What makes a good website? A good marketer? No, that’s who makes a good website. And while the simplest way to get a high-quality website is to hire your friendly neighborhood marketer, today’s blog is about the elements that go into building a good site.
Know Your Purpose
As always, before doing something, you should know why you’re doing it. I’ve written extensively about understanding your website’s purpose in a previous blog, so this won’t be a deep dive.
For now, understand that most websites do one or a combination of 3 things: sell, inform, or persuade.
Once you understand why you have a site, you can create the elements that will give you a high-quality website that delivers on meeting the purpose(s).
Visuals
When many people think of websites, they primarily think about visual aspects. (Unfortunately, this misses a lot, but we’ll explain that more below.) Visuals are frequently the first thing people notice, so they do matter.
Your site should be eye-catching but not distracting in its presentation. Users should be able to tell at a glance what you do through pictures of your work or prominently displayed short descriptions.
Also important? Your branding! If you have a red, white, and blue logo with realistic images, your site should not look like a black-and-white cartoon. Ideally, you want to be instantly recognizable to those who know your brand. Keep your branding consistent.
Finally, users want to see pictures of people. We are naturally more interested in images of humans enjoying a product or service than we are in the product itself—the human element matters.
The Right Words in the Right Places – SEO
From a search engine and marketing perspective, the most essential element of a high-quality website is the words. Though Google offers an image search (which is pretty cool for identifying plants, FYI), the vast majority of searches are performed with voice or typing and use words.
That means without the right words, no one will find your site unless they know exactly where to look (i.e., they already have the URL and simply type it in). But it’s not just the words you use that matter, but the places you put them and how you label them.
For example, did you know that section headers on each page are weighed more heavily than the text? Not only that, but search engines don’t recognize section headers as such if they’re not labeled correctly. And if you can include search terms in the URL, all the better!
Words for Informing
Naturally, the words of a high-quality website aren’t just there to help people find it. They’re also there to help the people who are already there learn about your company.
Well-written content helps establish your credibility as a company and may even help you get to a sale. Poorly written content can be confusing and may even cause a potential customer to go elsewhere.
A Simple User-Friendly Interface
Perhaps the most often overlooked aspect of a high-quality website is user-friendliness. Once you get your customers to your site, you want them to easily find their way around. If they want to get to the find a quote section quickly, they should be able to do it, or else you may lose the opportunity!
A search bar helps with user-friendliness, as can a clear layout within your menu.
The interface matters even more if you make sales from your site. Amazon became the largest retail company on the planet by making it extremely easy to buy products from them.
Business experts agree that a key to high-volume sales is a frictionless buying experience. Every time your potential customer runs into a barrier, you will lose a fraction of your potential sales. So, making buying a breeze. Be like Amazon, where it’s more difficult not to buy from them.
High-Quality Website Extras & BTS Essentials
Since every business is different and your website should reflect your business value and business values, a high-quality website for one business won’t be the same for one as another. But here are a few other elements to improve your site:
Gallery – If you have a highly visual product, you can’t go wrong with including examples of your work.
Video – As internet speeds improved, video became an increasingly vital piece of web search, SEO, and sites in general.
Blog – Blogs are a great way to dive deep into a happy customer experience, specific processes, and what makes your business unique. Blogs are also an excellent chance to improve your SEO significantly.
Review – People will trust your business more when they see reviews from real people who already trust you.
Links to Social – What I said for reviews is doubly true when you know the person leaving the review. When people can click on your social feeds and see who they know who’s already a fan of your company, your chance to sell just improved!
Does Your Company Have a High-Quality Website?
Now that you know what makes a high-quality website, you can give your site a good hard look and ask the difficult question, “Do you have a high-quality website?” If the answer is no, I have an idea to help it POP.
