What Makes a Good Website? Tips for Website Success
The number of websites changes every second. As we’re writing this, there are over 1 billion websites on the web. Of course, many sites are out-of-date, irrelevant or completely anonymous. Yet, there is still an endless ocean of sites that compete for traffic, new customers, and the top place on search engines. Thus, no matter what your niche is, where you see your business in upcoming years and what your budget is, you need a website that has a chance to capture the attention.
As one of the most important assets of your business, a website is much more than a basic, online presentation that summarizes your offer, services, and business story. A good website is a powerful marketing tool with a huge potential for generating sales, as well. On the other hand, a website can be your main sales platform if your focus is on selling products of any kind. Apart from this, you can use a website for any sort of showcase and business promotion.
As you see, websites may cover any business need and any business niche. For this reason, having a professional, user-friendly website that can engage visitors, should be your priority. With the right website, you can transform your business, reach people anywhere in the world, start amazing collaborations or earn millions from your sofa. But what makes a good website? Although there are many platforms where you can look for the website design inspiration, you need more than a beautifully designed site. Anything that may affect the user experience negatively should be considered in advance.
To help you build a website that has it all, we created a guide on what makes a good website. These are the topics we’ve covered:
- Good Structure and Organization
- Simple Navigation
- Unique, High-Quality Content
- Design Style and Website’s Character
- Website Speed
- Clean Code & Powerful Features
- Well-Optimized Web Page
- Relevant External Links
- Tracking and Analytics
- Mobile Optimization
- Call to Action Buttons and Messages
- Personalized Approach
- Accessible Contact Form
- High Security Standards
- Chatbots
- Social Sharing Buttons
- WordPress as CMS
The way your website is organized may determine its destiny since it’s one of the first things people will notice once they enter. The structure without a flow directly affects the bounce rate. Poorly organized sites prevent people from following the structure, which creates frustration and confusion. Clean, neat website structure is a key for turning website visitors into customers. Thoughtful organizational structure allows easy navigation and avoids cluttered sections. This, furthermore, allows visitors to easily find content on your site or particular info they need to take action. So, before everything else, take some time and plan your website organization with users’ needs in mind.
Without a doubt, simple, user-friendly navigation is another thing that makes a good website. When your visitors can find what they are looking for within seconds, they are more likely to give your products/services a chance. On the other hand, if users need to wander around to locate your contact address or info about your prices, you’re in trouble. Make sure your content is organized in a way your website navigation doesn’t suffer. Use mega menus to create links to the relevant sections or organize your content into columns dedicated to separate topics.
Your website content is your mirror. So, make sure it reflects your values, ideas, and brand character. However, always have in mind your target audience and their needs. The good content sparks interest in your offer and engages the readers to take further steps. Make sure your content is fresh, easy-to-understand, and trustworthy. Don’t just copy someone else’s style. Find your tone of voice and stick to it. Also, don’t forget to share all the relevant information people may find useful. From your business story to info on your team members – everything is equally important. Apart from this, pay attention to your blog’s quality. Share original, well-researched articles that provide readers with additional value. This will benefit your SEO strategy as well. Also, there are many content writing tips that bring results – check them out from time to time.
Let’s be real – a website’s design can both seal and break a deal. The selection of colors, fonts, and graphical elements create the visual identity so it should be your priority. The good news is there are many free WordPress themes that can match your business personality. These themes are ideal starting points for beginners who don’t have the knowledge and resources to design a website from a stretch. Apart from this, you can check out stunning premium themes, designed for different niches. Besides lovely design, these themes offer numerous fully customizable layouts made to look great on any screen size and device type. Of course, you can also hire experienced UI and UX designers who create tailor-made websites.
People are impatient. If your website loads slowly, they may lose interest and leave within seconds. When your visitors need information quickly or they want to check out something without delay, the last thing they want is a slow website load. For this reason, pay special attention to your website’s speed. Beautiful design and original content are for nothing if people lose interest in the start. Optimize images, video, and audio files to prevent problems with speed. Also, use one of the plugins that increase website speed. These plugins are packed with everything you may need to speed up your site and keep it running without limitations.
