Nowadays, a website is considered to be an extension of a business through which you communicate with your customers. It is more than just a presentation. Therefore, it needs to provide the right information, be aesthetically pleasing and seen by search engines at the same time.
For that reason, the important elements of a successful website do not come down only to visuals and content. You also need to work on digital marketing since there won’t be much use of a great looking website if no one will ever visit it.
Perfect Homepage
Knowing who your customers are, you need to have a homepage that clearly answers the questions who you are, what you do and how you can help them. For that reason, you need to craft a homepage with a perfect balance of information shared, images and white space.
An award-winning UK stag and hen company, Hen and Stag is an example of a website with a perfect homepage layout with appealing looks and very informative content.
Simple Navigation
The simplicity of navigation is crucial and comes with keeping navigational menus to a minimum, so you don’t overwhelm your visitors. Try to aim for five to ten menu navigation items and thus keep the website simple and user-friendly.
Space
Never underestimate the power of white space! It is white space that helps you make important information on your website stand out. So, whatever information you want to emphasize, have it surrounded by white space and it will appear more important and eye-catching.
Images
“A picture is worth a thousand words”, so choose images wisely. Knowing your target audience, you can easily communicate with them via the images you choose for your website.
What image could better illustrate the spirit of an upcoming Hen party?
About us
This page should tell users who you are and what you do, outlining your services. Given that the ‘About us’ page focuses on text rather than images, try to avoid the trap of being too wordy. Since you want to keep the visitors on your website for as long as possible, and you do not want them bored, remember – less is more.
Clear contact information
Contact info usually appears in the top header and on its own page. When shown in the top header it usually comes in a form of an email address or phone number and it is pretty useful for visitors wanting to get quick answers to their questions. The ‘Contact us’ page is strongly recommended to have a contact form as it saves users time and thus contributes to a great user experience.
Visible call to action
Call to action is an important element of a successful website and not only should it be easily accessed and visible, but it should also stand out. It is highly recommended that every page of your website features call to action buttons. They lead to conversions and that’s why they are so important.
What is it that you’d like your visitors to do when surfing your website? Is it ‘free trial’ registration, do you want more newsletter subscribers or maybe it is ‘request quote’? Once you have figured out what it is, you might want to create a button, put some white space around it and call your visitors to action.
Mobile friendly
I can’t stress enough the importance of having a mobile-friendly website. Not just because it is cool, but because it is a must. In one of our blog posts from 2016, we stated that 80% of internet users own a smartphone and I am pretty sure the numbers have gone up since then. You definitely do not want to miss that crowd!
SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is something that visitors can’t see, but search engines do! If your website is not search engine optimized, its looks and perfect layout won’t be of much use as visitors won’t be able to find and see it. Our How to make search engine marketing work for you blog post provides some useful tips on how to drive traffic to your website.
Content
I am sure we have all heard that Content is king and creating great content in terms of readability, audience engagement, videos, images and infographics is crucial. If you follow all the above rules but have poorly written or irrelevant content, no matter what number of visitors you have, you will end up with an extremely low conversion rate.
Conclusion
These are some of the most important elements of a great website. Following these rules, you can build visually pleasing websites with simple navigation and a special layout to make important information stand out. Apart from that, don’t forget to take care of the digital marketing aspect and thus get a website that both search engines and your visitors will love!
