As a company that excels in web design Surrey, the team at Thunderbolt Digital have seen our fair share of web design, both good and shockingly bad. Some businesses let their sites lapse for years and become incredibly outdated not only in function but appearance, which may actually be doing more harm than they realise! But what exactly can be lost from bad web design?
Search Engine Rankings
You may not realise it, but bad web design actually has the power to negatively affect your site’s search rankings! If many users click on your site through certain search results and immediately leave because your site looks outdated, unprofessional, or hard to navigate, then that can impact your bounce rate – something which Google uses to measure the “quality of sites”. Those with a higher bounce rate (a higher number of people leaving after not navigating away from the home page) score lower and will begin to lose rankings for keywords.
Sales
This is the possibility at the forefront of any businesses’ mind – sales. Sale drive cashflow and profit, so any loss in sales is disastrous. Unfortunately, bad web design can very easily lose you sales, especially if you’re an e-commerce site. Users who think your site looks outdated or suspect may not trust you to handle their payments, or those who think your site looks “tacky” may choose a competitor with a more well-polished site over yours.
Potential Employees
This is something that is not often considered, but having bad web design for your business site can actually be costing you employees! These days, most candidates will look up any company before they apply to them, and if your company site is found wanting, fresh talent that could have boosted your business may well choose to apply elsewhere instead!