What are the Most Important Features of a Website?

Having a design which stands out is vitally important, especially if you operate within a saturated industry. Once people land on your site, they need to be impressed right away, so getting the general tone and layout right is a crucial part behind the whole process.

Subtle things like the colour scheme and choice of font can help, but perhaps most importantly, your site needs to adopt a modern vibe, since this will demonstrate your proactive approach with digital marketing efforts.

Poor bounce rates are never a good thing for SEO! One of the main reasons people turn right away would be when irrelevant content has been presented to them. So, make sure you have written copy which speaks to the consumer and carefully articulates key selling points. Things like specifications for each product you sell also need to be included, otherwise your customers may struggle to make informed decisions.

Content doesn’t have to be lots of wording spread across your site. Many businesses are now turning to videos in order to promote goods and services. The key advantage here would be it’s simple and engaging presence, something which may be more appealing to the younger demographic.

Your website needs to be laid out clearly, and navigation should never be something which confuses or even frustrates visitors. Make sure the most important aspects of the design are within simple and easy reach, keeping the less relevant features within more discrete locations, but still easily accessible.

Linking strategies are also important, so make sure it’s clear how visitors are expected to get from your home page into specific areas of the site. Keeping people engaged whilst visiting is all about user experience, which means clunky and poorly coded designs are sure to have a negative impact.

Most people access the internet on their phones, making the need for bespoke web design that caters towards a number of different dimensions all the more important! Can you imagine how frustrating it would be for visitors having to drag their fingers in order to read certain content! Right away, they’re likely to turn away and possibly never come back.

Every single aspect of web design needs to look the part equally on both desktops and mobile phones, with the key areas being image sizes, content alignment and navigational menus which adjust according to the device being used.

The more transparency you can offer consumers when they visit, the more likely they are to make an enquiry or purchase. Grab hold of reviews from previous customers and put the best on your site, as this provides concrete evidence that you practice what you preach.

You could even take this up a notch with video content once again! If you’ve completed a particularly complex project you’re especially proud of, why not interview any satisfied customers and incorporate this within an entire page dedicated to the work you undertook.

Ultimately, the aim of your website is to make visitors do something. This could be buying products or sending a submission form, both of which will require some form of call to action. Here, you need to make it crystal clear as to how customers are expected to move ahead, so once again think about layout and navigation.

Simplicity is often the best route to take, and at the forefront would be using very simple and easy to digest wording. Be impactful with the tone of voice and try to convey a sense of immediacy. You could also think about adding promotions to really entice the customer, such as highlighting discounts which would be applicable for future purchases.

Seems an obvious one, but you’d be surprised how difficult certain websites can make the process of finding contact details. The complexity of this page depends on the scale of your business. For larger operations, you may have various departments with different email addresses, in which case you should create a layout which drills this down in both a clear and simple manner.

It may also be worth adding pictures of your team to further enforce more clarity about your legitimacy as a business. People often like putting a face to any job titles, and this can also add a little more personality to what can otherwise be a rather bland looking page.

After you’ve launched your brand new website, movement on Google isn’t likely to happen unless you have a robust SEO strategy established. This is especially important for industries which already have a large number of websites listed. So, think about hiring a digital company to help identify a clear roadmap towards higher rankings.

This will be an on-going process, and that’s simply because your main competitors are likely to be implementing the same techniques. Creating fresh content and maintaining efficient load times will improve SEO, and early impetus can be enforced, simply by having a well-designed layout from the beginning.