What makes your favorite brand your favorite? Maybe the first thing that comes to your mind are their products and how well they fit your needs. But let’s think, how did you find those products in the first place?
Chances are, their online presence had a little something to do with your positive experience. When a website looks, feels, and operates like a charm, it can make a company you’re already fond of become your absolute go-to. To achieve that stellar user experience, many brands in Charlotte and beyond rely on custom web design.
Custom web design is the art of crafting unique websites that perfectly align with the specific needs and desires of each client. This dynamic process involves a fusion of creativity, coding prowess, and design finesse, resulting in personalized digital experiences that stand out and appeal to users. When you go custom, nothing is cookie-cutter or off-the-shelf.
Custom web design is especially game-changing at a time when so many users surf the web on their mobile devices. SimilarWeb found that a whopping 63.64% of global web traffic originated from mobile devices in November of 2023. Having your website custom-designed empowers the designer to craft specific layouts for mobile that are easier to navigate from a smartphone.
The Power of User Experience in Custom Web Design
In mentioning mobile-friendly design, we’ve just touched on something very important for the health of your website–user experience. The user experience, or UX, encapsulates the entirety of what visitors go through as they move around and engage with your website. Your UX can either make it easier or impossible for visitors to convert into leads. So needless to say, you need to be prioritizing UX when planning out and developing your online presence.
Going the route of custom web design allows you to have a greater level of control over UX. Rather than relying on a predetermined template, you can tailor every element of your website to improve the user journey.
Use Custom Web Design to Build the User Journey
Ever opened up a website with a purpose in mind, but struggled to find what you were looking for? Maybe you see the top section and wonder what you’re even looking at. You ask yourself, “Have I come to the wrong place?”
This experience is exactly what you don’t want for your website visitors. A custom web design can help you avoid this exact scenario by prioritizing intuitive navigation. The layout of your entire web page can be tailor-mapped to ensure visitors find the information they need without even thinking. As a result, bounce rates will decline.
To illustrate this point, we can turn to a study by Nielsen Norman Group. They found that “The average difference in how users treat info above vs. below the fold is 84%.” Essentially, users are 84% more likely to interact with information above the fold of a website page. That’s why it’s crucial that you customize this portion of your web pages to tell the most impactful story you can. Custom web design makes it possible for you to knock this top section out of the park with customized elements, like videos or animations. If you really pique a visitor’s interest, you’ve got a better shot at getting them to scroll down the page and/or convert.
Want an example? Take a look at this custom-designed website we built for Heritage Pools. We always design with our client’s content in mind, making sure to highlight their key value proposition from the start. That way, site visitors know exactly what the company offers as soon as they land on the home page. They can then make an informed decision whether to scroll and find out more if the services offered match what they’re looking for.
The Ripple Effect of User Engagement
Improved user engagement is much more than a neat statistic. More engaged users have a higher likelihood of becoming valued customers. They spend longer on your website, learning about your products/services, signing up for newsletters, making purchases, or reaching out for a quote.
Even those who don’t become immediate leads get one step closer to converting every time they have a positive experience with your website. How’s that for ROI?
How Does Brand Identity Factor into Custom Web Design?
Within the realm of marketing, the term ‘brand’ represents a potent but intangible concept. It serves as a strategic tool, enabling people to not only recognize but also differentiate a particular product/company from its competitors. In addition to traditional brand elements like a logo or colors, a brand encompasses all the feelings and associations people have with your company. Branding is extremely important.
But what does that have to do with custom web design? Well, to truly convey your brand in the most impactful and consistent way, you need to be able to customize everything about your online presence. A pre-made template doesn’t know anything about your customers, much less your brand. If you want to stand out and have a clear, recognizable identity, you need to have a website tailor-made to convey your brand.
Have Complicated Needs?
If you’re in an industry where you have to meet highly specific standards or compliance requirements, chances are a website built from a template won’t cut it. You need a website designed to fit the guidelines so that you can focus on running your business instead of worrying about meeting regulations.
Businesses that need complex integrations woven into their websites also benefit from a custom web design. Again, you want to make it easy for users to use your product or service the way it was meant to be used. You run the risk of sacrificing ROI when you opt for a cheaper web design that limits the effectiveness of your core offer.
Ready to See the Return For Yourself?
At Lazarus Design Team, we custom-design all of our clients’ websites using WordPress, because we understand the impact customization has on user experience and engagement, brand cohesiveness, and most of all, ROI.
We could talk custom web design all day. If you’re interested in a conversation to see how a custom website could grow your business, drop us a line.
