Are you wondering how you can get a website up and running that works well for your business? If so, you have a lot of work ahead of you. When 38% of people stop interacting with a poorly designed site, you can’t afford to provide a bad experience to your users.
You need to do your homework if you want to learn how to run a successful website. Below are all seven qualities you’ll see on any good website on the internet.
1. Easy Navigation
The chances are that the web traffic you get to your website isn’t there to browse around. Your visitors are there for a specific purpose. If you want to run a successful website, you need to make it as easy as possible for people to accomplish their goals.
Easy navigation is the key to making this happen. Nothing on your website should be more than a few clicks away. Whether it’s informative blog posts or eCommerce products, people should be able to quickly get anywhere from your navigation menu.
You can also use search to make navigation easier. From a WordPress IDX plugin for property searches to Google searches for blog posts, there are many options you can provide your users.
2. Responsive Design
We don’t live in a desktop-only world anymore. Much of the world now access the internet through mobile devices. If you only consider desktop screens when designing your website, you’re going to provide a bad experience for many of your visitors.
That makes a responsive design a critical element for any successful website. A responsive website will change your site’s design based on your visitors’ screen sizes. That means it doesn’t matter what size screen anyone has.
If you want to make creating a responsive design easier, start with mobile-first. It’s easier to add elements to a design instead of removing them.
3. Great Performance
Just like you can’t count on your visitors having desktop screens anymore, you also can’t count on them having a fast internet connection. With so many people using mobile to browse the web, the chances are good that some of your users will have slow internet connections.
This trend is a problem if you have a slow website. If your site takes more than a few seconds to load, you’re going to provide a bad experience for your users. A good web design will optimize your site loading time to get the response time as close to one second as possible.
One of the most significant contributors to this problem is images. You don’t have to remove all your pictures, but you need to optimize them. On top of that, you can also delay the loading of resources until people scroll down your pages to view content.
4. Security
You store a lot of data on websites these days. From eCommerce stores to SaaS applications, you need to collect a lot of customer information to serve them properly.
The question is, do you have the proper security in place to protect the data you collect?
The first place to start securing your site is with SSL. An SSL certificate encrypts all traffic coming to and from your website. This encryption makes it possible for visitors to submit sensitive data without worrying about prying eyes.
You also need to make sure your website server is secure. Investigate all standard security practices, so you don’t fall victim to cyberattacks.
5. No Clutter
We’re past the days of cramming as much information into website pages as we can. While that may have worked in the past, that isn’t the case anymore. People are looking for answers, and they don’t want to sift through a lot of irrelevant content to find what they need.
That makes creating simple website designs essential. If you run a content website, SaaS business, or any other solution-driven website, you can’t afford to distract people with content they don’t need. The only thing that will happen is that your visitors will hit the back button and head to one of your competitors.
One of the best ways to do this is to put your most important content at the top of your pages. Doing this helps people understand what your pages are about and know that they’ll find answers if they keep reading.
6. Great Analytics
Even if you do a lot of work to create a great website, it’s hard to know if what you’re doing is working if you have no way to track your data. That’s where an analytics program like Google Analytics helps.
These programs will track your website visitors, see where they come from, and tell you if they convert into customers. All of this is data you can use to determine if your website efforts are working.
This is even more important if you’re using paid ads. You can combine on-site analytics with advertising codes to see which ads give you the best return on your money.
7. Search Engine Optimization
Having a functioning website that looks great isn’t the only factor that makes a successful website. Without a reliable way to get web traffic, you aren’t going to get any visitors.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a great way to get free organic traffic. SEO is the process of optimizing your site content to help Google figure out what your website is about. It’s about keyword optimization, adding meta information, and including structured content on your pages.
All of this will help Google understand your site to determine if it deserves to be on the front page of Google.
It’s Time to Turn Your Site Into a Successful Website
There’s a lot of competition on the internet these days, so you need to do everything you can to make your brand stand out. However, you won’t get there if you don’t provide a great experience to your users. Keep the ideas above in mind so you can make a successful website in your industry.
Once you get your website up and running, you need a way to start getting people to visit. Check out the blog for great digital marketing tips that will help you turn your site successful.
Read more: Coxweb for your better business
