Think about a time when you visited a company’s website and saw something that didn’t sit well with you as a consumer. Maybe the website hasn’t been updated since the early 2000s, the navigation is a mess or the site is filled with typos and design inconsistencies. That company could offer the world’s best products, services or information, but if its website feels outdated or unprofessional, you may still hesitate to trust it.
Having a strong website is crucial for your business's advertising success. Without one, you risk losing your audience's trust and engagement before they even get a chance to interact with your business.
Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle coined the three pillars of persuasion: logos (logic), pathos (emotion) and ethos (credibility). In the marketing and advertising world, we use all three pillars to connect with our audiences. A strong website is a great opportunity to build ethos, or credibility, with your audience.
Website credibility is a way for your audience to feel like they can trust your organization and be more willing to engage with your message. While there's no single "right" way to establish credibility, there are several best practices to keep in mind.
According to an article by Forbes Communication Council, your website's credibility in terms of design can be determined by the "Four-Second Test." It is summarized as opening a webpage and setting a timer for four seconds. If you can't explain what the webpage was about, then the page is considered to fail.
The first thing people see on any webpage is the visuals. Having strong, clean visuals can elevate your website's branding as well as credibility, thus leading to more audience engagement and better advertising performance.
Humans by nature rely on their eyes to process the information around them. Words can only mean so much if there is no visual to accompany them. Incorporating visual elements can make your message stronger, easier to understand and feel more "finished."
Visual elements can include:
If your website sells computer hardware, for example, you should have images of each product being sold, and icons to help you navigate the site. Elements like infographics and videos can even help you compare different functions or get a better understanding of the products.
Websites are a great tool to express your organization's creativity, and the usage of color is a powerful way to enhance that.
When it comes to color, make sure the color of the background does not clash with the color of the text. Making sure text is readable helps people easily comprehend the words on the screen without strain. Using contrasting colors can also improve accessibility. Having high contrast between text and background colors can improve accessibility, as visually impaired individuals may have a hard time reading low-contrast text.
A great free resource for testing color schemes and accessibility is coolors.co. You can put in the hex codes for different elements like text and backgrounds to check contrast or generate color palettes.
Here is an example of both good and bad contrast:
Visual language comes together to form your brand identity. Think about the ideas and characteristics that define your brand. Is it futuristic? Is it simple or maximalist? What images, colors and styles come to mind when you think about it?
Consistent visual language can elevate your website’s credibility and strengthen your brand identity. Using your brand’s colors, imagery and design elements creates a cohesive experience that makes your website feel distinctly yours. Over time, audiences begin to associate these colors and visual elements with your brand, making it more recognizable and memorable.
For example, apple.com has one of the strongest visual identities that has stayed consistent yet fresh throughout the years. Apple uses metallic, cool tones to create its visual identity though color. They utilize textures like glass and metal to create a sense of futurism and luxury for their brand. Their use of rounded-square shapes in their website elements mimics the design language of their products, which have a similar shape. You can see this branding consistency throughout all corners of their website.
Inconsistent branding can look like mismatched colors, different fonts or inconsistent backgrounds on product images. For example, with a brand like Apple, it might feel off-putting to see a product photo with a bright geometric background, or sharp corners on text boxes because those elements don't align with their established visual brand identity.
Having a branding kit for your organization can help you stay consistent with fonts, imagery, assets and more to make your website feel more polished, thus making it more credible. If you don't have one, then make note of your brand's assets by writing down colors' hex codes, fonts you use, shapes, templates and assets.
Having an easy-to-navigate website can strengthen your advertising efforts and boost credibility. When pages and menus are clearly organized, your audience will be able to quickly find the correct information, making them more willing to interact with your site. For example, if your contact page is buried behind another menu, viewers will be less motivated to spend time seeking it out and even less motivated to contact you.
Proper navigation and layouts keep your viewers on the site and make them less likely to leave for a competing site.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is what pushes your website to show up at the beginning of search results. Optimizing your site's SEO can attract more relevant viewers to your content, which can make your advertising even more successful.
Benefits of SEO optimization include:
Professional SEO tools like Semrush, Screaming Frog and Google Search Console can provide a list of SEO issues to fix on your website, analytics features and website settings to improve your SEO performance.
It may seem daunting to implement all these changes and processes on your website, but it is important to take it one step at a time. Start by diagnosing any large, crucial issues that are common deterrents for your audience, then develop an improvement strategy and finally publish any edits to your website.
Usually, one small fix can yield a substantial amount of improvement in advertising performance for your website, but it is important to keep all the best practices in mind. Sometimes you don't need someone to start from scratch. You just need someone who can help you get across the finish line.
Your digital advertising can only work as hard as the website behind it. If your website is holding back your marketing efforts, let’s talk about how TKG can help turn it into a stronger tool for growth.