Website design is a nuanced and intricate process that requires not only aesthetic capabilities but also technical skill. A well-designed website will be easy for the user to navigate, be optimized for conversions and structured for search engine optimization. Of course, your site must perform well technically but to form long-lasting relationships with your customers, your site needs to be tailored to your brand.
Why Brand Identity is Integral to Website Design
Your brand is much more than a way of identifying your company within a sea of competitors; your brand is a representation of who you are as a business. Successful branding enables businesses to connect with their target markets on an emotional level. Branding should represent the ideologies and values that your target audience aspires to. Your brand is the perception of your business that motivates customer loyalty and repeated purchases.
Make the Right First Impression
The first interaction an individual has with your business is likely via your website. Tailoring your website to your brand is not only necessary to ensure that a user quickly recognizes your brand identity, but remains on the site long enough to make a purchase. Research has found that it only takes a twentieth of a second for a user to form an opinion of a brand based on their website. This opinion will motivate whether they remain on or click off the site.
Consistency is Key
Maintaining consistency in branding both online and in-person is hugely important. Consistent branding has been found to increase revenue by 23%. There is no point spending huge amounts of time and money on your social media identity if that branding is not reflected in your website design. A consistent brand identity is necessary for your branding effort to bring in a high return. Without consistency, you will not be able to form deeper connections with your customers.
How to Tailor Your Website to Your Brand
Fully tailoring your website will benefit brand loyalty, brand awareness and sales. Just with every other part of website design, successful branding requires expert skill. If you want effective brand tailoring, you will need to consider functionality as well as esthetics – something that experts like blackbeltcommerce.com demonstrate in their case studies.
Use the Right Colors
Using the right colors is one of the easiest ways of tailoring your website to your brand, if it’s not your cup of tea, you can even hire a brand agency that specialises in those particular activities. Studies have found that brand colors improve recognition by over 80%. When designing your website take some time to research the psychology of colors, to understand which shades best suit your brand identity.
Images
The images on your site should be unique, with a subject matter and style that reflects your brand identity. When selecting images, you should not only consider what will fit your website’s layout but how cohesively the images fit with your branding across social media.
Written Copy
You should view your written copy not as a way to improve search engine rankings and a way to offer information to your customers, but as a means of representing your brand. Every part of your site’s copy, from the navigation bar headings to the calls-to-action, should be written in your brand’s own distinctive voice. Your brand voice will help to humanize your brand, making your business appear more trustworthy and easier for customers to relate to and connect with.