How & Why You Pay More For Bad Design

You may have guessed that we won’t be talking about the actual cost of the web development in this article.

When thinking about the real cost of bad design, we’ll be looking at the impact it has on your business in the following months (and years) after it’s published live.

What can be the impact of bad design?

The three main points to make about bad design are:

1. It can prevent and deter visitors from taking action on your site: how a website looks determines credibility for 48% of visitors*.
   Plus, you may not have relevant (or any) Call to Actions in the first place.

2. By providing a bad user experience you’re giving off the message that either your business doesn’t care to update the site (which is your online shopfront) or that you yourselves give off a bad experience.

3. It can lead to a decrease your search engine rankings. Things like: non-responsive design, non-optimised images and unnecessary code all contribute to a decrease in your search engine rankings.

* Source: cubicleninjas

Signs of bad design

Other than generally just looking bad/cluttered/dated etc, here are a few key points to look out for:

• Not reflecting your branding,
  Difficult to navigate,
  Poorly laid out,
• Non-responsive (not working on a mobile/tablet).

How to Avoid Bad Design

Here are our top three tips:

1. Look at your top competitors sites and take ideas, they’re at the top for a reason.
2. Be involved in the design process but be willing to listen and take advice.
3. Review your website periodically throughout the year and perform a full overhaul every 2-3 years.

Is it worth the investment of getting it done professionally?

Only you can decide that.

But when you are weighing up the cost of a website think about the potential return it may have for your business, i.e. How many jobs/sales you’ll make over the following 12-24 months.

A £5-10K website might sound like a lot money, but if it brings in say £50-100K in work, does it not then justify itself?