Before you build or refresh the design of your business’s website, here’s something important you have to know (and something that, too often, people forget): your personal preference for website design doesn’t actually matter. At all.
Your website should be designed for your target market, not yourself. Ultimately there is one purpose a website serves and that is to bring your brand to users and to connect with your target audience.
Trust us; very, very rarely do we at Brilliant Digital find that business owners are also members of the target market they are looking to sell to.
So what does a great website actually look like? How do you know if it will resonate with your target market?
Years of experience have taught us there are three key elements that are necessary to produce an effective commercial website – good design, compelling storytelling and a great user experience.
Let’s take each of those in turn.
The core purpose of design is to communicate something to its intended audience.
On a company website, that includes your logo, your brand name, the colours, images and fonts. They all come together to tell a story: the story of why you’re worth being in business with.
Web design, like all design, is aimed at captivating a target market. The goal is to communicate to them who you are and what you do. And from there, convert them into actual qualified customers.
If your favourite colour is red, or green, that doesn’t mean those colours are the best for communicating a message to your target market. Again, the website – yes, the one about your business, that you are paying for – is not for you, it is for current and future customers.
Web users are getting more refined. The digital market is getting more competitive. Your audience can distinguish between insincere copywriting and genuine, authentic storytelling.
Telling a story allows customers to feel deeply connected to a brand.
So what kind of story should you tell? At its core it needs to be about you – who you are, what you do, what your business does. The more familiarity and trust a user feels with your brand, the more likely they are to convert to being qualified customers.
Content is still king. Why? Because Google loves content. Google is crawling your site 24/7 searching for valid and relevant content to give to its users. The more relevant and qualified content you have, the more likely Google is to send leads your way.
UX, or user experience, by definition is any interaction your customer has with a product or service. In this case, it’s your website.
UX can often be an arduous task for your marketing staff to master. The playbook is huge: nested menus, hyperlinks, font sizes, images, animations, Gutenberg blocks… the list is really endless.
And as Google releases more algorithms, the SEO standards improve and the market becomes more competitive. It’s a lot for a single person to try and keep up with.
Strong UX elevates your business offerings. It allows your business capabilities to shine. It communicates to the user that you understand what they want, and know what they need by giving them a positive and efficient experience on your website.
From experience, we know for a fact that the better the user experience on a site is, the more likely you are to successfully convert down the line.
Do you need a digital marketing team to ensure your web design is optimised for your target market? In a word, yes.
At least you do if you want it to succeed and stand apart from your competitors’ offerings.
Digital marketing teams are full of skilled individuals with niche experience and levels of expertise across all the different areas of digital marketing and related specialties. At Brilliant Digital we have over a decade of experience delivering concrete results across a range of industries.
Contact us today to find out how we can help deliver the bespoke website design your target market will engage with, and that your business needs to grow.
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