Ways Your Website Can Affect Your Online Reputation

We all know that your website is a very important part of your business. Almost everyone who looks your business up will land on your website, where you list all of the products or services that you offer and provide an easy way to get in touch.  And of course everything is easy to find because your site has incredibly simple navigation, right? If not, your website you may be in trouble.  Social media is important and providing quality blog posts or news is great, but the cornerstone that holds everything together in the community surrounding your business is ultimately your website.

On social networks your look is confined to the standard design of network. Your website is the only place to show what makes you uniquely you. But if your website looks unprofessional, cheap, or is simply difficult to read and navigate, it might be enough to turn people off your business. It doesn’t matter how much engagement you have on social media if one of your leads goes to your website and immediately changes their mind. You want your customer to to come away impressed, not confused or questioning whether they can trust you.

Think of it like this: on the internet, you often only get one chance to capture your clients attention. If they see you as untrustworthy, you’ve lost a sale. If you appear unprofessional, they will wonder if their money or time would be better spent elsewhere. And it only takes moments for first impression to be established. That is why every design element is essential. With a few keystrokes, someone looking for a product or service can have several relevant results to chose from. It’s not like the traditional storefront where he’d have to get in his car and drive a few miles to your competitor. Today, one can literally hit the backspace key and be at their front door.

In Internet Marketing so much time is often spent getting the customer to your site. But from here, a few things can happen. The best outcome is that the visitor stays on your website browsing for whatever product he has come looking for. The second outcome is that he leaves and continues looking for your product in a different place. But this isn’t only risk you run when you have a poorly designed website. Your content is less likely to be shared and go viral, customers may leave with a bad taste in their mouth or even ask others for recommendations.

When you have only a few minutes to establish trust and provide an easy shopping experience, it’s no wonder why designers do everything they can to ensure you of a safe shopping experience and make navigating the site easy. You’ll often see redundant navigation options, like quick links in the bottom and a main menu at the top to the most popular pages or a search option in case you don’t want to search through the navigation bar. All of these things ad to the user experience leading to fewer frustrations. And you’ll often find trust badges at the bottom of the checkout pages ensuring you of a safe shopping experience. This all builds credibility and trust, just like the lock in the address bar does.

You want your website to appear professional, not outdated or trashy. Follow some simple design tips to ensure that your website is up to par. Simple color schemes like black and white work best. Actually, there is even some indication that black on white is much more readable than white on black. But what is most important is that the site doesn’t contain colors that clash. And it is important that a customer knows how to find things on your website. They should not have to  jump through a maze of links to find what they are looking for. Media files such as audio or video should not normally play automatically. When someone enters a website to be bombarded by sound it has been shown to increase bounce rate, which isn’t good.

It’s important to remember that your website is the online face of your company, so don’t skimp on quality design. Make sure it meets the standard that you’d expect and allow it to serve as a strong link between your physical businesses and any social media profiles. This is how you get the most beneficial effects on your reputation. Your website isn’t just an extension of your company, it is the face of your company.