AIDA in Web Design

Ever since 1897 when E. St. Elmo Lewis started to contemplate about advertising principles we’ve abided by his four step process of selling a product or service to potential customers, attract attention, maintain interest, create desire and get action, which has been turned into the marketing acronym AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action). Web design is no different.

The first challenge is to attract attention. We do this by creating a visual hierarchy; this could involve large headline text, a slideshow which uses stunning imagery or even animation. But it needs to be something relevant to your overall message and lead into the second step, maintaining interest. This is where you need a good copywriter to create content that appeals to the human side of us, i.e. don’t just describe your products or service, explain the benefits and why the user should invest in them. Along with some aspirational imagery this will naturally generate desire and lead the user to wanting to take action. Make sure your call to action stands out but doesn’t overwhelm the user; it comes at the end of the process and should be clear and easy to use.

The four steps are simple and obvious but it can be difficult combining them to create an effective website that generates interest or sales and that’s why I’m here to help.