There are over half a billion websites on the internet – so what makes a good website and how do you persuade click-happy visitors to stay on your site when there is so much choice?

This week we launched a beautiful new website for Shropshire-based independent travel agents Peakes Travel Elite and after launching the stunning new site, we thought we’d take a moment to talk about why web design that looks great and works even better is so important for businesses.

Websites are the place we start our adventures nowadays, with stats showing that 9 out of 10 people research and plan their holidays online. So a key part of any trip will begin with gazing dreamily at beautiful beaches, sweeping desert sunsets, or scanning the cruise ship buffet - all through the wonder of our computer (and more often our mobile or tablet) screens.

Love at First Sight?

For so many customers, the first interaction they'll have with a business like Peakes Travel Elite is through their website, and stats show that a beautiful, easy-to-use website, will mean the first visit doesn’t quickly turn into the last:

• A survey carried out by Vistaprint found that 42% of people are “very unlikely” to buy from an unprofessional or ‘ugly’ website
• 39% of people will stop engaging with a website if the imagery takes too long to load
• Users form an opinion of your page within 0.5 seconds of it loading

So, with these stats in mind, it’s super important that your website both performs excellently (for the user and behind the scenes), and also looks good.

Here are a few things businesses absolutely must consider when it comes to web development. Sites must:

• Be mobile-friendly and adaptable to different devices and screen sizes
• Load quickly; a great looking site is useless if you don’t get any visitors - plus Google hates slow sites!
• Be beautiful, engaging, and have relevant imagery
• Have pages that work; too many broken pages will drive customers mad and is bad for SEO!
• Be well coded so search engines love the site
• Be secure and trustworthy – we recommend https security and that you avoid open source web development

So, when it comes to design and function, does your website tick all of these boxes?

Take a look at Peakes Travel Elite’s brand new Six Ticks website to see how we helped to create a beautiful new high performing site. Before the website launch, the company was receiving very few enquiries through their old website. Just a few weeks after its launch, the new site is already generating 5 direct enquiries per week.

And there are more to Six Ticks websites than looks. They get more visitors, generate more leads, and are developed with your business in mind, so they’re basically the perfect package! If you’d like to find out more, get in touch with our friendly team.