Are you missing out on prospects because of poor web design? No matter how good your products are, a poorly-designed web site could lose you many new customers.

In a world where aesthetic principles matter, the way your website looks can affect the success of your business. Your website may be the first thing that your visitors see and this could affect their decision to do business with you.

Think about how most people do research about services nowadays. Even if it’s only just preliminary research, we may jump online and go browse somebody’s web site first before purchasing something in-store or online.

Now, put yourself in your prospect’s shoes. How does your website appear to visitors? Does it invite people to draw closer and explore things further, or does it make them confused and cautious about where to go next?

What prospective customers see “above the fold” (i.e. what you first see on your screen) is only the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other things than can affect your web visitors’ perceptions and their purchasing decisions.

Can WordPress Fix A Poorly-Constructed Web Site?

Let’s review some of the main design problems that can affect your site:

Web Site Design Problems

Some of the most common design issues that can impact a visitor’s perception about your website include:

• Color – Unattractive color schemes affect your website’s results. This also applies to your choice of text and background color. There are tools that can help you choose web colors correctly and even safe web color tools to help make sure that the color combinations you use will display predictably across various devices. If in doubt, consult a professional web designer.
• Design Elements – Web pages that contain visually unpleasant, outdated and just plain old hard to read fonts can turn users away from your site. Visitors can also be affected by subtle inconsistencies in your design elements and excessive use of design elements.
• Layout – How you lay out your pages can affect how visitors navigate around your site. Layout considerations also include how your navigation items, links, and other assistive features such as search boxes are placed, where menus are positioned on your site, page columns, etc ….
• Responsiveness – As websites are now viewed using a range of devices with different-sized screens, it’s important that the design of your website be fully responsive. If your web pages do not display well across all devices, browsers, and platforms, you could lose customers.

Functionality Problems

Some of the most common functionality problems may include:

• Persistent site errors – A huge turn-off for users is arriving on a site where some hyperlinks don’t work, videos don’t play and graphics aren’t showing. Subpar functionality is not acceptable for any website, especially if your aim is to come across as a professional. Your digital presence reflects your business. It’s important to make sure that all your links, videos, and images remain up and running all the time. Sometimes, these problems are related to factors such as your web hosting, or they may even be unbeknownst to you, but it’s important to make sure that remain proactive and that you attend to problems immediately.
• Feature limitations – If your business offers users certain features, then make sure that these functionalities are not limited. For example, if you plan to sell products on your site, make sure that you provide users with full e-commerce features that allow them to easily select and add products to a cart, enter discount coupons, order with a credit card or PayPal, receive notifications, invoices, and confirmations, etc.

Poor User Experience

Typically, where your business suffers most noticeably due to a poorly-constructed site is in the realm of the “user experience”.

An unpleasant user experience can leave a bad taste in visitors’ mouths and lead to venting their disappointment across social sites, forums, review sites, commenting sections, etc., bringing you unwanted negative publicity.

Common problems that can lead to a disappointing user experience include the following:

• Ease Of Use – Your website must be user-friendly. Information about your products and services should be easy to find. Your visitors want user-friendly features and they want to find things as quickly and as effortlessly as possible. Make your content searchable and if you plan to add downloadable files to your site (e.g. spreadsheets), make sure that visitors are given instructions on how to download and access your information.
• Organization – If your site isn’t organized and user-friendly, you run the risk of losing not only prospective buyers but current customers also. Features such as descriptive links, product and service categories and well-organized sections where your content can be easily found can provide users with an enjoyable user experience.
• Compelling Web Site – Customers want websites that are easy to use, easy to navigate, and that provide them with eye-catching options. To accomplish this you need a balance between attractive, modern web design and compelling website copy that engages your visitors. For example, draw attention to hyperlinks pointing to your product pages with great graphics alongside well-written descriptions. This is very effective and can help improve not only the user experience on your site, but can also lead to more sales and conversions.
• Engaging Website – Another thing that helps to improve user experience on your site is providing interactive features that engage your customers, like features that let them\visitors leave comments, share, like, download and recommend your content, interact with your staff via a responsive help desk, support forum, live chat, schedule appointments, make reservations, etc … You also want visitors to navigate quickly within your website and access your information without waiting around for pages to load, so site loading optimization is important.
• Compliant Site – One of the most important and often most neglected aspects of creating a great user experience is to ensure that users feel confident interacting with you online. To reassure your potential customers that you are credible, trustworthy, secure and professional to deal with, make sure to add legal pages such as a contact page, privacy statement, terms and conditions of usage, security information, financial disclaimers, etc.

