times, confusing navigation frustrates users. Your website should provide users with a quick and easy interface, where they feel comfortable. Imagine, if the visitor on your website is not able to navigate anywhere on your website. For example: If you have an online shopping website wherein the customer is not able to add any product to the cart, process the payment, browse through other options, he/she is bound to never visit or shop from your website again. The point of any business/company is to convert the traffic on its website to long-term leads and customers, which eventually caters to their business success. Even if a bad website is generating a decent amount of traffic, it may not necessarily result in conversions, thereby you will not have any engagements, clients or customers to deliver your services to.
A good website design converts the traffic into long-term customers and by neglecting this factor, your business can go nowhere, and further, it also leads to driving out your traffic/customers to your competitor’s website. A website should be structured adequately keeping the end-users in mind, it should have a clear navigation menu, where visitors of the website can refer easily. Good website design takes care of all these aspects, whereas a bad web design directly has a negative impact on users. No one is looking for a confusing interface When a website lacks in proper navigation and relevant information a company loses its customers as well as money.
3)Damages your brand
A good, strong and efficient web design should be an integral part of your brand strategy. It is an important brand health metric. Maybe, earlier having a basic website was alright, but in today’s creatively evolving and competitive market, it is an obligation for all businesses/companies to invest in a good web design, that eventually caters to positive brand recognition. The worst effect of a poorly designed website is its negative impact on your brand and its credibility. When a user reaches a website they should feel that they’ve reached a professional company. But a cheap website design will never make this possible
A bad website doesn’t showcase your brand’s identity and there is nothing unique the customers can look for or find on your website, it doesn’t even give a chance to your customers to learn and discover more about your company/business, its achievements, USP, capabilities etc. Potential customers will associate your brand with confusion, bad user experience and dissatisfaction they will strike it off their lists and this ultimately leads to driving them out of your site. This also devalues and denigrates your brand, thus affecting your brand’s success, credibility, visibility, reputation and recognition. Creating a brand of your business/company needs user satisfaction when a user finds something unique that they instantly connect to on your website, that is different from the rest in the market, it is the beginning of a ‘Brand creation’
4) Double Costs
You cannot stay for long and survive in the market without developing a proper website design. A poor website has to be fixed sooner than you think which will further incur extra costs, more effort and loss of your valuable time. More money has to feed into developing the website design again and other related activities associated with it. This money could have been invested in some other crucial aspect. The loss that has been generated with the poor website design has to be compensated as soon as possible.
You will need to employ more money, spend some extra bucks in rebuilding your brand again, winning a spot in the market and bringing your brand’s credibility again in the eyes of the customers. The importance of a good web design should never be neglected. If you think that you can be successful in your business without developing a proper and adequate website, it is your greatest mistake. So, save yourself from spending those extra bucks. Do it once and Do it right.
5) Makes you look out of touch
In this constantly evolving world, massive changes are happening in the world every second, in every industry. The world is changing rapidly, a topic which is the talk of the town today may not hold the same place tomorrow, that is the pace the world is running on. A website that is not well updated reflects that your business/company is out of touch with the latest trends. An outdated and poor website design will give a message to your viewers that your business doesn’t keep up with the time and its necessary developments.
Visitors might define your business’s credibility based on how well your website is structured and updated. They might assume you’re out of touch with developments within your industry, For a business/company to be successful they need to portray the image of moving, developing and improving with time. They need to keep up with the updates, to prove their capabilities.
an unappealing website also indicates that you aren’t concerned or interested in providing any service thereby convincing prospects that you’re not qualified for delivering quality services.
6) Out of business
An outdated, unappealing and unattractive website gives the message to your users that you are no longer in the business market, as you are not keeping up with the latest trends and developments, it gives an indication that your company is ‘closed for business’. Your existence is no longer considered in the market, you will lose your credibility and power with it. Other competitors in the market or other businesses who are looking to collaborate with you also might conclude that you are ‘out of business’, thus you will be losing the opportunity to boost your company/business and widen its reach.
Clients might not even consider your services as an option, thus a poorly designed website will shut down all your avenues of reaching out to customers, delivering services, widening your presence in the market, being a strong competitor and making profits. It will slowly fade and end your brand’s presence in the market.
7) You cannot achieve your goals/targets.
When the basic prerequisite of developing an efficient website is lacking, then it will be followed by more drastic consequences. You won’t be able to define or achieve your goals and targets. You cannot craft your success roadmap. You will never improve, develop or soar to higher places. Achieving targets and goals is centred around ‘user satisfaction’. When a website is poorly designed, it directly has a negative impact on the end-user, giving them a frustrating experience.
When your ‘user-base’ is unsatisfied with your services then it is a sign of your fading business and eventually will lead to its fall. A website is defined as the index of your business. A good website design empowers you to define and achieve your targets and goals, it plays a very crucial role to make your business/company stand out, widen its customer base and reach and make a mark of its own.
8) Lose your trust and credibility
Trust and credibility are two essential things that contribute to the foundation of your business/company’s success. The stepping stone to achieving trust and credibility from your customers is to develop an efficient web design that caters to their requirements and needs.
No business/company can afford to neglect this factor. Winning trust and credibility with the users and in the market is closely aligned with the quality and ease of services that are delivered or generated by your company/business
When a user has a poor experience on a website, they lose trust and do not hold the business credible anymore. He or she might even take it to social media to tell others, this further widens the web of your company’s inefficiency and consequently discourages other users from visiting your website, hurting both trust and credibility. Also, the business will lose out on publishing positive testimonials from their clients which further affects their brand imaging.
Conclusion
In today’s technologically advanced world, it is of utmost importance to have a strong, positive and efficient web presence. A higher percentage of people/customers judge a business and measure its credibility based on its website design, lacking in this factor will affect a business/company in the most drastic way, which will eventually ruin the brand’s name, recognition and sales. A company or business cannot afford to neglect the importance of developing an updated and strong website of its own.
It is very essential to invest in a creative, professional, effective, trendy and user-friendly website for a business/company. Get rid of monotonous and redundant content. Do not overdo pictures, colours or fonts. Display testimonials from actual customers. Keep your site’s content up to date. Visitors also want to see content that is current and relevant. Your content should be free of any spelling or grammatical errors. It helps you to create a strong impression, build trust, convert your visitors into loyal customers, widen your reach with positive testimonials and reviews. Developing a good website for your company is the doorway to define a successful business and to reach out to users.
AUTHOR BIO:
Sameer Mehta is a blogger and entrepreneur and writes on technology and lifestyle-related topics. He has more than 15 years of experience across technology, consulting and marketing. He has written for Entrepreneur, West Agile Labs, Exegy Consulting, Jewellerista, etc.
