For decades, those of us in the website design business and our clients have often debated the importance of white space. White space really gets a bad rap – and it’s often called some pretty nasty names.

Dead space. Negative space. Empty space.

Fact is, white space is one of the most powerful tools any internet marketing company can use to improve website design.

Think about your website like a large, empty room where everything is white – the walls, the floors, even the ceiling. And off in the corner of this large white room is a little red bean bag chair – you couldn’t possibly walk through this room and not notice this red bean bag chair. With so much white space surrounding this red bean bag chair – it instantly grabs your attention when you walk into the room. In fact, there’s so much white space in this room – our little red bean bag chair draws even more attention. Now just imagine how white space can be used to draw attention to your message, or your call to action or your logo!

Now, let’s think about a vast empty room as your website. Any good website design company will tell you, our objective is to move customers from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ – or from prospect to purchase – with a limited number of clicks. Having a clear path for your customers, with the fewest number of obstacles – is not just great website design, it makes good web marketing sense.

White space can be used to isolate and increase the importance of your message, while creating a clear path to purchase – converting ‘window shopper’ to  ‘customer’ in the fewest number of steps.

So the next time your tempted to add some clutter, remember how something as simple as white space can improve a visitors experience and convert customers more easily. Of course, what good is your website design without outstanding search engine optimization – if your customers can’t find you, they can’t buy from you.