No matter what the shape or size of your business might be, there is no denying that your website is your most valuable marketing tool. A brand website is not just a place where potential customers and leads go to get information about what you’re offering.
It’s a place where they can be enchanted by your brand, learn about your brand’s story, and be convinced to choose you over your competitors. With such an essential function, it is crucial that you know the web design principles that can get your brand noticed and help you to secure loyal customers. With that in mind, let’s take a look at four brands that have gotten their web design perfect.
FreshBooks
The invoice generator software company FreshBooks seems to anticipate every question that a potential user of their service has and sets out to answer them in a compelling way. The long-form landing page consists of sleek icons that guide the user downward, with each scroll revealing a different selling point of their business. They seamlessly guide the user through the function of their software and the benefits of using it, while gracefully sprinkling in a few reviews from happy customers. In addition, their website has a ‘touring’ function that allows users to experience a virtual walkthrough of what it’s like to use FreshBooks’ accounting software, which highlights how easy and straightforward it is.
PayPal
PayPal might be a dominant market player in the online payment gateway community, but that doesn’t mean they have gotten complacent. Their beautiful landing page keeps things simple at first, with a sleek photo of a user accompanied by a one-click sign-up button. Scroll down, however, and it becomes clear that PayPal is taking the opportunity to inform you why you should choose them over competitors. They use cheery icons to highlight the benefits of using their service, while also making repeated reference to their market dominance, implying the convenience that accompanies using a payment app that is already used by 200 million other people.
LeoVegas
The online casino industry is a highly competitive one, with thousands of licensed operators vying for the attention of players around the world. The international casino gaming platform LeoVegas clearly knows this and has opted for an inclusive web design approach to try and attract as wide an audience as possible. If you look at the LeoVegas blackjack page here, you will see that they take the viewer through a linear story. They begin by highlighting all of their blackjack games in a visual gallery format, before going into a handy explainer on the actual rules of blackjack, so that nobody feels intimidated. Then they hit you with their bonus offers for new players, before emphasising at the bottom of the page that they operate in multiple different countries and provide their gaming services in close to a dozen languages.
Ford
Finally, we have the American car manufacturing giant Ford. With a car company, a high-concept, minimalist website isn’t really going to do the trick. People just want to know about the specs, pricing, and payment plans as quickly as possible, especially with a mass retailer like Ford. Their website clearly takes this into account, as visiting it feels like a digital representation of popping into a bricks-and-mortar Ford dealership. Click ‘shop‘ and you will immediately be met with an endless-scroll page of their available models, complete with pricing and basic specs all in one place. This no-nonsense approach is exactly what is needed for a company like Ford.
With these examples of on-point web design from hugely successful brands, this should hopefully inspire you to create a website that works for your business and your customers.