A website is frequently the first touchpoint for many businesses, both in Qatar and elsewhere. Before calling, sending an enquiry or visiting a business, many people like to research first by visiting the business’ website. This means that a website’s design not only includes the visual appeal of the site, but also its ability to guide and convert the website visitor into a customer.
For businesses in Qatar, having a professional and user-friendly website is one of the best ways to make a good first impression and help convince website visitors to become customers.
What Makes a Good Website Design?
A good website design must be simple to navigate and enable website visitors to find relevant information quickly.
It must allow the website visitor to find the key information about the business, which can then help convince the visitor to take action (more on that below).
A website can have an eye-catching design, but if the website visitor cannot effortlessly find the business service they are interested in, the website’s design has failed its primary objective.
Why Website Design Matters for Qatar Businesses
Qatar is a competitive marketplace and customers have plenty of options to choose from when buying products or services. As such, when a prospective customer researches a potential business to buy from, the website design can play a large part in influencing the customer’s decision and giving the business an advantage over the competition.
For small businesses, this initial impression is especially important as it is often the only opportunity to impress the customer.
Create a Strong First Impression
A website can create the first impression within a matter of seconds of a website visitor landing on the website.
The visitor will subconsciously absorb the layout, design images, colours and text before deciding if they would like to explore the rest of the website. As such, it is essential to have a professional design and layout that enable the visitor to instantly understand what your business does.
At the same time, a website should ensure that the visitor reaches the “core value proposition” (i.e. services and/or products) without overwhelming them with information first.
Make Website Navigation Simple
Navigation is an important element of a website’s design.
The website visitor should always know where they are and where they should go next. To achieve this, it is essential that a website’s core sections are always visible or easily accessible (e.g. Home, About, Services, Products, etc.)
If a visitor has to dig through several web pages just to find your contact details, there is a good chance they will never return. Easy navigation is a key element of a great user experience as it helps the website visitor find what they need quickly and easily.
Make the Website Mobile-Friendly
In today’s world, many people use their mobile phones to conduct research online. As such, a website should not only look good on a computer, but also on mobile devices such as smartphones. Text should be readable, images must be responsive and buttons should be easily tappable on a mobile touch screen. Forms should also be mobile-friendly and easy to fill out on a mobile phone. Having a mobile-friendly website is a great way to ensure a prospective customer in Qatar can explore your website while on the go.
Use Clear Calls to Action
A great website needs to lead the visitor towards taking an action, which is commonly known as a “call to action” or simply a CTA. CTAs can be in the form of prompts to contact the business, request a quotation, book a consultation and much more. Examples of CTAs include: Contact Us, Request a Quote, Get Started, Book a Consultation, Call Now and Send an Enquiry.
CTAs are essential CTAs should be clearly visible throughout the website without being overbearing.
Build Trust Through Professional Design
Customers rarely take the risk of doing business with a company unless they know it is a trustworthy organisation. A great website can help you achieve this by incorporating relevant information, testimonials, customer reviews/case studies, company certifications, company bio, professional images and more.
Website visitors in Qatar will want to learn more about a company before trusting the business with their money/time, and a great website design can help do exactly that.
Use High-Quality Images
Images can exert a powerful effect on the psyche of a website visitor and are often one of the first things they interact with on a website.
As such, businesses are strongly advised to use professional quality images that relate to the service/products they offer. For instance, a restaurant should showcase high-quality images of its food and location while construction companies should use images of their completed projects. At the same time, images should also be optimised so that they do not cause the website to load slowly.
Website Design and Website Speed Work Together
While a beautiful website is important, it should not cause the website to load slowly as that can turn off website visitors.
Images, videos, animations, scripts and plugins should be optimised to ensure that the website loads quickly and delivers a great user experience. Website design and website speed go hand-in-hand and should not be considered in isolation.
Create Clear Service Pages
A great way to showcase your services is to create individual web pages for your services. Each service page should briefly outline what the service involves and how the customer can use it/benefit from it. While a business may have multiple services, separating these into individual web pages ensures a better user-experience and also allows for better SEO.
Website Design Can Support SEO
Website SEO and website design go hand-in-hand.
Good website design and structure helps search engines and web visitors to easily traverse your website while also improving the website’s SEO performance. Important elements of SEO-friendly website design include page organisation, headings, URL structure, website speed, internal linking, mobile friendliness and website content. SEO should always be considered when designing a website.
Make Contact Information Easy to Find
If a prospective customer has found your website and is ready to contact your business, it should be easy to find. A business should list its contact information on its website, including but not limited to: phone number, email address, WhatsApp contact option, contact form and any other relevant information (like the business’ physical address in Qatar) where applicable.
For businesses in Qatar, the contact page in particular should be simple to navigate and avoid asking for information the prospective customer is not willing to provide.
Use Website Design to Generate Leads
A great website design can help a business meet its marketing objective of attracting and converting visitors into customers.
The main purpose of a business website should be to generate leads, which can then be nurtured through the sales funnel and converted into paying customers. The process of converting a website visitor into a lead is relatively simple and can be achieved by having a great website structure that takes the visitor through a journey.
For instance:
Visitor → Information → Trust → Interest → Action → Lead
Every step in the process should be influenced and determined by your website design and content.
Avoid Making the Website Too Complicated
Sometimes businesses try to do too much and end up sabotaging themselves by complicating the website too much. The use of special effects, plugins, pop-ups, unique menus and other additions can severely increase the complexity of a business’ website.
A simple website layout might be more effective at conveying your business’ value proposition and getting the website visitor to engage with the site.
Keep the Website Updated
When a website is launched, many businesses forget about it and do not update it. Businesses should keep their websites up-to-date with the latest contact information and make sure that all pages and forms function correctly. If new services, projects, testimonials and other information are launched, businesses should make sure that it is reflected on their websites.
This ensures that a business serves its customers well and maintains a professional online presence at all times.
Final Thoughts
Website design can play an important role in helping businesses in Qatar convert more online visitors into customers. Having a great-looking website is important but businesses must focus on creating a website that is not only mobile- and SEO-friendly but also has intuitive navigation, an uncomplicated design, easy-to-access contact details and clear calls to action. Using great images, videos and testimonials, as well as maintaining a professional tone can further support a website’s credibility and help turn website visitors into customers.
Ultimately, the overall design of your website should focus on its ability to deliver value to your website visitors while simultaneously helping you achieve your marketing objectives.
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