If you think of a website like a cake, if a single ingredient is missing, the cake isn’t going to taste good.
…here are some ingredients…
The internet more than ever is an integral part of our daily lives and this is why everyone from family and friends to businesses and companies want to have their own web presence on the internet.
For the first two this is to share experiences and moments with other family member and their friends, for this there are many social media sites from Facebook to YouTube and from Twitter to Instagram.
Website for businesses and companies are different as they are meant to acquire more clients and if the appearance or content of the website is not up to the mark, your websites will leave a bad impression of your brand.
Creating these is an online investment and a website can make or break the image of your brand. If you think of this like a cake, if a single ingredient is missing, the cake isn’t going to taste good. Same goes for online websites because missing an ingredient will hurt the image of your website. Following are my most important characteristics for making a good website. If you are already an owner of a website of if you are planning to create a website, make sure all these characteristics are included:
Look and Feel
It is a known fact that everyone loves something that is visually appealing and your website should have this in abundance to give it a professional look and feel and ultimately a true reflection of your brand. Always remember that to some people this could be there first impression of your company and you want to make sure they have the right vision of your company. If it looks fantastic the impression that you will leave with the visitor is that you are fantastic. The next one on the list is quality content and although this is critical if your website is poorly designed this will make the visitor leave the site regardless of whether you have good content or not.Always remember to keep your colours on brand, don’t go overboard with colours as this will distract the visitor from the goal of the website, always remember KISS, Keep It Simple Simon.
Quality Content
Content is the basic and the most important thing of any website. There are two reasons for this, the first is the reason why a visitor is visiting your website is mainly because he is after some information about your company, as we said previously this like Look and Feel is the information that creates your brand and will be needed to gain the trust of the visitor.
The content needs to be targetted to the visitor and it is delivering the correct information to the visitor at the right time and in the right areas, this comes to the second reason, the search engines love unique, relevant and up to date content, old content will not be indexed. Well written, defined and content that guides a visitor through your site will make the visitor stay.
One other thing, don’t forget to have a proof read as spelling mistakes and poor grammar are annoying and can hurt the credibility of your website.
Functionality, navigation and responsiveness
For functionality its an easy lesson… check, check and check again that every link on your website goes to its intended page, broken links have to be the most annoying element of a website you have a targeted visitor who is after some relevant, unique content that you have on the site but he can’t get to it because the link is broken.
Navigation should be user friendly and always think simplicity as well as fast loading pages and keep the call to action in the same place, we well as other major areas of the site, search bars and navigation.
Making sure your site is responsive is a must have with Googles Mobilegeddon now in full effect, check your website passes the Google Mobile test at https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
Creativity and Uniqueness
Visitors will always love things that are unique and creative. Always try and bear in mind when you are designing who your target audience are and design a website for them. New technology means that you can give your site a uniqueness that will become its USP.
Digital Marketing
Search complaincy when building a website are critical and many people think about this too late. The importance of SEO is paramount at the beginning of any website design and development. Doesn’t matter how creative, unique, functional, if the visitor is unable to find your website through the search engine you could be loosing over half your traffic.
Competitor analysis and keyword research will help you to start to make inroads to appearing on the first page of your preferred search engine (just make sure your preference is with Google!)
Social Media is a massive player in your Brands traffic generation, find the right ones for your target audience, be real and be engaging and your followers and advocates will grow.
Analytical Tracking
Tracking is another important part of a website. Ongoing you are going to need to know who has visited your site and what they are looking at and for. This gives you the opportunity to make some changes to the pages that aren’t attracting the visitors attention.
Link Building
Link building actually determines your ranking in search engine results and this is where the Social Media channels can help, links from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc etc can linked with your own website. Even simple things like adding your website’s link in your emails will help. With the new API from the social media channels you can give users an option to share your link on other websites, this is also a good way of promoting your website.
Final Thoughts
Never underestimate the importance of an online website. Try and get all the ingredients of the cake mentioned above as a website which is creative, user friendly with good content can definitely help your branding and give you some loyal customers.
Looking for a new website design and development from a standard brochure based site right through to an ecommerce shop give Rik a call on 07900 154579 or email him at r.james@creativefabrik.co.uk
