Source: depositphotos.com
There’s no single formula for creating the perfect website. And that shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.
After all, the type of web design that works best for your business hugely depends on the audience you are trying to target, the brand identity you’ve created, the digital marketing practices you employ, as well as current consumer behavior trends.
Nonetheless, even though you may not be able to use generalized advice to boost site traffic, visitor engagement, and conversion rates, you can invest in website design in a way that will attract your ideal customers and get them to convert.
And the best way to do this is to make design decisions based on your customer’s needs.
So, if you’re looking for design tips guaranteed to deliver top-notch results, here’s how to design your brand’s website with your ideal customer in mind.
Get the Technical Performance Right
The first step towards designing a website that gives your prospects what they need is paying attention to technical performance.
Ultimately, no matter how beautiful a website looks, if it doesn’t perform well, it’s not going to be successful at engaging and converting visitors.
In fact, data from Adobe shows that 41% of internet users will stop interacting with sites that are slow to load. And 30% will do the same if a website doesn’t display well on their current device.
So, if you’re trying to impress your target audience, ensure you get your site’s technical performance right.
First and foremost, this means boosting the load speed for all your pages. Additionally, do your best to clean up the navigation menu. Invest in SEO and high-quality content optimized for user intent. Optimize for mobile devices and small screens. Simplify the code to minimize redirects. And finally, don’t hesitate to invest in high-quality hosting services.
Once you’ve done all these things, you can move on to the aesthetic and functional aspects of web design, employing the strategies below to make your site look stunning and meet all your customers’ needs.
Create Relevant Landing Pages
One of the best ways to design your website with your ideal customer in mind is to map your audience’s buyer journey.
By learning how your prospects discover, research, and evaluate the products they invest in, you can create web pages that will capture your audience’s attention and influence potential customers to invest in one of your solutions.
For example, data from June 2023 shows that 40% of young consumers begin their shopping journey on search engines. So, knowing that a significant portion of these buyers will go on Google, type in a search term related to their pain point, and browse a variety of content until they’ve discovered a solution to their needs, you must optimize your website in a way that will rank for these search terms and guide these visitors to a page that answers their specific questions/needs.
In other words, by designing relevant landing pages, you can maximize the chances of attracting your ideal customers. Moreover, this approach can make it easier for you to design online spaces where potential buyers get answers to their questions and recognize your business as the answer to their problems.
For instance, if you check out the Milanote website, you’ll see that it consists of a variety of landing pages, each dedicated to a different application of the brand’s software. So, in addition to the homepage, which gives a general intro into the tool’s capabilities, Milanote also has dedicated application pages, like the Creative Writing page, where the design, visuals, and copy all present the product focusing on the benefits it offers to writers (who are just small portion of the brand’s target audience of creatives).
Source: milanote.com
Choose Visuals That Appeal to Your Target Audience
According to scientific research, people judge brands — and their credibility — based on the attractiveness of their websites.
When designing a site that is supposed to appeal to your ideal customer, your chosen visual elements must be attractive to your target audience. Moreover, they need to play a part in communicating some of the value your solutions provide.
So, the first step towards choosing the right visuals is to understand your prospects, their aesthetic preferences, their ideals, values, and priorities. From there, you can pick visuals that align with these criteria. And you can even choose different images to use in different settings (like on your product pages vs. your homepage) to achieve your desired results.
When picking the best visuals based on your brand’s ideal customers, you can find a lot of inspiration by looking at businesses operating in the fashion industry.
For instance, if you compare two designer brands — Loro Piana and Balenciaga — you’ll see how successfully these disparate businesses pick visuals to attract and appeal to their ideal customers.
On the one hand, Loro Piana uses website images to reinforce its brand image as a source of luxurious and understated fashion items that will always be considered timeless and classic.
Source: loropiana.com
Balenciaga, on the other hand, chooses edgy and loud imagery to attract fashionistas who want to stand out, break conventions, and show the world that they are 100% unique.
Source: balenciaga.com
Address User Pain Points and Frustrations Early On
Creating a well-designed website that appeals to a specific target audience requires a lot of research and work.
But while polishing the layout of your site or choosing the right visuals may require the assistance of an experienced team of designers, there’s one thing you can do that will be both effective and easy to implement — perfecting how you present your value propositions.
By ensuring that you address your ideal customer’s pain points and frustrations, you will maximize the chances of your web visitors recognizing that they’re in the right place. However, if you’re after the best possible results, you must do this instantly. And that means you should focus on the one space where web visitors are likely to spend most of their browsing time — the first screenful of your homepage.
By using the hero section of your website to show what your customers can expect from your business, you can ensure that your ideal customers recognize the value that you offer and convert into buyers.
For instance, if you check out the Vivion homepage, you’ll see that the brand promises “safe, ethically sourced, and contaminate-free ingredients,” which is more than enough to attract the brand’s target audience — supplements makers who care about the quality of excipients they use in their products.
Source: vivion.com
Make CTAs Logical for Your Ideal Customers’ Needs
Designing the perfect CTA buttons is one of the best ways to improve conversion rates on your website. But did you know that you can use CTA design to make your website more appealing to your ideal customers as well?
If your business offers an uncommon service, smart CTA button design practices can go a long way in helping your prospects overcome their conversion obstacles and moving them further down the sales funnel toward a conversion.
For example, knowing that the typical B2B purchase decision depends on six to ten decision-makers, brands trying to attract businesses need to optimize their CTAs for complex buying journeys. This is why a company like Trustshoring uses calls to action that invite web visitors to “Get matched to a developer” or “Book a call” on its Team Augmentation and Recruiting page, knowing that these are far more likely to lead to a conversion than a typical “Sign up” message that doesn’t specify the outcome of clicking a button.
Source: trustshoring.com
Create a Streamlined Shopping Experience
Finally, as you endeavor to design your brand’s website so that it attracts and converts your ideal customers, don’t forget that UX design also plays a role in helping web visitors realize that your company offers the value they need.
For instance, if you sell consumable products and want to build your business’ success on a base of loyal customers, add a subscription option to your product pages, like the one on the Toothpaste & Floss box page on the Floe website.
Source: getfloe.com
And don’t stop there. If you want to attract consumers who value convenience, include one-click checkout functions on your site. Or, if you wish to show your brand’s dedication to customer satisfaction, enrich product pages with FAQ sections and self-help tools.
Attracting Your Ideal Customers with Design
Designing the perfect website is almost impossible. Especially if you’re trying to do it quickly and without testing.
Nevertheless, the good news is that, with the right strategies, you can make design choices that lead to exceptional results. And, with some testing, you can even make significant improvements to your existing website design so that it appeals to the exact audience you’re trying to convert into happy customers of your business.
