Does Your Site Have What It Takes?

it is important to comprehend the characteristics that can make or break the effectiveness of your online investment. An unattractive or badly developed site will do more to hurt your business than to help it. In this article, we take a look at the five basic elements involved in making a site successful.

Key Elements Of An Effective Website

1. Look 

2. Content

3. Functionality

4. SEO

The most effective site will reveal best practices across each these elements.

Look:

A site has to be visually attractive, polished and professional. Bear in mind, it's representing your company, your products and your services. Your site may be the first, and only, impression a potential client receives of your company.

An attractive website is far more likely to produce a positive impression and keep traffic on your website once they arrive. As companies large and small continue to populate the net, your challenge will be to attract and retain users' interest. Ideas such as this are what PR professionals listen to maintain their companies successful.

Guidelines:

• Good use of colour: an appropriate colour scheme will comprise 2 or 3 primary colours that combine well and create a correct mood or tone to your business. Don't overdo the color, as it could divert from the written content.

• Text that's readily read: The most easily read mix is black text on a white background, but many other color combinations are acceptable if the contrast is within an appropriate selection. Use fonts that are easy to read and are found on most of the computer systems. Depending on your audience. 

• Meaningful graphics: Pictures are significant, as they give visual selection and appeal to an otherwise boring page of text. But don't over-use themand be sure add context or meaning to your written content. Don't overload any 1 page with over 3 or 4 images. 

• Quality photography: A easy approach to improve visual appeal is to utilize top quality photography. High quality product images are particularly crucial for online retailers. Uncluttered designs make it possible for viewers to focus on your message. Don't overload your site with excessively complex design, cartoon, or other consequences just to impress your viewers.

Content:

Along with design, your site must have material. Remember your audience is looking for advice which will help them make a decision, so it should be informative and relevant. Use this opportunity to increase visitor confidence in your business's knowledge and proficiency.

Guidelines:

• Brief and organized copy: Clearly label topics and break up your text into little paragraphs. Do not bore your traffic with visually overwhelming text. You've got less than 10 seconds to hook your traffic, so catch their attention by being clear, concise and persuasive.

• Update your content regularly: nobody likes to read exactly the identical thing over and over again. Dead or static content will not attract visitors back to your site!

• Speak to your customers: Use the word you as far as possible. Reduce Using I, we and us.

• Consider a professional: Unless you are a particularly good author, consider using a professional to compose or edit your text content.

But What about the Glitz?

Flashy animation and graphics are enticing, and may have an extremely positive effect on user experience. Just use them appropriately and keep some easy guidelines in mind:

Use multimedia to amuse and enlighten your prospects. A animated bannerads, snappy interactive or video content will add to your website's"interest quotient" and retain your visitors around longer. BUT -- do not force your visitors to endure something they are not interested in or do not have time for, and do not allow the"rich media" overwhelm your additional content.

Provide downloadable podcasts, presentations and types for users that can't stay long, but wish to take some of your information together.

Don't neglect your HTML content for the sake of glitz. Search Engines don't have ears, and can not read Flash, JavaScript or even PDFs.

Functionality:

Every component of your website should work quickly and properly. Broken or badly assembled elements will merely leave your visitors frustrated and frustrated with your company. Across the spectrum, everything should work as expected, including links, contact forms, site search, event registration, and so on.

• Error-free copy: Understand that the exposure your site will get. Double-check your own facts and statistics, as you don't know who may be quoting you tomorrow. Nor do you want to get remembered or recognized for typos, incorrect grammar and punctuation, or misspellings. Spelling mistakes and bad grammar are unforgivable on a website as they are in other company materials.

• A critical, but often overlooked element of a successful website is its level of usability. Your site has to be easy to browse, navigate, and understand. Some Important usability elements include:

• Simplicity: The best way to keep visitors glued to a site is via precious content, good organization and attractive design. Keep your website simple and well organized. 

• Fast-loading webpages: A page must load in 20 seconds or less via dial-up; at more than that, you'll lose more than half of your potential visitors. 

• Minimal scroll: This is particularly important on the first page. Make links from the home page to see more about a specific topic. Even the Search Engines will reward you for this behaviour. 

• Consistent layout: Site layout is very important for usability. Use a consistent design and repeat specific elements throughout the site. 

• Prominent, logical navigation: Put your menu items on peak of your website, or over the fold on either side. Remember, your customers are in a hurry -- do not make them search for information. 

• Descriptive link text: Usability testing shows that long link text makes it a lot easier for visitors to find their way around a site. Long, descriptive link text is preferred by Search Engines, too. Back links are important to provide users a sense of direction and also to stop them from feeling lost. Use a site map, and breadcrumbs, if necessary. At a minimum, you should test your site in the most recent versions of Internet Explorer (now, versions 8 and 9), in addition to Firefox and Safari. 

• Display Resolution: Screen resolution for the typical computer screen continues to increase. Nowadays, the average web surfer uses a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. However, you have to make sure that what seems great at this setting will work well for different resolutions.

Search Engine Optimized (Search Engine Optimization):

There are hundreds of rules and tips for successful search engine optimization, and this isn't the place to cover all of them. For starters, follow these simple rules:

• Don't use Flash, JavaScript or even image-only objects for your navigational items.

• Use your important keywords regularly and appropriately on your own copy.

• Minimize the usage of tables and use Cascading Style Sheets for layout and positioning; maintain your HTML code clutter-free.

• Leverage your links -- create them descriptive and use your own keywords in the link text

Many, many books have been written about Search Engine Optimization, and its scope is too broad to cover here. You can find more information on this important topic on our Search Engine Optimization page.

We've barely scratched the surface of what makes a site most effectively. However, by following these simple guidelines, you will be headed in the ideal direction. Go to our section on website design and development to learn more, or send us an email. We'd be delighted to respond to your questions!