6 Elements of a Successful Website

Okay, now you’re convinced that your business needs a website and you are looking to build a successful website. That sounds easy, right? Wrong. It’s not impossible, but it takes more than just a pretty design; it takes unique content, a clear purpose, fast loading and much more than you think.

Luckily, you are graced by a freelance website designer who knows her stuff.

Content

This is listed first for a reason: unique and informative content is key to a successful website.

• Write your content according to your target market – It is important to recognize the traits of your target market. You need to make sure that you are writing content that is interesting and understandable to that target audience.
• Your content needs to be informative – Remember that you’re trying to sell your product/services, not just trying to impress people with your design. You need to describe your product/service in the most informative and simplest form or your visitors will have no clue what your product/service is and leave your website.
• Make sure your content is unique and fresh – There will always be competitors in your market, so you need to make sure your content is unique and updated regularly. If your content is not updated regularly and not unique, visitors are more likely to go towards your competitor because their content is more appealing and fresh.

Purpose

Before you even create a website, you need to think of what your purpose is. You need to figure out why your business exists and how you can help the visitor with your product/service.

• Research your target audience – Before you start any project with your business, you should always research information about your target audience such as their ages, their demographics, their interests, their abilities and etc. With that information, you can come up with your purpose.
• Create an Elevator Pitch – Once you know your website’s purpose, you need to come up with an elevator pitch to reel in your visitors. An elevator pitch should only be 1-3 sentences that sum up your business in simplest terms.

Loading Time

Internet users are very picky and impatient. If your website is taking too long to load, they will not wait around for it. To keep your visitors at your website you need to make sure your website is fast loading.

• Optimize your images – Besides code, images are the number one reason why sites load slow. If your site has a large amount of images, you should always optimize them. Check out Yahoo’s Smush.it to “smush” your images and reduce the amount of time it takes to load your website.
• Optimize your website’s code – Like I said, a website’s code is usually the main reason websites are slow. You may have too much going on in your CSS and HTML. Here is a useful article on the 7 Principles of Clean and Optimized CSS.
• Do you really need it? - Look around your website. Do you see an unnecessary javascript code or an unnecessary HTML code? If so, you should remove it immediately. If it is not going to benefit your visitors and your website, then you should remove the code.

Navigation

Navigation is a very key part of a website. For a user to fully immerse themselves in your website, you need to make sure your navigation is easy to use.

• Help them get to where they want to go – The whole point of a navigation scheme is to help your users get to the important parts of a website. You need to make sure the links to your pages are short and to the point. If you want to direct them to your services, the best way to word it would be “Services”.
• Tell them what’s available on your website - The navigation scheme is a great way to promote what’s available on your website. Make sure you take advantage of your scheme to give important information to your users.
• Make it easy for them to reach you – The deal-breaker for most visitors wanting to purchase your product/services is making it easy for them to reach you. You must always have a way for the user to contact you or you will see a lack of purchases/sales.

Usability

Usability is an easy to concept to understand, but very hard to apply. Usability involves making sure the average visitor can understand and navigate through your website.

• Remember users have short attention spans – You have to keep in mind that users have short attention spans, so you need to grab their attention with images and bold or italicized words. Use those sparingly though because it can backfire and the visitor may  be too distracted from the main content.
• Use Call to Action buttons – One of the main tips of usability is to use call to action buttons. Call to action buttons are guides for the visitor to direct them to where they want to go. On my main website, I have two call to action buttons, one to direct visitors to my portfolio and one to direct visitors to my contact form. Those two buttons act as guide for potential clients to go to the important parts of my website.

Design

Lastly, the design is an important factor a successful website. If the design lacks personality, creativity and professionalism, then the visitor will not be attracted to your website because it’s not unique.

• Use your personality to your advantage – The best way to stand out from your competitor is to put personality into the website. Whether it’s a personality of the company or of you, it is a great way to stand out.
• Keep it Simple Stupid! – The design should not confuse the visitor from the main point of your website. If your design has elements that confuse or distract the visitor, then they will leave.
• Add a hint of creativity – It never hurts to add a hint of creativity with your business. Like adding your personality, it is another great way to make your business unique and to stand out from your competitors.