According to Aristotle, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Of course, this does not negate the significance of those components. It is certainly true in the case of websites. Great websites are made up of many amazing parts that work together to form a successful business. Gone are the days when simply having a website with a brief business description sufficed. A perfect website is your brand’s face to the outside world in the new era of internet business.
We all quickly form opinions about the websites we visit. Some of them are informative and appealing to the point where we return several times per week, while others leave us with a negative or non-existent experience and we never return.
A frequently asked question is, “How to distinguish a good website from a poor website?” To be honest, everyone has different tastes and opinions, and we’ll never completely agree on which websites are good, great, or just plain bad. Nonetheless, most of us can base our emotions on similar factors.
Before we get into the basic components, remember to pay close attention to what your website requires because an ineffective website does nothing but waste your time and money.
Before you start building a website, you should define its purpose or goals. It is critical to have a clear, well-defined purpose. Taking this time before diving into the design and development process can mean the difference between a successful and unsuccessful website.
It is also critical to know what you want your site to do when planning it:
- Do you plan to offer products and services?
- Would you like to generate leads?
- Are you looking to establish your credentials?
1. Layout
As simple as it may sound, the sole purpose of a website layout is to support the website’s goals, whether those goals are conversion, brand awareness, entertainment, or any other. The goals of a website are expressed through content, and a layout design describes how to effectively deliver that content.
The layout of your website’s page is extremely important. Without it, your website would be nothing more than a wall of text and links that no one would want to read.
A better layout can:
Improve user experience: Without a layout, users may become frustrated when there is too much content on the screen, which can be overwhelming and stressful, causing them to abandon the website.
Branding: A good website layout also contributes to branding by employing spacing, alignment, and scale that are consistent with the company’s brand.
Conversion rates are also heavily influenced by web design. The appearance and functionality of a website have a direct impact on how appealing a product appears to a consumer and their likelihood of purchasing it.
2. Content
Good content is what distinguishes your website from the crowd and gets the right message into the hearts and minds of your customers. Content is a primarily determinant of a successful website. Your content includes the following:
- Images
- Infographics
- Case studies
- Whitepapers
- Press releases
- Reviews or Testimonials
- Video
Content is inextricably linked to design because the design is what makes the content appealing, but at the end of the day, you’ll need to provide your users with rich, informative content that answers their questions.
Your goal should be to identify and address your users’ pain points. High-quality website content can be boiled down to content marketing. It aids in attracting the right audience to your website, engaging them, and encouraging the user to act on your website.
Content marketing complements SEO because SEO cannot function properly without quality content. Creating valuable content benefits not only the user who reads it, but also the search ranking of your website.
3. Loading time
Users’ willingness to wait has decreased as technology enables faster experiences. Slow loading times are one of the most common reasons visitors abandon websites. Your average user will only wait a few seconds for your page to load. If nothing happens during this time, they will conclude that the site is too slow and will most likely navigate away to a competitor’s site. A good website speed should be near the top of your priority list for providing a good website experience to your visitors.
There is a psychology associated with how quickly your pages load. Users not only expect to see results quickly and are disappointed when they do not, but page speed also has an immediate impact on their professional opinion of you.
If your page takes too long to load, it creates a barrier between your visitors and you. This dynamic is so noticeable in a world where most websites hum along in two seconds or less that it gives potential clients a bad first impression.
If slow loading is a common problem for your website, try to figure out what’s causing it and fix it. Page load times are typically influenced by:
- Visual elements (images and animations).
- Custom fonts.
- Business logic.
- Technical infrastructure.
4. Blogging
Google appreciates new content. Frequent indexing is synonymous with new content.
Your static pages (for example, your ABOUT page, SERVICE page, and so on) are difficult to update with new content, but having a blog or news section on your site makes adding new content easier.
Blogging helps to
- Position yourself as an industry leader – by posting topics that resonate with your audience and demonstrate your knowledge, you are also marketing your skills for your business, service, or products.
- Use keywords in your articles: Using keywords in your article helps to drive traffic to your website. Make a list of the keywords, topics, and categories for which you want your company to be found and use these words and related phrases in your posts. Blogging broadens your net, bringing more visitors to your website.
- Use your other social media channels to promote your blogs – include SOCIAL SHARE on all your blog posts so that site visitors can easily share your content on their own social media platforms, driving more traffic to your site.
5. Optimized design for mobile
There is a distinction between a mobile-friendly and a mobile-optimized website. A mobile-friendly website displays correctly on smaller screens. It usually appears as a smaller version, but it does not always function perfectly. It should, however, continue to function. Mobile-friendly websites may also include text-based phone numbers or email addresses that can be used to initiate direct calls or email messages from mobile devices, as well as slideshows and image rotators that do not require Flash support.
While having a mobile-friendly site helps ensure that your site works on mobile devices, mobile optimization takes it a step further. A well mobile-optimised website adapts to any mobile device. It not only ensures that the site displays properly on mobile screens, but it also makes the site easy to navigate. It reformats content, displays larger navigation buttons, and optimises images to fit the size of the screen.
Some of the benefits of optimizing your website for mobile are:
Reach More Customers: Given how many people use mobile devices to conduct searches and browse the web, the importance of a mobile-optimized website cannot be overstated. You risk losing a significant portion of your target audience if you do not optimise your website design for mobile use.
Get More Traffic: Mobile-optimized content ranks higher in search results, receiving more traffic and backlinks. The more people who discover your website online, the more likely they are to purchase. High traffic can also boost brand awareness and give your company a competitive advantage.
When you have a well-optimized website, it works for you online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to connect with people who are looking for you. Your website and business will appear when customers search for relevant terms. When it comes to website optimization, the most important thing to remember is to optimize your website not only for search engines but also for real people.