Many business people I engage with for their business website want to focus mainly on design. To clarify, when they say “design” they mean how the website looks and feels. This is not really including UI/UX discussions which to me is also design. However, a lot of businesses I meet are getting better at asking the right questions to understand how their users use websites on desktop and mobile devices.
In doing this work for so many years, I have learned that design is about content first. If your image and brand content is terrible and your messaging is not clear, the most trendy, snazzy, “pop” design does not convert users to prospects for you very well. The aesthetics around your content are indeed important but focusing on specific icons, shading or animations doesn’t really help convert your online users to customers. Your brand messaging and your content handle this the best.
Insider tip: A super simple, clean design on a website with the right content actually outperforms on conversions much better than a super trendy website with bad messaging and content. Every time.
The key is to have a good, modern, mobile design that is visually appealing but also has killer image content and spot-on messaging that is crystal clear. It also needs to follow basic patterns of how people use the web. When you hit that mark you will really start to see results.