If you’ve been on the internet long enough, you would have probably notice how popular websites work flawlessly as opposed to websites with low traffic. Behind the ease of shopping online, or the simple act of searching for a particular website, lies a number of important elements that make a website great.
Here are 6 key characteristics of a great website:
1. Well Designed
An attractive website, balances function and great design. The right aesthetic highlights the best things about the company while engaging users to stay or comeback to the website. How successful your design is, will determine how users in general feel or think about your company and its products.
While some may still believe a website design only serves the appearance, it actually plays a significant role into your search engine ranking.
2. Logical Navigation
A great website allows users to navigate through information with ease. There is a logical flow of how information is presented, that would prompt the user to go through it till the end. Another word for this would be User Experience (UX).
A well designed UX will encourage users to engage on the website further. In a way, it also informs how committed you are in ensuring their visit to your website is a pleasant one.
3. Search Engine Optimization
A great looking website and an easy to use experience won’t count for much if your website isn’t positioned well. SEO a.k.a Search Engine Optimization deals with optimizing your website so that it would rank well on a given search engine.
There are lots of factors that play into ranking, the most basic are:
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Using keywords on your website that ordinary people would use to search
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Making sure that images are not too heavy & tagged appropriately.
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Making sure your website loads fast.
4. Optimized for mobile
A lot of people are starting to surf the web on their smartphones. As smartphones get more advance and user friendly in terms of surfing the web, a lot of traffic will come from mobile. Most websites are still not optimized to work or look good in mobile.
A great way to optimize your website for mobile, is to have the website itself designed to be responsive. A responsive website transforms the look and feel of the website according to the device used to view it. This way you won’t have to worry to create a separate website to cater to mobile users.
5. Go Social
Thanks to social media, general news to cat videos are speedily viewed around the globe. Garnering fast and high volume of attention and engagement.
No matter what industry you’re from, it would be a great idea to have your website optimized for social media. Include a plug-in for social sharing, this helps whatever efforts your company may have to reach out to the public.
6. Call To Action
Don’t hesitate to use an appropriate number of Call to Action(CTA) throughout your website. A CTA is for your users who have already been convinced to stay and engage, but not to the point of being won over.
A great website reminds users to act upon whatever it is you are providing, by having strategically placed CTA’s.
A great website makes an effort to be pleasing to the eye, easy for the user to navigate through, and takes the opportunity to remind the user to do what you want them to do. Does your website have what we mentioned? If not, why not get an improvement?