A website has, in many ways, become its own store front as well as the customers' first interaction with a brand. Maintaining a quality website is requisite for business success in the modern digital world of commerce.

In this article, we’ll break down the core components of what we’d deem a "quality website" and what areas to focus on to improve yours. By "quality website," we mean a site that is engaging, compelling to look at, and ultimately high-converting. So how do you make sure your site is meeting these criteria? By focusing on three aspects of your web development: Design, User Experience (UX), and Mobile Optimization.

Throughout this blog, we'll highlight some statistics that prove the importance of each of these aspects of your site. But before we get into the details, let’s first look at the big picture.

How Much Does My Website Really Matter?

A website is the primary point of contact between consumers and brands online. To understand how important the website is in this interaction, you need to analyze the behaviors of internet users and what they go to company websites for.

Ecommerce is always going to be a big reason for consumers to visit brand websites. In 2021, 74.3% of the American population purchased goods online, and that number is projected to reach 80% by 2025 (Statista).

Not only have most people made purchases online at some point, but on average, they do extremely frequently. 57.6% of internet users buy at least one product or service online each week (DataReportal). Making your online buying process simple and easy is one thing to focus on when building your site, but buying online isn’t the only reason consumers visit your site.

Whenever potential customers are researching a product or service, the company’s website is normally the first place they’ll go. In fact, 43.4% of internet users list researching products & brands as one of their primary reasons for using the internet (DataReportal). Product, service, and brand research are equally important and even more common use of brand websites.

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A Few More Statistics on Websites

• 52.3% of US internet users research brands online before making a purchase
• 33.5% of users researching brands go to the brand website
• 43.1% of internet users visit at least one brands website per month
• Websites are the number one way consumers interact with brands

(DataReportal)

So now that we know how important your website is, let’s dive into the specific areas we want to improve to make it high-converting.
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Web Design

The success or failure of web design starts at the most basic level: does the website correspond with what the consumer’s idea of your brand is?

This can be as simple as choosing a color scheme and typography that complement your logo and ad creatives or as complex as creating an aesthetic and mood that matches your brand perception.

This can obviously be a tough tightrope to walk, because how can you ever be sure your website is in alignment with a consumer's perspective of your brand? It’s an inexact science, but great success can be achieved through studying and implementing principles of design. These principles can reach from back to Gestalt psychology (studies of the human mind in relation to design and defining order among chaos) to more modern applications such as advanced color theory, minimalism, and beyond.

We don’t have the space (or knowledge) to provide a comprehensive education on design here, but what we do have is the stats that prove how important it is to design your website properly.

It takes only 50 milliseconds for website visitors to form an opinion on your site (Behavior & Information Technology). Pair that with the fact that 94%of site first impressions are design-related, and you can see just how important design is to keeping users on your site.

The best advice we can give is to make design decisions based on principal, research, and intention. Our point here is not to teach you how to design a great website, but to help you avoid dismissing web design as an afterthought to site function. After all, 52% of users say they won’t return to a website simply due to aesthetics.

Your web design directly effects how long users will stay on your site and the level of interaction you’ll get from them. Making sure your web design is both visually appealing and relevant to your brand is the first step to optimizing your website.

User Experience (UX)

The next aspect of website development that needs to be addressed is User Experience (commonly abbreviated as UX). The user experience is, quite simply, how a user experiences your site. It’s the actions they’ll perform in attempting to achieve their goal on your site and how they perceive its ease of use.

The Importance of UX:

• 88% of customers are less likely to return to a site after a poor user experience (HubSpot)
• PWC found that 32% of buyers would stop doing business with a brand they claimed to love after just one bad experience (HubSpot)
• Organizations that regularly invest in UI/UX see a minimum 10X ROI (UXPlanet)

So, we’ve proven that good UX is make-or-break for the success of your website, so now let’s define what good UX is. To do that, it’s actually easier to just point out bad UX. Slow load times, improper keywords, broken links, images that don’t load, and long checkout processes are some "bad UX" indicators. But UX goes beyond just the website function. It also includes the mapping out of user journeys and how easily they can find the information they’re looking for.

We all know bad UX because we’ve all experienced it. While most businesses realize that creating a user-friendly website is important, they may not realize just how much of a death sentence bad UX can be. If your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, 40% of customers will abandon it (HubSpot). You're turning away customers before they even get a chance to see your site. Even if they do make it to the site, it must feel fully complete for them stay. 39% of users stop engaging with a website if images don’t load (HubSpot).

Now your site may be loading everything quickly and, technically, be working at full capacity. But you may still be providing a bad user experience. If customers feel confused by the information they’re being presented, that easily convertible lead will leave without completing the sale. This is a huge problem for online retailers. In fact, it's estimated that 35% of all ecommerce revenue is left on the table due to bad UX (Amazon Web Services).

Not only could you be missing out on a huge chunk of your potential online earnings, but in doing so, you may be funneling customers directly to your competitors. Following a poor user experience, up to 89% of people have switched to a competitor’s website (Zippia).

Mobile Optimization

The final facet of your site that needs to be attended to is its mobile optimization. It’s easy to get caught up only attending to the desktop version of your site because that’s the device you’re creating it on. But for most users, they’re likely to be visiting your site on their smartphone.

Mobile Website Statistics

• 96.4% of US internet users own a smartphone
• Global computer usage trending down (Down 8% from January 2022)
• Time spent on the internet by device in year 2022: 56.9% Mobile, 43.1% Computers
• Mobile accounts for 59% of global website traffic (Up9% from 2021-22) 

(DataReportal) 

Not only are people quickly looking up sites on their phones, but they're spending time and shopping on them too. Mobile purchases make up for 56% of US online sales.

When setting up your online shops, you must keep mobile in mind to maximize purchases. Make sure the formatting looks clean, the catalog is easy to navigate, and the forms are easy to fill out. Performing these actions will promote higher conversion rates for your online store. 67% of mobile users say that when they visit a mobile-friendly site, they're more likely to buy a product or service (Google).

Keeping your site optimized for all devices can be a tedious process, but it’s one that pays major dividends. And it doesn’t take a genius to realize if a website developer hasn’t been keeping small screen usage in mind. 96% of users say they’ve noticed if a site isn’t mobile optimized (Google).

In Conclusion

We hope that this statistical breakdown has helped inform your website development. Make sure to pay extra care to design, user experience, and mobile optimization to keep your website retaining customers and converting.

If you feel that your website could be improved, 3P can help you out. We create websites from scratch that are tailored to your brand and goals. Our sites are responsive and customized with your input. We have a full creative team on staff to create photography, iconography, and animations that fit your brand. Additionally, we don’t tie you down to long-term website leases. You own your site after it’s been finalized.

Reach out today to start a conversation about upgrading your website.

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