First Impressions Count Online

Perfecting Digital Design

According to researchers at the Missouri University of Science and Technology it takes less than two tenths of a second for an online visitor to form an opinion of your brand once they have visited your website. (entrepreneur.com)

Given these statistics making a good impression should be among your top priorities when working on your web designs and social media.

A company website says everything about you, so be sure to make a really good first impression. It reflects your professionalism, reliability and your products and services; and you are likely to be judged by how attractive your website is. As visitors to a website we make subconscious decisions about a company or business based on our first impression.

 

Steps to make a good first impression:

  1. Before you can perfect your digital design to make a good first impression you must get to know and understand your target audience. What their interests are, what they are looking for and what they expect from you. Once you understand them you can perfect your digital design so that you can communicate with them successfully through your website.
  2. The branding on your website must be instantaneously recognisable and reflect the professionalism of your business. If you achieve this, you are almost guaranteed that your first impression will be a good one.
  3. Another important factor is that your website visitors can navigate around your site simply and find the information and content they are looking for. The secret is – the least amount of click to get to where they want to be.
  4. Be sure that your images, web banners, blog images, social media avatars are high resolution and are the correct size (pixels).
  5. Change it up. Change your designs frequently, for example, web banners, Facebook Cover Photos, Twitter Profile Photo, Blog images so that you are using visual media to attract attention.

 

Screen shot 2014-05-26 at 12.21.55

 

Facebook has also recognised the importance for companies and businesses to make good first impressions

As of Friday, May 23, 2014, Facebook has started prompting businesses to make the switch to their new page design. Facebook recognised the importance for businesses and companies to make a good first impression and so have updated their current design to make it easier for admins of pages to find the tools they use they most and to make it easier for visitors to the Facebook page to navigate around the Facebook page and find the information and content they are looking for.

 

Screen shot 2014-06-05 at 11.33.08

 

The one thing about Facebook is that apart from your profile photo, cover photo and content you share all Facebook pages for businesses are the same, in order to stand out from other Facebook business pages and become recognisable you need to perfect your digital design.

Creating branded graphics and images to share on your Facebook page will help your business page look more professional and stand out from the others and what’s great is that you don’t neccessarily need a digital designer to do this for your, you can use websites like Canva or PicMonkey to create and perfect your digital designs, you can also use these designs on your website. Creating and sharing content like this will be sure to make a good first impression on your Facebook page and website visitors.

 

Screen shot 2014-06-05 at 11.38.48

 

Jillian O’Toole,

University of Limerick,

Digital Marketing Intern,

Digital Training Institute.

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