Chances are you already have a website as a business owner. If not, it’s something you should seek to change as soon as possible. We live in a digital world, and you won’t be maximizing the potential of your business without an online presence.
It doesn’t matter if you own a small brick and mortar business. People aren’t just going to magically walk through your door until you literally scream what products or services you are selling at them. The way to do is by having a website as many people search for businesses near them with most of these searches resulting in a store visit. So, yep, a website is pretty important.
Creating a website is very easy these days thanks to hundreds, if not thousands, of pre-made templates and themes. You can have a website up and running in no time especially if all you want is a simple and professional-enough website to get you started. But a good enough website isn’t enough in today’s digital and insanely competitive market.
What Makes a Great Website?
You need to set yourself apart from the competition, something you can achieve by creating a unique website, a great website. What makes a great website, you may wonder. The answer to the question can be found below.
- Well-designed and Functional
Your website is the first contact prospective clients have with your business and your first and sometimes only opportunity to impress them and showcase your brand identity and professionalism. How prospective clients perceive your branding, and its authenticity is up to the design of the website.
Is your website visually appealing and professional? Or is it just blocks of texts with no layout or rhythm? When it comes to website design, simplicity is best in most cases. Choose a visually appealing color palette, allow white space, and let your message shine through.
Your website must also load quickly and correctly. If it’s taking longer than 3 seconds for your website to load, especially on mobile, you are failing.
- Easy to Use
Site visitors are not always patient, and you need to make your website easy to use, else they’ll leave in no time. Use clear and easy-to-navigate layouts while making all important information easily accessible to them. The last thing you want is to make your visitors work for information since they just don’t have the time nor patience for that.
“If you are selling product, site visitors expect to buy directly from the site. Hosting an event? Site visitors want to register and pay online. If there are tickets involved, they want to download that ticket right away. Have any questions? They expect to see a ‘chat now’ or let’s talk now’ button.
“Making all these examples work requires a lot of server-side code, and it’s more like software development than designing web pages. And this means you need a web development firm with extensive knowledge that goes beyond just the fundamentals,” says Web Developer BANG! based in Phoenix, Arizona.
- Cross Device Optimization
Your website should be able to work smoothly on any device with ease. While most people access the internet from their mobile devices, you should also optimize your website for desktop and tablet displays. This means navigation menus, image size and location, as well as call to actions should be adaptable to different screen sizes and appear in the appropriate positions.
- Fresh And Valuable Content
Content is the soul of your website and your aim should be to provide value for your visitors with fresh and quality content. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a market report, customer testimonial, white paper, how-to guide, or easy-read blog post, you should always strive to provide value for your visitor through accurate and relevant information. This is the best way to educate site visitors about your services and why they should patronize it.
With quality content, you are bound to experience increased engagement and get more sales conversation.
- High Security
This is even more important for e-commerce sites where potential buyers will need to enter their credit card or financial information to make a purchase. You want to assure your customers of the safety of their data so that they can rest easy focusing on having a good experience on your site.
There are several ways you can protect user’s data such as using secure hosting, SSL certificates, and multi-factor authentication. An experienced website developer is in a good position to advise you on security measures to adopt on your website.
It’s worth pointing out search engines such as Google mark websites without SSL certificates as insecure and warn visitors before accessing your site. This makes potential customers doubt the credibility of your website and most of them will refuse to proceed to your website.
