Did you know that research shows it takes only a few seconds for a user to decide whether they want to continue on your website?
Much like how it works in person, first impressions count— including in the online world. You don’t want people to go back to the search results, so it’s up to you to make sure your first impression is a good one. But how do you make a positive first impression online?
This article explains why first impressions matter and gives some tips on how to improve yours. For personalised advice, contact our team at practiceedge today.
Want to Impress Your Potential Customers?
You wouldn’t go to an important sales meeting wearing sandals and a T-shirt. Would you? If you did, your potential clients likely wouldn’t be very impressed!
Your website’s design is how you dress your website for its meetings, except that every meeting is the most important sales meeting of the year. There are many, many internet users out there, and every one of them who visits your site will have a first impression. That can make or break whether they click through or go back to find other web pages, so it’s safe to say that visual appeal is imperative.
When visitors first land on your website, they don’t judge just your website itself, but your business as a whole. If they don’t like your website design, aren’t impressed with the load speed, or find that it doesn’t work well on their mobile devices, you may as well count that as a potential customer loss. Elements like responsive design, high-quality images, and engaging content can turn an okay user experience into an amazing one, so ensuring your site is more visually appealing than your competitor’s site isn’t about vanity— it’s about business.
What Makes a Good First Impression?
From the visual appeal to the ease of navigation, every aspect of your website contributes to how users perceive it, proving that first impressions matter. Several factors that people look at when forming their first impression of a website include:
The overall look and feel of the website, including the colours, fonts, and white space
The logo should appear prominently and serve as a visual representation of your brand identity
The ease of finding information on your site, its intuitive navigation elements, and if navigating between pages makes sense
The quality and relevance of your content, including blog posts, headlines, text, images, and videos
How quickly your website loads and responds to user interactions, as even a one second delay can increase your bounce rate
How well your website adapts to laptops, tablets, and mobile devices, and screen sizes
Elements such as testimonials, reviews, and security badges that instill trust and credibility
Clear prompts that guide users towards taking desired actions, such as making a purchase or signing up
The overall feeling and impression users get from interacting with the website, including usability and intuitiveness
Now that you know what makes a good first impression, think about your website, including its landing pages and every blog post. Do your visual elements stack up? Do they offer you good brand recognition? Do you have high-quality content? Does your site look good on any screen size? If the answer to even one of these is ‘no’, this could be increasing your bounce rates and decreasing your conversion rates. So it’s time to do something about it!
Things to Consider for Your Website's Design
- Users who visit your site will remember their first impressions of it whenever they think of your company.
- People will stop engaging with a website if the design is unattractive.
- Customers search the web— including your competitors— before making a purchase decision.
- A website user’s first impressions are design-related.
- Consumers admit to making judgements on a company’s credibility based on the company’s website design.
Give Your Site the Positive Edge it Deserves
Successful businesses work very hard in designing a site that is clear, consistent, and generates enquiries. A good website will be easy to understand, have a clear structure, and be easy to navigate with recognisable links.
To design a website that creates leads, you need to have visual elements creating a communication hierarchy that will automatically take visitors from point A to point B. The human eye is a highly non-linear device, and web users can instantly recognise edges, patterns and motions. So make sure you take advantage of that! The use of visual elements such as different font sizes, fonts in bold or italics, images, and animations can help visitors make their way into the content they are looking for without thinking.
Every web-page should be self explanatory with visual clues grabbing the user’s attention and directing them to specific areas of the website. Whether you’re an exercise physiologist, speech pathologist, or chiropractor, every page of your site should be a shining example of your services that visitors will love.
Make a Great First Impression With practiceedge
Creating a positive first impression for your website requires a carefully planned professional approach from start to finish. And with website trends changing every few years, you want to ensure you’re leading the pack. If your website is starting to look a little tired or you’ve noticed a drop in sales or visitor engagement, perhaps it’s time for an upgrade!
At practiceedge, we aim to make your new first impression your best yet. To get started, book your call with our experienced team today.
