10 Elements Your Web Site Must Have
Web design can be an overwhelming process, but when done correctly a website will help your business increase profits. There are some elements your website can probably do without, but many are essential. There are some things you cannot leave out if you want your website to effectively help grow your business.
Here are 10 essential elements you must consider when building your website to ensure your customers have a positive experience on the site and increase engagement with your brand:
1. A Clearly Articulated Goal
If the goals of your website are clearly stated, you will be able to define and plan the action your visitors need to take. First ask, “what is the reason for having this website?” If you can define this, you will get a clear idea about what you want your visitors to do, such as purchase a product from your online store, subscribe to an email list or complete a contact or enquiry form to generate a warm lead.
2. Quality Content
Your site will do well if it has quality content that is relevant to your target market, clearly written and edited. Without a clear and effective message, you will lose visitors. Quality content will also help boost your search engine ranking.
3. A Well-Organised Site Map
A site map is a way to easily organise and visualise the pages that make up your website. An effective site map will also assist with navigation on your site for both visitors and search engine robots.
4. Contact Information
Your most important business detail is your contact information, and therefore it must have its own section as part of your web design and be prominently displayed. A contact form on your website is the most efficient way to capture inquiries and leads. In most cases this form can be integrated with your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system.
5. Regular Maintenance
When a user arrives on an error page on your website, you don’t get a second chance to make that first impression. Content, systems, security patches and important information must be kept up to date for visitors. A web site maintenance package from a reliable vendor is critical to keeping your site up to date and running correctly.
6. Quality Inbound Links
An inbound link occurs when another website places a link to your website from their own. Listing your website on social networks is one method of creating a quality inbound link. The more quality inbound links to your web site, the greater authority it is given by Google in search results.
7. FAQs
Your new and existing customers will always have questions. Gathering up the most frequently asked questions into a compiled list with clear concise answers can increase your users experience and provide quality content, securing your position as an expert provider.
8. Security
Security is an important aspect of any web design, particularly if you have an online store or deal with sensitive information provided by your site visitors. Keeping your content management system and the other functions of your website current and maintained is a critical part of keeping it secure.
9. A Good Domain Name
Your domain name must be closely related to your business, it must be catchy, easy to type and something your customers can readily remember. A .com or .com.au domain name is suggested as people are more accustomed to these types of domain names. Avoid using hyphens and numbers in your domain name, since these types of names are hard to share verbally.
10. A Good Hosting Package
A slow site is frustrating and will turn customers away. Having a poor host can also affect your search engine ranking since many search engine algorithms detect webpage loading speed. Host your site with a trusted, and highly recommended web hosting provider.