There’s no excuse to have poor design in a business. The barrier to entry for having a visually pleasing product or website is lower than it has ever been from a skill perspective (and by extension, from a cost perspective). Yet, I constantly come across dozens of poorly designed apps, websites, posters, and countless other things meant to represent a brand or company.

I’m not sure what angle those business owners are taking, but it’s making their jobs much harder. Nowadays, as the world becomes more and more reliant on visuals, even “old-school” or “boring” industries have found themselves in need of an aesthetic overhaul.

It all boils down to this: good design instills trust. All else being equal, I bet you’re more likely to shop from an unknown fashion brand if their site looks and feels much nicer than a similarly-unknown competitor’s. I bet you’re more likely to eat at a restaurant whose storefront has a more pleasing aesthetic. I bet you’re more likely to play a mobile game that doesn’t look like the games that seemingly only market via spam Facebook invites from forgotten hometown classmates.

Good design is (at least ostensibly) indicative that the business is legitimate, will deliver on their word, and will provide a good product or service. For many businesses, design seems like an afterthought, and it shows. So by that logic, if you have the design done right, then the other gears are probably spinning more-or-less well.

With that said, I think one of the best ROIs that a business or an entrepreneur can have is having good design. Full disclosure: I do own a digital creative agency. There’s no shortage of startups and established companies that just look, for lack of a better term, illegitimate.

Are you going to feel good buying from the website equivalent of this?

Probably not.

You can never be perfect, but effort has to be shown in the visually-apparent aspects of your business. If not, then it’s hard to tell what’s going on beneath the surface.

Focus on your design, and the trust will come.

I’m head of Digital Strategy at FOMO Studio, and we like to think that we’ve generated a serious amount of trust for our clients.