Why dog breeder website design matters

Does it really matter what your dog breeder website design looks like? It sure does!

I understand why, on the whole, dog breeder websites are poorly designed. They’ve been designed by a relative, done by a professional years ago or are self-designed.

I can paint a wall, so why bother with professional painters? Because there’s much more to painting than slapping some paint on a wall. Same goes for website design.

Maintain your credibility and trust from your audience

A poorly designed website will diminish your credibility and trust. For businesses that’s critical, because you will lose customers.

For dog breeders, it will depend on your website’s intent, but generally you will lose

• credibility as a breed expert
• credibility as a breeder
• a potential puppy buyer’s trust

Now, I’m only interested in your dogs. So, who cares about your website design. Well I do because poor design usually includes

• dog images that are way too small and I can’t view them properly.
• not enough dog images
• information that’s too hard to read because of
  • poor typography
  • poor text contrast
  • big paragraphs
  • no subheadings
  • no bullet points
• distracting content such as
  • animations
  • music files
  • flashing text

Now, I’ve been a professional web designer near on two decades, so I know what good design is. I’ve also exhibited and bred dogs too, so I have better knowledge than most potential companion/pet owners of a typey well bred dog.

So if I were looking for a pup, I’m not going to place as much emphasis on your website design because I know how hard it is (and expensive) to carry that off. I’m going to look for breed type, breeder reputation, temperament, health testing and your independently evaluated show results.

But what is a potential pet owner going to do? They aren’t going in looking for breed type (they don’t even know what it is). They are going to look for information. And what if you’ve published  informative, credible and useful content but it’s embodied in poor web design where it’s too hard to read and difficult to access? They go and look somewhere else!

Your goal as a reputable dog breeder, that’s promoting purebred dogs online, is to engender trust, build an online audience and exude credibility as a breed expert.

You wouldn’t house your dogs in a dirty and shoddy environment for others to visit. Your credibility and trust would be destroyed.

You should use that same philosophy for promoting your dogs online. And just because you can hold a paint brush or use a keyboard, doesn’t mean you’re a painter or a web designer.

Optimising your website for mobiles is crucial

It goes without saying that the number of people using the internet on mobile devices is increasing.

My son has his phone attached to him and not just for calls or texting. He not only uses the phone for internet browsing but he even buys stuff online with it.

The responsive website doesn't look the same on all devices, ie fit on the screen, where you have to pinch and zoom. It means the website has been optimised for different screen size, providing optimal user experiences on all devices.

I could bang on about statistics but I won’t. Needless to say mobile usage is increasing quickly. And young people are heavy mobile users and they’ll be your target market soon. My son’s already decided on the breed of dog he wants when he leaves home (?)

Here are some overarching effects that non-responsive web design has on your website visitor.

• loss of audience
• users won’t engage with your website and search for other alternatives
• Google may penalise you for non-responsive websites as responsive design is Google’s recommended design pattern

Improving your navigation will improve your visitors’ experience on your website

The design of your navigation will have a big impact on your website’s user-friendliness. It affects search engine results and whether visitors will stick around and engage with your content.

Here are some common navigation mistakes that I’ve encountered after browsing hundreds of dog breeder websites.

• too many navigation items (I’ve seen in excess of 20 items on some websites)
• confusing navigation labels
• navigation that’s too hard to find
  • at the end each page (why should I have to scroll to get to another page!)
  • images used for navigation instead of text (very bad for search engine optimisation)
  • no consistency on pages (please don’t make me think)

It’s generally recommended to have no more than seven main navigation items. Visitors can scan this amount easily and are less likely to skip over important links.

The navigation order is also important. The contact link should be last and the most important items at the beginning.

Navigation needs to be consistent on every page. It should also use a standard style. By standard, I mean it should be positioned in a horizontal bar at the top of the page or in a sidebar.

Visitors should know how to get around your website intuitively without having to think. This makes for a good user experience.

How does Breedpost help you with your dog breeder website design?

By improving your web design quality, mobile responsiveness and navigation you

• maintain credibility and trust as a breed expert
• improve visitor engagement
• improve your search engine rankings

Here’s how Breedpost can help you with your dog breeder website design.

• Breedpost separates design and content so our clients don’t have to make web design decisions - that’s left to the experts
• Breedpost designs are mobile responsive. This means that visitors will have the same website experience, independent of the device that they are using.
• Breedpost allocates seven main sections on our website designs. This ensures navigation quality is maintained by our clients and their websites are user-friendly.