The website is the center around which our entire online presence must revolve. We can imagine it as our showcase or as our shop or office, in short, a virtual space where to welcome our current or future customers. But what features must it have to be truly effective? In this post we have collected the essential elements that can never be missing on a website, not even in the simplest or in the most particular.
If you have a website or are thinking of building it, in whatever field you operate, your ultimate goal will be to help you make yourself known and sell your products or services.
It does not mean that the sale must necessarily take place on the site and only thanks to it - the process that leads to the purchase is complex, made up of various stages and often involves many channels - but it is important to be aware that it is a promotional tool and that as such should be used.
The elements for an effective website: design and usability
Let's start from the 'container', from the aesthetic and functional side of the site. The characteristics that cannot be missing are:
1- Loading speed
when we surf the web we are not very patient, if the site does not load in a few seconds we get nervous and it can also happen that we abandon it and look for another one. If you want to check if your site is fast enough, you can test it with Google's Page Speed Insights .
2- Consistent design
defining a beautiful or ugly site is limiting because beauty is known to be subjective. Beyond, however, truly unwatchable cases - where not even the old adage 'everyone has their tastes' is valid! - the important thing is that the design is consistent with the image of the company and functional to what you want to communicate. An example? Even if our favorite color is black, if we have to make the site for a children's toy shop, perhaps it will be better to focus on more vibrant colors!
3- Layout that fits all devices
despite having been said and repeated in all the sauces and by all, there are still many sites that are not designed to be viewed well by mobile devices . If we think about how many times we find ourselves looking for information, a place, a review, from our smartphones, you understand how much having a site not designed to be consulted on the move can be limiting.
There are two solutions: having a single responsive website design , that is adapted according to the device from which it is viewed, or having a mobile version of the site.
4- Usability
we have already said it in the point above, the design must be based on the content and the message we want to communicate. If a solution is graphically impactful, but prevents reading or makes navigation difficult, it is not good and needs to be changed. Everything, from the font to the layout of the texts, from the buttons to the arrangement of the elements, from the colors to the structure of the contents, must be designed to offer the best possible use .
The contents of a website
If we move instead on the contents, each site, according to the sector of the activity and the objectives, can be more or less complex, with few or many pages. In both cases it is important that they have curated texts to be useful and interesting for people , but also for search engines. We need a clear content architecture, texts optimized for search engines and carefully chosen words.
Let's see the indispensable contents that should never be missing. They may have different titles, have dedicated pages or be grouped together, but they are the ones that allow people to know who you are and what you do .
1-Who we are:
The section where you tell who you are is essential. It can be a story made of words of images, of videos. It can be institutional, traditional or strange and playful. It can be more or less thorough, the important thing is that whoever enters the site knows who is in front of it.
2-What we do:
This content seems trivial, but how many times have you happened to enter a site and not understand what it was about ? You need a good copy designed to be clear and to highlight your value, the quality of your products and services.
Why should people choose you ? How do you distinguish yourself from others? How do you work? What features do your products have? This is all information that is important to give on the site: on a single page or in different sections, only in words or also with visual content, but they must be there.
3-Contacts:
This too may seem like an obvious indication, but there are many websites where contacts are not there or are or are difficult to find. It is important, however, that it is clear where to find you and what ways people can use to get in touch with you : address, phone number, email, contact request form must be entered on a dedicated page, but also repeated on the home page or in the footer.
Each site is different and has different goals
The features we have seen so far are the essential ones, but there are many other elements and aspects that can make a site even more effective. A few examples? Sections devoted to the reviews or the opinions of people who have used your services, newsletter, blog, gallery, portfolio with the work, the description brochures of the products ...
Each site is different and should be customized according to the business sector and the objectives that they want to achieve, but starting from the elements we have seen you will be sure to have a good foundation already!
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