Essential Features of a Website Your Business Needs
If you want to establish a robust online presence, generate more traffic, and attract a larger audience, your business must have a website with the essential features to achieve all these and more. A website is like a virtual entrance to your business and plays a crucial role in attracting the majority of your potential customers. However, even though it’s a prominent asset, a lot of businesses face difficulties in optimizing it effectively.
This post will discuss website must-have features that your business needs to generate traffic, improve user experience, and, eventually, achieve the business’s online goals.
Whether you want to create a new website or improve an existing one, these pointers will help you optimise it for maximum impact.
Top Website Design Features for Digital Success
1 Easy Navigation
Easy navigation ensures that your visitors can effortlessly find the essential pages they are looking for. It includes links to other internal pages such as service, testimonials, blog pages, and contact information. Web designers use easy-to-understand labeling to make navigation easier and ensure the links and pages are logically organized.
2 Mobile-Friendly and Responsive Design
While people use the term mobile-friendly and responsive design interchangeably, they are quite different. A mobile-friendly design means the website will adapt to mobile or tablet screens. On the other hand, responsive design is the one that, irrespective of the device, a responsive website can adapt automatically to fit the screen size.
With Google moving to a mobile-first approach and more than 50% of the web traffic coming from mobile devices, a responsive design is a must-have feature of a great website.
3 Contact Information
Nearly 50% of web searches involve local businesses. Most interestingly, two-thirds of customers prefer to visit the physical establishment within the proximity of five miles if they want to engage with the business.
Hence, it is vital to have complete information, including physical address, contact numbers, business hours, e-mail, and a directional office map (if any).
4 Authoritative Website Content
Website content is the magnet that pulls your target audience and provides ample opportunities for increased conversions. One way of doing this is through authoritative and high-quality content.
For that, blogs prove to be an essential website feature that helps with SEO and establishes your authority in the industry. Other media that comprises authoritative web content are research-backed articles, case studies, testimonials, expert opinions, product reviews, and comparisons. Make sure that your website content is optimised for your target audience.
5 Website Security
Website security is as important as the safety of your business’s physical establishments. Security Socket Layer (SSL) certificates ensure your website is completely encrypted. Without an SSL certificate, Google does not label your website as secure, so potential website visitors hesitate to stay on the website.
6 Clear And Strong Call to Actions
A call to action (CTA) is the response you want from your website visitor. For instance, let them know whether you want them to subscribe to the newsletter, register for free trials, or buy a product. With a clear CTA, the visitors have more clarity on actions to take, and ultimately it will improve the conversions.
Too many CTAs can confuse your visitors; therefore, as the best practice, use up to two different CTAs. Also, it would help if you chose the right words and typography. For example, instead of saying “Pay Now,” you can use “Get Started.”
7 High-Quality Images, Videos, and Immersive Content
High-quality images and videos make your website visually appealing. Visitors prefer a website with high-definition product images, hero images, and engaging videos over another. With an immersive visual experience, these assets instantly grab the visitors’ attention and make them stay longer on the website.
As soon as visitors land on your website, they first notice the large hero images. Therefore, one needs to ensure that they are responsive and can adjust to the device dimensions automatically.
Another tip for immersive content is to use high-quality, high-definition product images. Using images to convey product features and functionality is more effective than plain text. Moreover, original images unique to your business will help establish a real customer connection.
8 Social Media Integration
Engaging customers across the widest range of touchpoints is essential for any marketing campaign in today’s digital economy. Your internet presence should extend well beyond your website. Social media integration is a must-have feature for an optimised business website. They should also interact with you on social media. Your visitors can instantly interact with people on all your channels by clicking a “Follow Us” social media button.
Moreover, including links to your business’s social media profiles on your website can help users connect with your brand and stay up to date with your latest news and offers.
9 Visual Design
Another crucial aspect that cannot be compromised is the overall aesthetic. This feature is essential for giving visitors a great first impression. Consistent typography, a tidy layout, the appropriate colour palette, and eye-catching visuals are all design elements that give your website a pleasing appearance.
You must maintain consistency throughout the entire website. The appropriate placement of your company’s logo and adherence to the colour scheme that goes with your brand produce a professional appearance. Also, you can carefully use white or empty space to add room and cleanliness to your website.
10 About Us Page
Consumers today are more informed and discerning than ever, and they want to do business with brands they can trust and share their values with. Therefore, sharing your story and highlighting core values is critical for your brand’s long-term success.
An About Us page on your website is essential for establishing trust and building a connection with your audience. According to a Hubspot survey, one-third of the customers admitted that they consider an About Us page the most important element of a website, which indicates that people want to know who they are doing business with.
Pro Tip: Avoid using auto-play videos that slow down your website. Also, never use Adobe Flash players which can lead to security vulnerabilities, prolong loading times, and increase power consumption. Complex animations, large-sized images, unnecessary pop-ups, distractive ads, etc., should also be avoided to make a high-performing and user-friendly website.
Wrapping Up
Obviously, not every company is the same. The specifics of what makes a website successful for a business are going to vary from one to the next, but this checklist can help you make the most of your website design efforts.
Contact southcoastweb, if you are looking for get a new website or improve an existing one