(Website design issues)

As the above shows, there are many areas that can contribute to a poor user experience and negatively impact your business results online. If your web site is poorly designed, you run the serious risk of not only losing prospective paying customers but also existing clients too.

Now … what if you have arrived here because you currently have an existing website with design problems that could be affecting your business?

First, be aware that getting a complete website overhaul can take time and can also be somewhat costly depending on the problem and what kind of website you currently operate, especially if the work requires extensive code editing.

If you are in the process of having a new website built or overhauling an existing website, then we suggest that you consider using the WordPress website publishing platform.

(WordPress can help to improve your website results!)

We currently provide a lot more in-depth articles about WordPress on this site, but here are just some of the things to keep in mind about why you should seriously consider using WordPress:

WordPress – Instant Web Site Design

WordPress themes are unique web design templates that allow you to immediately change the look of your entire website without affecting the website’s content or changing any underlying software.

There are literally thousands of professionally designed themes for WordPress available that can be easily downloaded. Many of these are either free of charge, or they can be bought for a relatively reasonable price, saving you hundreds of dollars on the cost of website design.

(WP Themes)

Most themes built for WordPress nowadays are responsive and provide site owners with flexible and customizable options for changing your website’s design like color, elements like headers, footers, menus and styles, layouts and more. Themes are just part of what makes WordPress such a great tool for helping you achieve a design for your website that works for your business.

You can learn about themes here:

• WordPress For Business – An Introduction To WP Themes

WordPress – Virtually Unlimited Expansion

Another great reason to build your site using the WP CMS is that WordPress gives you almost unlimited features through add-on applications called “plugins.”

Plugins, like themes, integrate easily with your site to provide you with almost unlimited features or functionality.

Earlier we talked about problems in areas like subpar functionality and feature limitations as part of the reason why a poorly designed web site can cost you business.

Plugins can help you overcome these problems quite easily and inexpensively. If there is a feature you would like integrated with your website, just install a WordPress plugin that will help you get things done.

Want a plugin that will let you know about any issues detected with your site such as links not working, videos not streaming, images that aren’t showing or even alert you if your whole web site has gone down? No problems … there are WordPress plugins that can help you fix that, or let you know about problems so you can correct these immediately!

Need a plugin that will transform your site into an online store or provide you with a complete e-commerce business solution? Again, no problem! There are several WP plugins that will help you sell products online and provide your visitors with full e-commerce functionality that allow them to choose and add items to a cart, enter discount coupons, order using credit card or PayPal, receive notifications, receipts and email confirmations, etc.

And just like WP themes, there are literally thousands of fantastic WP plugins that you can download and easily install on your site free of charge, or that can be purchased for a reasonable price, once again, saving you hundreds, even thousands of dollars on the cost of website development.

(WP Plugins)

Learn more about plugins here:

• Adding New Features And Functionality To Your Blog With WordPress Plugins

WordPress – An Immediate User Experience

In addition to being able to correct issues caused by a poorly-constructed web site, WordPress can also help you create a great user experience for your site visitors.

WordPress provides beautiful, professional and visually-exciting themes that cover all types of uses and applications and feature-rich plugins that allow visitors to connect, engage and interact online with you. With the right combination of a WordPress-driven website, WordPress themes, plugins and great content, you can create a a highly interactive user experience that will keep them coming back again and again.

As stated earlier, consumers do research online before they make a purchasing decision. If your website isn’t designed to provide your visitors with a rewarding user experience, these potential buyers will not return and simply move on to another business that does offer them a better website.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about the benefits of using the WP platform please click on links to visit other posts we have published on this site.

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