Websites are more important now than ever, with every company understanding the benefits of being online. That leaves one simple question: what makes a good website? If you understand these qualities, you can better ensure and maintain them, which will help attract and keep customers and visitors.
Easy to Navigate
Getting around any website is just like shopping in a store – customers like to be able to easily identify where to go. When it comes to the website, this means making everything easily recognisable – if someone is looking for a certain item, topic or subject, it should be clear which link would lead them that way. The less links, the better, too, as prolonged clicking doesn’t deliver results.
Speed
Likewise, websites need to be fast. A slow service gives people more time to leave – which never benefits any business. Two areas that can cause this are your server, which might not be coping with traffic (discussed later) or the design of your website. If there is too much going on the entire process slows down.
Perhaps even more importantly, it helps to compare your speed against the competitors. When it comes between two options, customers are potentially likely to swing in favour of the faster service. When it comes to looking up such services again, customers are likely going to remember the fast response and load times they received from your rival.
Traffic
Similar to speed, you need a server that can take the strain of added traffic. Stress testing and other maintaining inspections will let you know what your server can and cannot handle. You should always be aiming to improve these goals and be ahead of current traffic levels.
Even if it’s coping now, you should be ready for the future. If you can’t cope with an increase, then it will slow everything down when it arrives and, as already noted, slow loading speeds offer no benefits.
Service
Finally, do you offer an actual service? In this day and age online processing or e-mail may as well be a requirement. People like doing things online, whereas going to your website to find a telephone number slows the process down. In an age of online banking and transactions, most websites need to offer something above simple company information.
These are a few of the key characteristics needed for any successful site. Most of these can easily be tested and regulated with services from the likes of NCC Group.
