With almost all businesses going online today, a website represents you and your business before you even meet your potential clients. A good website is not enough. Your website needs to be GREAT in order to engage users, let them know who you are, your core values and what makes you different.
With so many website design options to choose from, it can be a difficult decision to make that fits your budget. Here are some key factors you need to consider for an effective website.
1. USABILITY
With so much information available online, users do not have much patience to find the information they are looking for. Your website should be designed such that there are the least number of clicks requires to navigate. If they have to keep clicking back and forth to find information, they will give up and move on to another website.
2. RESPONSIVE
Almost 50% of traffic to a website is from mobile phones. Make sure that your site is responsive such that it accommodates to the size of the screen it is being viewed at. This means that your website information should stack one on top of the other on smaller screens so that the content is large enough to be legible on small screens. The navigation menu should also be prominent for easy navigation.
3. QUALITY CONTENT
Content should be interesting, fresh and most importantly, RELEVANT. Finding the right balance is the key to help you with search rankings and not becoming too much jargon and boring for users with lengthy irrelevant text.
4. WELL DESIGNED
Sometimes it’s best to pay a professional to make your content stand out. Too much text on a page can ward off users. The size of text, colors, headlines, images, etc. all have to come together for your site to be visually appealing. Calls to action should also be placed correctly to lead users to eventually contact you.
5. OPTIMIZED
Just as you have to make the site appealing to users, the same has to be done for search engines. In other words, your site has to be beautiful inside out. Sites need to be coded correctly with the right page titles, meta tags, alt tags and the appropriate use of keywords.
