How to make a great first impression with your website

Dmitri Atrash
Bootcamp
Published in
4 min readJan 3, 2022

First impressions count. Whether you’re meeting someone at a party or on a date or talking with a potential employer, it’s important to make sure you leave the best impression possible. This is especially true for your business — for better or worse, your website can be the first thing people see when they find out about your company.

Neon sign of two hands shaking
Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

Think of it this way: if you met someone who was chaotic and unkempt, would you want to talk to them? Probably not! And if that person had a messy website with broken links and an inconsistent design, would you want to do business with them? Again, probably not!

Your website is often the first thing people see when searching for a company or service. That’s why every detail counts. People will judge your company or product based on how your site looks and what it says. Here are some tips on creating a great first impression on your site.

How to make a great first impression on your website

To make a great first impression on your website, you need to put in the extra effort. Your company’s website can carry a lot of weight when people consider your business.

Your website should be visually appealing and easy to navigate. It should also provide all the necessary contact information and clearly state what products and services you offer.

Good design isn’t just about looks — it’s about your website’s organization, how people interact with it, and the overall user experience. Go through your website and ask yourself: am I providing an excellent user experience? Am I making it easy for visitors to find relevant information? Have I provided enough content so that people don’t feel like they are missing out? Is my site aesthetically pleasing?

Another way to make an excellent first impression on your site is by using social media marketing tools such as Facebook Ads or Google AdWords. These marketing methods can help increase brand awareness by as much as 80 percent while reaching more customers at less expense than traditional print advertising.

Content is key

A critical step to creating a great first impression online is ensuring that your content is the best it can be. Your website should be up-to-date with fresh, relevant information about your business. If you’re not updating your site regularly, you and your business risk coming off as outdated and irrelevant.

It’s also important to understand what content most resonates with your audience. Tailoring your copy and your blog posts, if you have one, will help you create engaging content for your customers and have them coming back for more. Good content is an essential part of any marketing strategy.

You want people to visit your site because they find it exciting or shareable — not because they clicked on the wrong link. When people visit your website, they want to see something engaging and informative right away, not just a homepage that looks like every other one. That’s why it’s vital that you consider the following when creating content for your site:

  • Who is my audience? (What are they coming to my website to do? What do they want to see?)
  • What type of language is used? (Is it formal? Informal? Is it written in a conversational tone? Is it tailored for my audience?)
  • What topics does the content cover? (Are there images for each topic? Is there a video?)
  • How often was this information updated last time? (Do you need to update it again soon?)

What makes a good design?

Photo of a computer monitor with a website design on the screen
Photo by Eftakher Alam on Unsplash

Good design is about solving problems. If you create websites, you need to understand the problems that your clients are trying to solve before you can create something that will solve them.

Some of the questions to ask yourself when designing a website include:

  • What problem does my company or product hope to solve?
  • Who is my target audience?
  • What does my audience want from their experience with this company?
  • Is there anything special that needs to be done to integrate the website design with the product or service offered by my company?
  • What’s the site’s purpose? Is it informational, educational, or transactional?

Thinking through these questions helps you understand what your client needs and helps you put together a design strategy. It also makes it easier for you to conceptualize how your website should look and feel.

Wrapping up

It’s easy to underestimate the importance of your business’s website. But, when you get down to it, it’s one of the most important things you can invest in for your company.

When people visit your website, they will judge it based on how it looks and what they find there. Everything counts: how easy it is to navigate the site, the colors and fonts used, and even the words you use on each page.

The best way to make sure your site leaves a great impression? Make sure you know your target audience, create quality content tailored to your audience, and design something that excites your users and helps them do what they came to do on your website.

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Bootcamp
Bootcamp

Published in Bootcamp

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Dmitri Atrash
Dmitri Atrash

Written by Dmitri Atrash

I’m a former U.S. Naval Aviator turned user experience and product designer. I help businesses connect with their users through engaging digital experiences.

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