Clean code is the core of every website. When everything on your site works without obstacles, you are more likely to offer a good user experience. However, if some of the functionalities don’t work or there are some bugs due to outdated code, your reputation can suffer seriously. For instance, if someone wants to contact you, but your contact form isn’t working, you may miss a potential collaboration or lose a client. So, if you hire a team of developers to create your site, make sure they will follow the latest industry trends and coding standards. Also, if you want to use a ready-made WordPress theme, make sure it’s created with the best coding practices.
When you compete against millions of websites, you need to pay special attention to search engine optimization. Even a great website is useless if it doesn’t rank on Google. This means you should carefully choose the keywords for your blogs, optimize images, meta description, URL, slug, and text title for each text you publish. Let’s not forget to mention hyperlinking and the importance of backlinks for SEO success. Use WordPress SEO plugins, if you don’t want to miss out on something and do things right. Also, always follow the latest SEO tips for the best results.
As we’ve already mentioned, links are an important aspect of SEO. Google loves when you include relevant links and sources in your articles. Relevant links are the signal that you offer valuable content, plus they can benefit your sales as well. If the leading sites in your industry have links to your website, your traffic will grow. Plus, people who come from different places may get interested in your project and decide to purchase. Plan your link-building strategy and be patient. If you do it right, the results will follow.
Having insights into what’s happening on your site is important for many reasons. When you know what CTA button works the best or where your customers are completing the action, you can plan your site better. This allows you to position banners and special deals on visible sections and targets users better. We recommend you to frequently track what’s working and what’s the issue to make needed improvements. Install Google Analytics on your site and get a useful insight of how your site is being used by visitors.
We honestly hope that the importance of mobile optimization is out of the question. Mobile users continue to dominate, so you should make sure your site will look amazing on any phone model. Plus, mobile optimization will benefit your SEO rankings. Luckily, there are many responsive WordPress themes that are already optimized for mobile formats.
Every marketer knows the power of call-to-action messages. Whenever you want your visitors to take some sort of action, you should use CTA messages. From inviting people to join your mailing list and encouraging them to share your article via social media, to calling them to download your free ebook – possibilities are endless. But where CTA messages and buttons really make a difference are sale sections. Don’t be shy – place your call to action messages on your shop and watch as the sales grow.
Believe us – generic, stock photos don’t work. Always, always go with your original images, or at least choose the images that reflect the character of your brand or business industry. Of course, add images of your team members to strengthen the reputation and build credibility. Apart from this, don’t forget to include clients’ testimonials and reviews. This is especially important if you’re new to the game. Another important thing is the list of your clients. Share the logos of your happy clientele to make your offer more personalized. But, on top of everything, never forget your target audience. Your tone of voice, content type, and writing style should match the customers’ profile. Lastly, add your location, contact info, and Instagram feed to make things more personalized.
Website security is crucial especially on sites where people should enter their personal data like card number, personal address, or phone number. So, if you run an online store, or run any kind of site that involves sharing personal data, make sure your site meets all security standards. SSL certificate is a must. It guarantees that any data from your users is protected via an encrypted system. But, if you want to make sure your site is monitored and protected on a daily level, you can always try WordPress security plugins.
People like spending time on their favorite social media platforms. Use this fact to promote your site via social media. Allow people to share the content they like on their social media profiles – enable social sharing buttons, add social media icons and get ready for extra engagement.
WordPress is trusted by millions of website owners. So, if you don’t want to experiment with less famous CMSs, play safe. This intuitive, user-friendly system will cover all your needs and allow you to build and modify your site as you please. It’s secure, reliable, and ready to work with amazing plugins that target different functionalities. In other words, no matter what kind of website you want to build, you will be happy with the final result.
Let’s Wrap It Up
Your website is the first thing your customers will see online. Don’t take it for granted. Every little detail – from design, website navigation, CTA buttons to its security and speed – matters. We hope our tips on what makes a good website will help you create a site with impressive traffic and bring you many amazing clients and business opportunities.
We hope this article was helpful. If you liked it, feel free to check out some of these articles as well!
