Keeping Your Web Design Current Increases Sales
If your website doesn't have the right look then you are driving away customers because you are telling them you are not right for them. I'm not talking about maintaining content which is vital too but the overall look of your site.
I use the word currency for deliberate reasons. Currency is about being up-to-date and reflecting current attitudes. Currency is of course also about good old money. Interestingly, having the former helps develop the other.
In the eye of the beholder
It is well established that value is ascribed at the level of the individual. What is less commonly acknowledged (but as well known) is that people like to clump. People like to be part of a group and move accordingly. If the group moves so do they. When "Fashion" says that red is in then the "fashionable people" replace their old wardrobe with the current red (as opposed to currant color - sorry).
If you are selling last-season blue then you need to be careful. Your customers are about to leave you in droves. Having a front window of red increases your chances of having browsers drop in for a look. Being all blue out front makes you less attractive to the fashionable group because it says that you are so yesterday and not tomorrow at all.
This applies equally to websites. The fashions and trends on the web change about as fast as a thirteen year old girl's bedroom furniture. Not keeping your overall design (call it branding if you absolutely must) in the current expected mode is telling users that you are not current.
I see a lot of web sites. Many of them look as if they were build in 1997 and left there - even new ones built yesterday. Even if the content has been updated like clockwork (I wish) the overall look that each and every one of these businesses project to me is that they are out of date. These businesses appear not to have kept up to date with the world at large. If it is a tax accountant I feel less confident of their overall savvy. If the business starts the relationship looking dusty then I don't feel as excited.
We all know that excitement is a major part of love. Love is excitement and excitement helps develop love. If you have an exciting time with someone you are far more likely to fall in love with them. If the person is dusty, drab and off the pace then you don't accept a second date.
In the eye of the beer holder
Before you go wildly changing your website look to slavishly reflect what you saw on MTV last night (and think looks hot) go carefully. Ask yourself: Who are my customers? What do these chosen few want from me to fall in love? What Dreams do they have that I can make a Reality? Have you done any kind of research of your customer base? If not then do so. Moving without understand what your customers want can be suicide.
Interestingly, people don't always make what we consider rational decisions. Look at the case of Hugh Grant, the best looking man in the world with the best looking woman in the world, Liz Hurley. And yet he had a desire to buy Divine Brown! Let me spell this out again. He had the best looking woman in the world and instead desired something less - much less if we be cruel. Why? Well we can consider all kinds of justifications but I think the answer lies in the reasoning that causes some people to choose to shop in places that look as if they are half finished barns.
Many People have a dream of getting more in their life - more for less, a bargain. These people go to self-styled Wholesalers, Warehouses and Disposal Stores to buy products - often at the same price that they could in any other store - believing they are getting value. Finishing off the stores properly with a ceiling lining would remove the impression in the minds of these consumers that there were bargains in every aisle. The look is part of the process for those customers. It is the dream that drives the behavior. Hugh dreamed of something else and Divine Brown represented that for him.
Be sure that you know your customers and build & maintain the look appropriate to their dreams and expectations. Be consistent, don't make radical changes that scare people and cause them to have to completely re-learn you. "Classic" is a form of current look that is less affected by fashion and often well advised but it doesn't work for every product. But even that will need to be maintained to appear concurrent with leading websites.
I know that constantly revising the look of your website may seem like a cost but before you nix the budget think about the opportunity cost of having a shop window of last-season blue.
If you want me to work with your business then please visit BRM Web Consulting
