If you currently own a website, or have plans to build one in the future, it’s important to know what makes a truly exceptional site. A badly designed website can often do more harm than good to your business. But a well designed website could be the factor that makes the difference between your company and your competitors.
We’ve listed some key elements to focus on when building a fantastic website.
Components of an impressive website.
Appearance
A site has to look professional and attractive. Your website is a reflection of your company’s products and services, so it’s important to make a good impression.
A visually appealing site will stand a much better chance of making a good impression on potential customers. If they like the way your website looks they are more likely to spend time browsing through your site after they have arrived. With the online environment growing increasingly competitive, it is increasingly important to be able to attract and maintain a user’s focus. PR professionals know how important this is and will go to great lengths to achieve a positive image.
Guidelines
Appropriate use of color: A good palette will contain primary colors that mix well and create the right ambiance for your company. Don’t go overboard with the color, as it can take attention away from the written content of your site.
Simple text: The most common style is black text and a white background, but there are plenty of other choices that will work if you can avoid clashes. Use uncomplicated fonts which modern computers find it easy to display. A good size for your body of text is between about 10 and 12 pts.
Purposeful graphics: It’s important to liven up your page with the use of graphics, as they will provide greater visual stimulation to the user. But don’t use too many, and make sure that the ones you use are relevant to the text content. Generally speaking, you shouldn’t use any more images than needed to support the rest of the content. In other words, don’t just show images without them telling a story.
High quality photographs: Make sure you aim for the top end of the quality scale when using photographs. Only the very best will make do for a truly exceptional website. Avoid stock photos if you can. Photos you take of real situations, businesses or processes are much more valuable than stock photos.
Content
Your site may be stylish, but does it have the substance to back that up. Users of your website are searching for information that will help them to decide on purchasing a product or service, so the information should be useful and relevant. This is a great chance to showcase your company’s expertise and competence in a particular area
Guidelines
The copy should be brief and well structured. Topics should be clearly labeled and the text broken up into easy to digest paragraphs. You only have seconds to grab your visitor’s attention; so don’t turn your audience off with complicated text and jargon.
Your website content should be regularly updated to avoid boring your visitors. Old content becomes stagnant and users won’t want to return to your page.
Use an informal tone when communicating with your visitors. Use of the second person i.e. “you” is important to establish a good line of communication. Avoid using “I” and “we” as this is less likely to engage a potential customer.
Think about hiring a pro: If you’re not a great writer, there are plenty of people out there who can provide a great service for you. If you still want to write your own content then outside help might be needed to proofread and edit what you’ve come up with.
How to make it glamorous
Plenty of companies opt for flashy graphics and animation when designing their site. This can have a great effect on user experience, but remember that all content should be appropriate to the site. Here is some advice to help you deliver content that is truly exceptional.
Websites that make good use of multimedia content can substantially add to the amount of interest generated by users. An animated banner or clever video, for example, can all help to keep your visitors’ interest. However you should remember not to force visitors to view this kind of content and it certainly shouldn’t be more prominent on the site than your other content.
It’s important not to forget about your HTML content for Search Engine reasons. Search Engines will generally look for HTML content and aren’t interested in Flash and Javascript.
Functionality
Websites should always be fast and functioning. If large parts of the site aren’t functioning properly you are likely to alienate your users. All elements of your website should function as intended, including contact forms, site search, event registration, links etc.
Accurate copy
You don’t know how many people will end up viewing your website. When you list facts and figures, double-check to make sure they are accurate, as someone may choose to quote information you list on your page. It’s also essential to be certain there are no grammar, spelling or punctuation mistakes, as this can leave a bad impression on your visitors.
Usability
A crucial factor to consider when designing a truly exceptional website is how usable it is. It has to be simple to navigate. The text content must be easy to read and understand.
Key components of usability include:
- Good organization: Your website must be well organized and simple. This can be achieved with great content, logical layout and an aesthetically pleasing appearance.
- Quick loading time: If your page takes over a few seconds to load, your visitors will likely lose interest and go somewhere else.
- Minimal scrolling: The longer you make a web page the less of it will people read. Just because you can make a web page as long as you want it doesn’t mean you should.
- Consistency: The layout and design of the site should be consistent throughout. This means repeat use of colors and fonts. A good layout will improve usability of the website.
- Easy to use navigation: The menu should generally be listed at the top of the site, or in some cases at the side. Have no more than 7 menu items. Visitors get bored easily, so it’s important they are able to find the information they are looking for quickly.
- Quality Link Descriptions: Studies have shown that visitors find long links easier to navigate a site. It’s also useful for SEO purposes. It’s also important to have back links, as this can prevent your user from getting lost. Always include a sitemap.
- Compatibility: Different browsers will display content differently to each other, as they each have their own programming. At the very least, your site must be tested on the latest versions of Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer.
- Display Resolution: Your website must be responsive, so it will respond to the display size of any device.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The web is flooded with tips and tricks for good search engine optimization. We won’t be able to cover them all here.
But here are some simple SEO rules:
- Have lots of unique content.
- Make sure important key words are used and in the right places.
- Your HTML content needs to be clean.
- Maximize your links – Well-described links that contain key words will multiply their effectiveness.