First impressions can be powerful! That’s why job interviews are so stress-inducing. A candidate only has one shot to make a good impression on the hiring manager. If it’s not a great first impression, they might not get the job and the hiring manager moves on to a different candidate. Does this sound familiar? This same situation can happen with your website!

First impressions count – and websites are a GREAT way to emulate your brand to your customers. Ultimately, you want your potential customer walking away from your website with a great and memorable first impression. Why? Because first impressions lead to a lasting impression on your brand or business.

So how do you make sure your website impresses your potential customers? Keep reading because I want to tell you exactly how to use your website to make a lasting impression on your customers.

Eliminate the bad elements

Bad elements will immediately give your customers a negative first impression. These elements include having a long loading time, a confusing logo, too many popups, crazy colors, too much text, and poor navigation through your website. People don’t have a lot of extra time on their hands, and honestly, they are looking for any excuse to click off of your site. So don’t give it to them!

Unfortunately, even the smallest imperfections can irritate your audience and have them clicking off faster than Jennifer Aniston’s Instagram follower count can grow. These imperfections can keep them from returning to your site and ultimately increase your bounce rate!

How can you avoid this problem? You can make sure your website is designed using industry-standard elements. I talk more about that here. Website designs can be critical for making or breaking your business! So make sure you have a beautiful and engaging website!

As a web designer, I can’t stress enough how a great web design can work wonders for your business. Read the 5 reasons why you should invest in a web design to learn more.

But first, let’s keep exploring how to make a lasting impression on your customers.

Keep design in mind

I hate to say it, but looks are everything. At least for web design and online businesses! In this industry, appearances can make you or break you. According to recent research, 94% of first impressions are design-related.

We already know that your website needs to give a great first impression, and a well-designed website will do this for you. As much as we would like to believe otherwise, humans make snap judgments – and visual elements help these judgments to form.

So what does this mean?

Your website needs to be clean and inviting. Why? Because outdated, sloppy, and clunky websites have no place in your audiences’ limited attention span. Make sure that when they visit your site, you are providing an enjoyable, informative, and pleasurable experience which will leave them with a positive lasting impression.

If you are wondering what design elements are great for your website, check out my post about 5 Quick Website Changes That Make A Big Difference To Your Bounce Rate.

Don’t overdo the text

Having a ton of text and information on your home page does more to overwhelm and confuse your audience than actually informing them. A great way to mitigate this problem is to either, condense the text to directly solve the problems or answer questions your audience has – or to implement an introductory video. Videos are becoming all the rage as it’s a great way to interact with and inform your audience in a visually appealing way.

Answer their questions and solve their problems

Why does your audience need you? Answer this question on your website – and make your answer obvious. Your website should communicate exactly what you do and how you do it – directly to your audience. If they don’t know what you can do for them, why would they want to stick around?

To piggyback off this point, make sure you are adding value. This value tells your potential customers how you can help them. I would highly suggest that this information be placed towards the top of the page so that it’s the first thing your audience will see when they click onto your site. Remember – novels don’t work well on websites! A condensed summary of 2-3 sentences will work wonders in getting your point across!

Make your website scroll worthy

We are in the “Scroll Ages” and your online business needs to take advantage of this! Your customers are expecting to scroll when they land on websites – so you should oblige them.

Giving your audience some visual direction is another way to keep customers engaged and scrolling through your site. Engagement can include anything from call-to-actions, color choices, imagery placement and using appropriate visual weight for different sections of your website. *Remember those small imperfections can encourage your customer to click off your site*. Even the appropriate use of white space can have an impact!

Additionally, images are GOLD when implemented successfully on your website and they are a great way to encourage scrolling. Not only are they stimulating to the eye but they help to highlight key sections of your page as your audience scrolls down (or up)..

Conclusion

Knowing how, when, and where to implement these elements successfully takes the learned skills of a great web designer. If you are interested in a bespoke web design experience, I would love to chat more!

Have any questions? Contact me here, I’d love to help.

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