Are you sad about the lack of creative looking websites? Do you think too many websites look the same? Do you know how to turn your desire for more creative and unique aesthetics into a selling point for your business?

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Last week I continued a discussion about the the state of creativity or lack of it in the industry. I offered four reasons for why the web currently looks like it does, and why none of them are bad things.

Today I want to look ahead and, despite it not being necessary for most sites, I want talk about why you should be sharpening your creative pencils so to speak. I’ll do it through the same four basic ideas I talked about last week.

I want to talk about more creative aesthetics as a business advantage, what the ever changing technology means, why the art and creativity will come back as they always do, and finally where the next trends and the near future of aesthetics on the web are likely to come from.

One thing to keep in mind throughout, while design is how it works as well as how it looks, this conversation is about how it looks.

Aesthetics as a Business Advantage

I think the choice to have creative aesthetics that wow visitors or not is one of pros and cons and choosing the right balance for you, your site, and your business.

We can complain all we want about one site looking like the next but if the site is successful and its visitors are happy why does it need to be more beautiful?

A beautiful site while nice, is just one thing among many to have a successful business. It is one thing though, and that means you can use your skills creating beautiful websites as a differentiator in your business.

Part of what makes for a successful website is the attention it can attract to itself. Beautiful and creative sites tend to get noticed and talked about so it’s one way to gain general attention.

Studies show you have a few milliseconds to convince a visitor to stay a few seconds longer, long enough to direct them through your content. An artistically and creatively designed website can do that. Human beings like to look at things we find beautiful.

A creative site can hold attention beyond a few milliseconds, where you can then direct people to important content, which is ultimately what keeps them there and brings them back.

If your site looks like everyone else’s site there’s not much to distinguish you from the next search result. If on the other hand the first time someone lands on your site, your aesthetics wow that person, it’s more likely they’ll stick around, remember you, and come back again.

That doesn’t guarantee a sale, but it makes getting over the initial hurdle of keeping someone on your site more than a few milliseconds more likely.

Your site still needs to be well designed so visitors can navigate it and find what they’re looking for and it needs to be easy to contact you and pay you, etc. A creative and beautiful site can help you get to those things, which is much harder to do than we like to think.

There are plenty of studies to show that people will spend more time with a site they consider aesthetically pleasing, keeping them more engaged and more likely to learn the interface.