Is your website producing the results you expected? Are you serious about the effectiveness of your online investment? This article explains the eight basic ingredients of a successful website. Take note, because missing one ingredient can lead to a poor aftertaste for visitors your site.

1. Original, Fresh Content

Content is king in the web world. People visit websites for the primary purpose of finding content, make sure deliver. Website content must be unique and current. New content will keep visitors and search engines coming back for more. Remember to proofread!

2. Target

From a quick scan of your site visitors must be able to determine what you offer and how you can help them. A good website will have titles and text that speaks to audience needs and desires. Many websites simply list what their company did not say how they can benefit from their target audience. Keep your audience in mind when you design your website to be sure it will appeal to them and encourage them to take action (whether to submit a form Contact a subscription to a newsletter or purchasing a product).

3. User-Friendly Navigation

A good site has content that is easy to find. Pages should be arranged and named so that the audience will understand. For example, a services page would be better labeled "Services" as "Business Solutions." Keep your navigation consistent from page to page to avoid any possible confusion. Double check all your links to make sure they work. Make sure your content is most popular one click from your homepage. If your site has great content, provide a search box so that visitors can quickly find what they seek.

4. Simple and Professional Design

A good website will have an attractive and easy on the eyes. Be sure your colors contrast well and that your text does not require a magnifying glass to read. Personally, I can not stand reading large amounts of content written in white on black background. It is contrary to my eyes. Reducing the contrast can help a little (light gray text on dark gray background).

Lots of text can overwhelm a user. Ventilate the text subtitles and bullet points will improve the presentation of the page and make the text more readable by. Nobody has time to read every word on a page.

Use design elements to attract attention or to improve the content a page. With each design element added, taking a step back and make sure it serves a purpose and does not affect the usability of the site. put things where users expect them to be. However, do not try to look your website unique. Remember that simple, professional design will be much more effective than flashy, design overcrowded.

5. Speed

How many seconds you wait for a page to load before giving and leave a web site? Many factors can affect the loading time of a coding site, including many graphics, server speed, traffic volume on the site and the capabilities of a computer user.

Make sure your server has the right amount of space / bandwidth for your site and your web site code is light. Use graphics sparingly. Use CSS instead of graphics whenever possible. Waiting for graphics large or fancy Flash animation on each page load will likely divert some visitors.

6. Search engine optimization

SEO is one of the most often neglected site, but a website is useless if nobody can find it. Think of keywords that users may search to find a product or service you offer. Doing research to see how often those keywords are searched through a tool as keywords Google. Use keywords in titles, meta tags, titles, file names and the content of your site. Optimizing search engines can make a difference between getting 500 visitors per month and more than 500 visitors per day.

7. Link Building

Links are an important factor in determining if your site appears in the results of search engines. Find as many legitimate sites as you can connect your website. Add your link to your company profile in directories like Google Local, Yahoo! Local, Merchant Circle, Insider Pages, Yellow Pages, LinkedIn and more. Submit articles and public relations for websites providing a link to your website. The best way to get links to your site, however, is to provide a unique and interesting content that people want link. You can make it easier for them to share data by providing links or buttons such as button addthis.com.

8. Tracking

A good website is a work in progress. A good tool like Google Analytics will keep track of the number of people coming to your site, what pages they viewed, which they came from, what keywords they used in search engines, how many left after the first page and more. Unlike other media, websites Web can be easily tracked to see what works and what does not. These data will help you improve the quality and structure of your site.

Conclusion

Remember to include these features in your next design project website. A web site look professional with interesting content that is easy to navigate and can be found in search engines is sure to bring value to your business.

Find more articles like this in the SuccessBlog.

About the Author:

Mandy Porta is the owner of Success Designs, an Ascension / Baton Rouge website design and marketing firm that creates custom, conversion-focused websites and creative marketing materials including brochures, catalogs, email campaigns and more.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Eight Characteristics of a Good Website

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