What Makes A Good Website? 8 Things to Make Your Website Stand Out
Your small business needs a website. Plain and simple. No questions asked. Even if you don’t sell anything or need an online store, in this digital age, having a website is essentially the only way to get in front of customers. A website is the place to share who you are with your consumers, highlight your business goals, and establish brand loyalty with them.
While social media is an effective way to connect with customers, it should be used to complement a strong, easy to use website because that’s what gives a business that extra credibility. There have been multiple times when I’ve searched for a store or restaurant, only to be taken to a Facebook or Instagram page, no website in sight, turning me off from that business altogether. You don’t want that to happen to your business!
Making a great website is easier than ever now. Here are 8 characteristics of a good website that will set your business apart and up for success:
1. A Clear Vision
The most important thing needed for a good website is a clear vision of your company, your brand, your goals, and what you’d like your customer to gain from the website. Articulating your mission should be the first step in website creation, with every page, blog, image, and communication on your website supporting that mission, showing your customer exactly who you are, and inviting them along for the ride.
What is the message that you would like to share with your customer? This is where an “About Us” page can come in handy, or a mission statement, or a “Contact” page, it all depends on what you think is the best way to highlight your business.
2. Speedy Performance
It may not be the first thing that comes to mind, but backend mechanics and speed are extremely important in making a great website. If your website doesn’t load as fast as possible, you are leaving money on the table.
This is backed up by the fact that almost 90% of people admit that they will leave a website if it takes its time loading. These are people that could be benefitting from your services if only your website would load in time! If you do ecommerce, then it could affect you even more since webpage load time influences the buying decisions of about 70% of online shoppers.
Having a great website host is key, and consistently monitoring your website performance, analytics, and link and image speed are all needed for a good website.
3. Simple Design
Complex is overrated. Beauty is found in simplicity. The most gorgeous ballgowns are often the ones that are simple, yet fit the wearer impeccably well. The same can be said about website design. One of the strong website qualities is that it is simple: easy to look at, easy to navigate, and easy to know where everything is. You don’t want to intimidate your potential customer with how complicated your design is, but rather guide them down the smoothest path to making a purchase or conversion.
You want consumers to like what they see, to be intrigued by your design. Statistics say that users form an opinion on a website in a fraction of a second, and if your goal is to have them make a purchase, then the opinion needs to be good. Like the ballgown, make it tailored to them: simple, yet exactly what makes them look the best.
4. Strong Security
If you have an online store, one of the most important characteristics of a strong website is strong security so that your customers can be confident that you will protect their credit card and personal information. Even if you won’t be asking for credit card information, presenting a secure website is a major way to build trust with your customers.
This is easily achieved by starting with a reliable website host and having strong security built into your POS and credit card processing systems. You have some responsibility to regularly maintain and update your website and any additional systems you have integrated with it so that if there are broken links or any security threats, you can fix them as soon as possible.
5. A Lovely User Experience
This goes hand-in-hand with Simple Design, but in addition having a clean look, the interface, seamless experience of navigating the website, finding what you need, and making a purchase are all incredibly important in making a great website.
Forget about impressing visitors with a million complex pages. What is needed for a good website is an easy journey for the customer from home page to purchase page so that they will enjoy the experience and most importantly, come back. Don’t overcrowd your pages, have an easy to find menu, have logical organization from page to page, and don’t overwhelm customers by having too many options that could make them freeze up.
Customer loyalty is what is really going to grow your business, and a lovely user experience is a major influencing factor.
6. Content That Counts
One of the major characteristics of a great website is amazing content. Great content is what is going to assure your website visitors that you’re an authority on your subject, giving them helpful information and great advice, eventually leading them to buy your products. What would be useful to your customers? How can you help them?
Online consumers today want to associate with businesses that align with their values and who care about them in return. Personalization on websites is important, and over 70% of consumers actually expect it, so having a target audience and writing specifically to them is one of the most important strong website qualities. Make your content accurate, engaging, and fresh to set yourself apart from other mundane websites.
7. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
You have all of your incredible content, sleek and easy to use design, and secure backend performance, but now you need people to see your website! SEO is needed for a good website because that is where most of your organic traffic will come from.
Most people search for things through Google, and if your website is optimized with keywords, relevant information, and is regularly updated, then it will have a high spot on the search results. Google crawls, indexes, and ranks websites based keywords, then displays the ones most suitable for the search. Having a frequently updated blog or adding new products with great descriptions to your online store are great ways to optimize your website for SEO.
7. Mobile Optimization
The majority of internet traffic comes from phones versus full computers, so having your website optimized for mobile is a must if you want to grow your business. Most people shop straight through social meda which they access from their phones and are taken to online stores. Like we mentioned earlier, simple interface, easy navigation, and fast performance are what will convert customers the fastest, and these are all more important on mobile because there is a smaller space to work with.
In making a great website, you should make sure that your menus, images, and text size display clearly on the smaller screens of mobile phones and tablets. Extra care should be taken with the size and locations of your Calls to Action, so that nothing gets lost in the mobile experience.
Conclusion
Start with these 8 characteristics of a good website, and you will see success in no time! With LincSell, you can design and host your company’s website, with online store addons and social media integration personalized to you. Book a Demo to see how LincSell can make a great website!
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