Key Elements Of A Good Web Site
By Out of Web Site!
Professional Web Design
Seattle Web Design
Boston Web Design
So how do you build a good web site? How do you build a site that stands out above the competition, is a hit with your customers, and meets your business objectives – all at the same time. This article discusses some key elements that are required in order for your web site to become a success.
Knowing Your Competition
Knowing what your competition is up to could lead to many valuable insights when it comes time to build or redesign your own web site. Visit each of your main competitor’s web sites, and take note of what you like and dislike about each site.
Take a look at the graphical design and identify the elements that you like. Does the overall design come across as professional? Do you like the use of colors? Do you like the use of white space in the design, or does it feel too cluttered? Do you like the home page? How about the interior pages?
Study the architecture and organization of the site. How many main sections are there, and are these sections organized well? How many subcategories does each main section have, and are these subcategories organized well? Is the navigation intuitive? Is it easy to get from one page to another?
Then read through the content of the main pages. Is the content well written? Is it informative? Is there enough content to answer the customer’s questions? Also make note of any special features the web site has that you find really useful, such as a search form.
By researching your competition in this way, you can gain a great understanding of what works and what does not work for you. It is a great starting point that you can use as a reference when building your own site.
Logical Site Architecture
The site architecture refers to the main sections and subsections that make up the web site. For example, a main section may be titled About Us, and contain subsections such as Company History, Our Staff, Employment Opportunities, etc.
A good site architecture is one that is well organized and intuitive to understand. The visitor should be able to look at your web page and see the general sections they expect, organized in a logical fashion. As an analogy, say you are walking into a grocery store. You naturally expect that the produce is in one section, the meats in another section, and the dairy in another section. Within the dairy section, you would expect to see the milk in one subsection, the cheese in another subsection, and so on. This makes perfect sense, and is a very natural way for you to find the things you need. Your web site architecture should be organized in a similar logical, well organized manner.
One mistake people often make in their web site, is to have too many sections for the visitor to choose from. How many times have you gone to a site, and then be confronted with links upon links to choose from. This does nothing but overwhelm the user, as it is hard to understand the overall organization of your site, or to decide what link to choose from first. Instead, keep the number of main sections and subsections to a more reasonable amount.
Professional Graphical Design
If the look and feel of your web site does not match the quality of your business, then you will have a hard time attracting the customers you desire. The visitors to your web site will judge you by the quality of your web design. If your web site design is of outstanding quality, then your visitors will imply that your company is of outstanding quality. If your web site design is inferior, then your will be judged equally as inferior.
So be sure that your web site has a graphical design that matches the quality of your business. It should look professional in all regards, and be at least as good as the best of your competition. Otherwise your competition will literally look better than you, even if they are not in a business sense.
Intuitive User Interface & Navigation
The user interface refers to the interaction between a person and the web site. A big part of the user interface is the navigation, which takes you from one page to the next. A good web site will have a user interface that is intuitive to use, logically laid out, and easy to navigate.
The main links should be easily identifiable and conveniently located. The currently selected link should be distinguished somehow (for example, by a different color) to indicate that it is the current link. This helps the user keep track of where they are in the web site.
For large sites, drop down menus can be helpful since it allows users to easily move to a different section in one click.
Informative Content
Probably the most overlooked aspect of creating a good web site is the content. You can have the most beautiful web site that is polished from head to toe, yet if you don’t have content worth reading, it won’t do you any good.
One common mistake is to not have enough text on each web page. One short paragraph covering the top quarter of the page, just won’t cut it. Not only is it very difficult to be informative or convincing in such a short length of text, but it hurts your search engine rankings as well. Search engines will rank your site better if they have more text to analyze.
The culprit for such short text is almost always that the web site owner does not have enough time to write the text. You know what – that’s exactly what your customers are going to think – “This company does not have enough time to build their web site properly”. This reflects poorly on you, and does little to foster new business.
So do yourself a favor and write enough text for each of your web pages. A good rule of thumb is to have at least three quarters of the page full of text when printed out on a standard 8.5” x 11” sheet of paper.
Next, make sure that you content is informative to your customer. Understand your customer, and give them the content that they need. Make sure your content is up to date and fresh to keep customers coming back to your web site. Always be sure to fully proof and spell check your content before posting it to the web site.
Think Helpful, Not Cool
One pitfall to avoid is to just add features to a web site because of the “cool factor”. Just because something is cool, does not mean that it belongs on your web site. Flash intros, for example, in which a Flash animation was shown before the real home page, used to be the in thing to do. That is, until web site owners discovered that users hit the Skip Intro button 9 times out of 10.
When deciding whether or not to add a new feature to your web site, ask yourself this simple question – does this feature add value to the site? If not, skip it. If so, go ahead and add it. The best features of a web site are one that your visitors actually use. So talk to your customers and ask them what they would really like to have on your web site.
Going Above & Beyond
Every now and then, we come across a web site that goes far beyond what other similar web sites have done. An example is a web site that has gone out of their way to write so much informative content that you can’t help but be thankful. All the research and information this web site has collected for you saves you days of research that you otherwise would have done on your own. Visitors of such sites greatly appreciate the extra effort the site owners have taken, and reward them with their business. So if you want a web site that stands out from the competition, put in the extra time and create loads of great content that your visitors will love.
This article is copyrighted and may not be copied or reproduced in any manner without written consent from Out of Web Site!, LLC. Please contact us if you would like permission to republish this article.