Top 10 Things to Consider in Having a Great Website

Interact with us:

Written by Administrator

Monday, 29 March 2010 16:16

So you have a good website and you're wondering how to make it great. You're wondering if you have a user friendly website, a website that will keep customers coming back for more.

Here are a few factors to consider when reviewing your website. You might want to make some changes. Here are the top ten issues in website design and usability.

Think about these items in relation to your website and consider what changes you might want to make to achieve a great website.

1. Call To Action
What do you want your visitors to do? Make a donation? Buy a product? Contact you for your service? Regardless of the content of the page make sure that you include a clear call to action. Ideally, the homepage should have a call to action, however, all pages should have a call to action. Make it easy for visitors to donate, purchase or contact you.

2. The First Impression
People want to know what you do right away to allow them to determine if they should continue browsing. If they can't tell what it is you do they will likely go somewhere else. It is also important to give people a way to contact you easily if they should decide to do so.

3. Easy Navigation
After identifying what you do customers will seek out more information if they are interested. Having a user friendly navigation system is important. Typically, you shouldn't have more than 5-7 choices in your main navigation and keep it consistent on every page. This doesn't mean you can't be creative - you just want to find another place to let your creativity shine.

4. Contact Information
People will visit your website many times before they decide to hire you or purchase a product from you. When they make the decision to move forward don't make them wonder how to contact you. Make sure your contact information is clearly and accurately displayed.

5. Scrolling
Most visitors won't scroll unless you have convinced them it's worth their while. Knowing this, you want to make sure the most important pieces of each web page are above the fold. This is especially important on the home page. On other pages such as your FAQs page or blog, visitors come their to spend time reading and won't mind scrolling.

6. Inviting Content
To keep customers coming back time and time again you need to give them a reason to return. The fact is, most people won't buy from you or contact you the first time they visit your website. There needs to be something of value for them to return. Do you have a blog, featured products or useful information? What will keep your customers coming back?

7. Well-Organized Pages
Before writing and organizing your site content put yourself in your customer's shoes. Providing clear, concise and well organized content is very important. Don't make your customers search for what they're looking for.

8. Visual Appeal

While content is very important, an attractive website is more enjoyable and appealing for visitors. If a website has an unattractive design visitors are likely to spend less time on the website. Choosing colors that work well together as well leaving room for white space is important to not make the site feel cluttered and busy.

9. Believability and Trustworthiness
If a visitor can't trust you (your website) they are not likely to make the donation, buy the product or hire you for a service. It is important to provide features on the website that will help both people and search engines trust your website. Providing testimonials, for example, is a great way to build trust with visitors. Providing relevant content is one way of building trust with search engines.

10. Little Things (with Big Importance)
Checking your links to make sure they are not broken is so important. This cannot be stressed enough. Nothing will send a visitor running faster than broken links. How about the spelling and grammer? This gives an unprofessional appearance. Is all the information up to date and accurate? If not, visitors can wonder if you will have enough time to serve them if you don't have enough time to update your website. Just as people like to shop in a clean store with new items visitors prefer to shop in a well kept and clean website too. They'll have less faith in you if you have errors on your website.

So how great is your website? What area could you build on to increase your return on investment? Providing a well organized website with frequently updated relevant content will keep your customers coming back, bringing their friends and help build trust with search engines.

More Relevant Articles >>

How a Blog can grow your Business

Choosing a Color Scheme for Your Website

17 Free and Low Cost Ways to Promote Your Website

Last Updated on Tuesday, 18 May 2010 23:48