What Attributes Do Effective Websites Share?
Although what appeals to one visitor won’t always please the next, effective websites share common attributes.
Here are our recommendations for creating an effective website. We’ve grouped attributes in these categories:
Content
- Deliver value
- Provide useful and relevant information
- Write clearly
- Visitors will exit quickly if your writing is vague or confusing
- Choose the simplest word that’s effective
- Example: Write “use” instead of “utilize.”
- Avoid wordiness
- Don’t use 15 words when 12 will suffice
- Your visitors are as busy as you are
- Don’t use 15 words when 12 will suffice
- Use text sparingly
- Text-heavy pages often deter visitors from exploring
- Position text appropriately
- Avoid stuffing your homepage
- Do provide detailed explanations on pages that describe products and services
- Save deep dives for your blog
- Tell your story over time
- Eliminate typos
- Typos undermine credibility
- If you can’t spot them, hire an editor
- At a minimum, use a tool to check your grammar and spelling
- Write text that’s easy to scan
- Use descriptive page headings and subheadings
- Limit paragraphs to roughly five lines of text
- Use lists
- Provide information visitors need and want
- They need to know:
- Who you are
- What you do
- How to contact you
- How to buy – especially on eCommerce sites
- They may want:
- Promotional-offer details
- Social proof that they should buy from you
- Product descriptions
- Service details
- Warranty information
- Payment options
- Photos or illustrations
- Case studies
- Key-staff bios and credentials
- Company information
- Locations and maps
- They need to know:
- Insert diagrams, charts, and graphics to educate
- Limit the number of information requests in your forms
- Folks don’t like completing forms — that’s especially true for long ones they encounter on a smartphone
- In most cases, the less information you request, the more leads you will receive, though there are form-length exceptions
- Augment text with video
- Many people prefer video to text. Provide both.
- Video can educate visitors on product or service pages
- “Where both video and text are available on the same page, 72% of people would rather use video to learn about a product or service.”
- source: https://www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics-2018/
- “Where both video and text are available on the same page, 72% of people would rather use video to learn about a product or service.”
- Effective use of video boosts conversions
- (A website conversion is a desired, measurable visitor action.)
- A short video may make sense on your homepage
- Example: On a lawyer or physician website, a friendly video can boost appeal and credibility.
- A video blog or vlog can boost sales
Navigation
- Organize your content hierarchy logically
- If your site contains many pages, a logical hierarchy is essential
- Ensure that every page intended for the public is reachable from your menu system
- Exceptions (pages you may not want in a menu):
- Pages that are part of a sales funnel
- Landing pages for marketing campaigns
- Gated content
- Individual articles – but, make these reachable from your blog index
- Confirmations such as “Thank You” pages
- Exceptions (pages you may not want in a menu):
- Position menu items intuitively
- Your website visitors will expect to see essential menu choices appear consistently at the top and bottom of your pages. They’ll scan sidebars for section-specific options. Don’t make them look elsewhere.
- Limit decisions when feasible
- Researchers at Cornell University estimate each of us makes roughly 35,000 decisions a day. Don’t burden your visitors with unnecessary choices.
- Avoid sending visitors to the wrong page
- Label your menu items understandably
- If your menu displays icons instead of text, add a hover feature that explains what each menu icon represents so your visitors will understand what will happen before they select an icon link
- Use breadcrumbs – especially if your site contains many pages
- Breadcrumbs help visitors maintain their bearings
Accessibility
- Make Viewing Easy on Mobile Devices
- Most website visits — 58% in 2018, per a recent study — happen on mobile devices.
- If mobile-device users must squint or pinch their screen, upgrade to a “responsive” design
- Make your telephone number clickable
- Don’t insert links that open content in a new tab or window
- Remove obstacles that may hinder visitors with a temporary or permanent disability (57 million Americans)
- Don’t rely exclusively on color to differentiate information
- 8% of Caucasian men are colorblind
- Use meaningful alt-tag text for images
- Provide captions for videos
- Hearing loss in both ears affects 13% of people over age 12
- Ensure all menu choices are accessible with the tab key for those who can’t use a mouse
- Accommodate visitors who rely on a screen reader
- Example: Use meaningful text in hyperlinks
- Example: Don’t use identical text in links pointing to different content
- Don’t rely exclusively on color to differentiate information
Design
- Use design elements wisely
- Colors, fonts, images, and page layouts impact your website’s effectiveness dramatically, for better or worse
- Display beautiful pictures if relevant, and lovely fonts if suitable, but always with your end goal in mind
- Sunset photos may delight you, but they won’t boost profits if you’re selling tacos, tires, or tambourines
- Remember: Your website is a tool to achieve your objectives, not an art contest
- Unless you are a professional website designer, hire one
- It will be among the best investments you’ll make for your business
Function
- Make features intuitive to use
- Make actions easy to complete
- Fix broken links
- Ensure every element and function on your website works
- Error messages undermine your organization’s credibility
- Broken websites aggravate and frustrate visitors
- Frustrated visitors leave
Speed
- Improve page loading time
- If your site takes longer than three seconds to load, you are forfeiting visitors
- Your search rankings also may suffer
- How to speed up your page loading time:
- Choose an excellent hosting company
- For WordPress websites, we recommend WP Engine
- Hire the most skilled website developer you can find
- Confirm that the web developer’s website loads in less than three seconds
- Test page-load speed here – easy and free for any site
- Confirm that the developer’s HTML is error-free
- Test for HTML errors here – easy and free for any site
- Confirm that the web developer’s website loads in less than three seconds
- Choose an excellent hosting company
- Learn why page loading time is so important.
SEO
- Google considers over 200 ranking factors to determine where they will display your site in search results. Here are tips for leveraging a few essential ranking factors.
- Discuss your products and services
- Your site will rank for terms your site mentions, so publish content that’s relevant to what your organization does
- Acquire inbound links to your website (backlinks)
- Google will consider your site more valuable if other sites link to it
- Learn how to attract backlinks to your website
- Engage your visitors
- Google rewards engaging websites
- If visitors linger on your site and view multiple pages or videos, your search rankings will benefit
- Follow the recommendations in this article to boost visitor engagement
- Discuss your products and services
- Remember: Your website can’t achieve your organization’s objectives if your target audience can’t find it
Security
- Provide a secure (HTTPS) connection, even if your site does not collect personally identifiable information
- Consider acquiring a free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt
- Contact your web developer or hosting company for help installing your certificate
- Protect your site from hackers
- There are many ways an intruder can monetize unauthorized access to your website
- If your site is on WordPress or another content management system:
- Use strong passwords
- Choose third-party plugins cautiously
- Install software updates promptly
- Protect information visitors submit via your website forms from hackers
- For e-commerce sites, use a secure payment processor
Feature image courtesy of Mimi Thian on Unsplash
