There are over a billion websites currently hosted on the internet, and more than two billion active users browsing those websites. Yet at a two to one chance of getting your website seen – thus procuring a potential lead which could lead to sales – chances aren’t great.
This isn’t a statement meant to make you feel as though creating and maintaining a website isn’t worth it. In fact, a website is vital to modern success in business. This statistic – and all those which follow – are instead meant to make you feel determined to create a great website and give you the knowledge necessary to do so.
The Key to Success
The real key to success in grabbing the attention of the billions of internet users is in your website itself. Your company may be amazing, with the unrivaled best products and services, but if your website doesn’t reflect that you aren’t going to gain any new customers.
How do you create a great website? The answers lay in the following statistics. By taking the information found in them and using them to your advantage you can help secure yourself an ever-increasing number of website views. Those views will transfer into leads, which transfer into customers, which then transfers into an overall more successful business model.
The Real Power of the Internet
According to recent surveys, an incredible 89% of all customers will search the web before making a purchase decision. This is where all that effort you’ve put into search engine optimization (SEO) and online reputation management comes into play.
But don’t get too excited yet.
Of the nearly ninety percent of customer searching the web, 60% of them will go to the brand or product website they are considering to find relevant and useful information on it. Their decision to purchase will be highly influenced by the information they find on your website. Customers are so influenced by company websites, in fact, that 75% admit to deciding how credible a business is based solely on said site.
Time to Make Decisions
When it comes to making decisions about your website design, consumers do it fast. The average viewer takes between 17 and 50 milliseconds to decide whether they find your website visually appealing. For reference, a “blink of an eye” is between 100 and 400 milliseconds. It also only takes consumers 2.6 seconds to land on the area of the website page they will use to make their first impression about your website.
Speaking of First Impressions…
It isn’t your products or services which make that big first impression. 94% of consumers admit they’re decisions are mostly design based.
According to the Google research page,
“designs that contradict what users typically expect of a website may hurt user’s first impressions and damage their expectations.”
What does that mean?
In layman’s terms, it means your website needs to give viewers what they expect. If it doesn’t, they aren’t going to have a great first impression of your company. Without a great first impression, most customers will take their business elsewhere. Once damaged, a reputation can be extremely hard to fix. It is infinitely easier to simply make a great first impression in the first place.
Where Are Viewers Looking for Their First Impression?
You know that it doesn’t take long to make a first impression, but where are consumers looking on your website to create it? Recent statistics state that consumers are looking at the following areas for a minuscule amount of time to create their impressions:
- Company Logo – 6.48 seconds
- Written Content – 5.59 seconds
- Main Webpage Image – 5.94 seconds
- Search Box – 6 seconds
- Main Navigation Menu – 6.44 sec
- Bottom of Website – 5.25 seconds
- Social Media Navigation Menu – 5.95 seconds
Is It True That Viewers Don’t Scroll?
A common idea is that all your essential information must be readily available as soon as a consumer reaches your website. Many believe potential customers won’t scroll at all to find the information they need. This isn’t true. 76% of all viewed pages were scrolled, while 66% of consumer’s attention is directed to content below the fold (or the area to which they must scroll to view).
While consumers are willing to scroll to find the content or information they need, they aren’t willing to scroll too far, however. Only 22% of all viewed website pages were scrolled all the way to the bottom. This means you’ll want to keep the most valuable information near the top of the page, but not necessary at the very top.
Key Takeaways
To properly implement all these statistics and other pertinent information into your website design process, here are a few key takeaways you’ll want to keep in mind:
- Your website should reflect your company’s reputation, values, morals, and brand story. If not, consumers will move to the next option.
- Include as much relevant information about company, products, and services on your website as possible.
- Design should catch a viewer’s attention fast – as in, less than a blink of an eye fast.
- Pay close attention to the minute details because even your company logo, menus, and search box are involved in how consumers create their first impression.
- Not all vital information has to be above the fold, but it shouldn’t be all the way at the bottom either.
- Most people will not scroll all the way to the bottom of a page so save that space for non-vital information.
What If You Don’t Know Where to Start?
If you don’t know where to start the best option is to hire a professional website design company. Some of these sites even offer packages that can help to build a marketing campaign around your site’s design. As with all other aspects of hiring, you’ll want to find one with a good reputation that can fit your company’s brand – i.e. tone of voice, morals, standards, and preferred writing style.