8 Ideal Qualities of an Effective Website
With rapid technological advancements, it is almost unheard of for businesses and other organizations to be absent on the internet. People and companies alike are increasingly turning to online sources for research and to make product inquiries. To get a share of this traffic, it is important to have a proper website with an effective website design that is attractive to your targeted audience.
There are millions of websites online and your site will need an imposing presence to fare well in the wake of such stiff competition. Add this to the fact that rival companies have also pitched their tent online and are fighting for your same audience, it means that your work is properly cut out for you!
While there are many ways of achieving a commanding presence on the internet, having an effective web design is probably the most basic of these.
Ideal qualities of an effective website
Friendly to the end users
A proper website is designed with the end user in mind. This means a simplified interface that is not difficult to understand. Moreover, you do not want visitors to skip your site in search of competitors’ platforms because they cannot find what they are looking for.
Thus, you will find it rewarding to have menu items at a prominent part of your first page so that users do not have to struggle in looking for information. Be careful, though, not to have too many menu items that a user gets confused.
Offers an interactive and exciting interface
Obviously, not many people will want to stay a minute longer in a platform that is boring. Depending on your goals or the products being advertised, you can add pictures and short videos to captivate those who come to look for information. Plain text can be somewhat boring and may not push your agenda very far.
Interactivity also implies accepting feedback from visitors and offering them contacts to get in touch with you. You can also consider having a “Help” page where questions that may arise from users are pre-answered.
Does not have prohibitive loading times
There is nothing as frustrating as a website that takes forever to load! Users are presented with many options online and if yours takes a long time to show, they might simply move on to the next alternative. While this does not necessarily mean that you should give insufficient content, it calls for a careful balance between the two.
Accessible by different browsers
Obviously, the people that get attracted to your platform for one reason or the other will be using different browsers. While there are browsers considered to be common and popular, the safest bet is to be compatible with as many browsers as is possible. Moreover, you want your platform to be accessible even to those on the go. This means creating pages that can be adapted for phone-viewing.
With this consistency, you are bound to draw too many kinds of users and even retain them!
Screen resolution
While the web design might look appealing from your end, the end users might not enjoy good viewership of the same. Such a problem might be caused by an incompatibility in resolutions.
Screen resolutions continue to be enhanced in newer computer and device models. Therefore, it is crucial to be sure that the website will not appear pixilated when displayed on certain screen resolutions.
Offers functionality to the precise course it is serving
What will make your company or organization stand out is how well it depicts the core elements you are exposing to your audience. Borrowing an appealing website design will not be effective if it does not give enough space for you to feature your products or other mandates (like in the case of non-profit organizations).
For instance, if there are forms to be filled or subscriptions to be made, the processes to attain the same ought to so be seamless that the visitor does not feel burdened.
Search Engine Optimizable
While Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is usually achieved after the website has been created and involves a mix of marketing strategies, it is important to bear its importance in mind during web creation.
Think of all the features that a website ought to have if it is to be search engine optimized easily. Making room for videos and pictures will come in handy at the time when the website is being promoted to make it appear at the top of search engine results.
Consistency in the layout
This simply means that different pages of the website ought to have a uniform layout. This consistency is important in ensuring that users are not confused.