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From a practical standpoint, branding is much more closely connected to marketing than it is to web design. After all, an organization’s “personality” directly influences how it’s going to advertise its products or services. Moreover, brand identity is closely connected to communication styles and brand differentiation, particularly in competitive markets.
However, here’s one thing that many business owners often overlook.
Brand shaping doesn’t just happen on social media or somewhere along the way when implementing your marketing tactics. For solid results, it needs to serve as a foundation for your entire online presence. And that includes web design.
Why? Because consumers automatically judge brands based on web design — both aesthetic and UX-related. So, if you want your target audience to form positive opinions about your business and want to become your brand’s customers, it’s crucial that your digital presence aligns with who your brand is — both visually and functionally.
With this in mind, learning how to balance aesthetics, user experience design, conversion mechanisms, and branding is one of the most essential steps toward creating a website that serves your business goals and aligns with your organization’s reputation in a way that creates more sales opportunities.
This guide will explore tactics for aligning aesthetic and UX design with your branding strategy, providing examples for each method to give you ideas on how to make this happen on your site.
Even though it may seem irrelevant, aesthetic design is actually quite important in driving website conversions.
The reason for this is that 59% of web users prefer consuming content that’s visually appealing. And even more importantly, scientific research suggests that three-quarters of people judge a company’s credibility based on website design.
In other words, aesthetic appeal isn’t just important for engaging your target audience. It’s equally important for positioning your organization as a competent and trustworthy business that potential customers can rely on to solve their pain points.
Another aspect of establishing a positive brand image depends on how you approach your site’s functionality.
Ultimately, consumers want easy-to-use, fast, reliable web experiences. And when those don’t happen, they don’t just close their web browser tabs — it’s possible that they may never return to a site again.
In fact, recent research suggests that poor digital experiences cause 55% of consumers to abandon their purchases, 50% to switch to a different brand, and 39% to cancel their subscription. On the other hand, positive experiences yield a 6.5x bigger spend, showing just how valuable great UX design can be.
The data above clearly shows how aesthetics and user experience design impact business outcomes and brand perception.
So, let’s explore how to align them with your branding strategy to maximize conversion potential.
Consumers prefer brands that care about them.
If you want web visitors to have a positive experience browsing your offer and form a good impression of your business, do your best to use web elements to demonstrate an in-depth understanding of their needs and preferences.
The great news is that this can be exceptionally simple.
In fact, something as elementary as listing who uses your solution (and how) — which is precisely what DialMyCalls does on its Mass Notification System landing page — is more than enough to engage potential customers through user-centricity.
Source: dialmycalls.com
Consumers love customer-centric brands. And the one business characteristic that helps translate branding tactics into profits is trust.
According to research, 87% of people spend more with brands they trust.
But here’s the deal. The primary benefit of a trustworthy brand reputation isn’t just about profits. Much more importantly, positioning your business as a credible and reliable entity offers a significant dose of resilience.
According to Edelman, 55% of people would remain loyal to a trusted brand, even if the brand made a mistake. Additionally, 53% would recommend the company to their peers, boosting awareness without requiring a marketing spend.
But what brands do consumers trust? Well, benevolence — that is, the willingness to put customer needs before profits — can be a huge help in earning people’s trust.
With this in mind, one of the best aesthetic and UX design tactics you can use to assist your branding efforts is to prioritize user value throughout the entire browsing experience.
In addition to investing in high-value content that benefits your target audience, consider using your site’s design to emphasize user-centric policies.
For instance, Somewhere does this beautifully by emphasizing its payment policy in the header section, which states that clients don’t pay if they don’t find the right candidate through Somewhere’s hiring services.
Source: somewhere.com
Actions speak louder than words. Nevertheless, when using web design to support your branding strategy, it is a good practice to employ a variety of design elements to emphasize key brand characteristics.
What’s great about implementing this approach is that it’s easily adaptable to your site’s existing design.
On the one hand, if you’re trying to highlight brand credibility, showing off social proof and trust signals — as PartnerStack did — is a relatively easy way to position your business as a trustworthy and competent entity.
Source: partnerstack.com
On the other hand, if your branding goals have more to do with brand personality and likability, then you can lean into the more aesthetic aspects of web design to create a cohesive impression about your brand’s identity.
Just check out how Ban.do does it on its homepage, where it fully allows its quirky (and lovable) personality to shine through.
Source: bando.com
In a sea of competition, standing out (and getting consumers to choose your solutions) can be incredibly challenging. Moreover, the fact that the majority of buyers are becoming increasingly price-conscious probably isn’t helping your sales tactics either.
Nevertheless, there is room for businesses to grow — even in competitive markets. However, it does depend on your ability to use branding and design to stand out.
The good news is that aesthetic design (and UX) has tremendous potential for brand differentiation.
In fact, something as simple as emphasizing a brand characteristic through aesthetic elements can be more than enough to show your target audience why your offer is better suited to meet their needs than alternative products or services.
For example, on the Tapni homepage, we chose not to stop at saying that our solution enables “networking that plants trees.” Instead, to drive the message home, we backed up the message with a visual as well, ensuring that web visitors notice and remember this claim and start to associate Tapni digital cards with eco-conscious networking tools.
Source: tapni.com
Positioning your business as a competent and reliable entity is next to impossible without good web performance.
After all, if your site is slow, non-responsive, or has a lot of error messages, it’s not going to convince your audience to trust your brand and invest in your products. Instead, it’s much more likely to harm your conversions and drive potential customers into your competitors’ sales funnels.
With this in mind, one of the most crucial UX design tactics to support your branding efforts is to optimize web performance. A good rule of thumb is to focus on site speed, mobile-friendliness, and removing errors.
For instance, the Soko homepage isn’t just visually stunning. It’s highly effective at showing off the brand’s products. It also looks and performs great on mobile. It’s fast. Additionally, it presents shoppers with a simple and intuitive purchasing experience, automatically elevating their chances of converting into customers.
Source: shopsoko.com
Balancing aesthetic design, user experience, and branding may seem like a tiring task.
However, the simple fact is that these three elements of your brand’s online presence all work together to form a cohesive picture of who your organization is.
So, don’t hesitate to invest in your site (or in visuals for your social media, for that matter). Ultimately, a beautiful and functional digital presence will help position your business in a positive light. And if you also manage to use design to emphasize specific brand characteristics you know your audience is seeking, you’ll see even better results thanks to the symbiosis of design and branding.
