What Every Successful Website Needs

Every website is different in what it looks like, what it offers, and its overall purpose, but a good website has several key qualities that will distinguish it from a poor site. For a business, a good website is vital to its success as it helps establish credibility, build trust, increase brand awareness, improve its customer experience, and keep the company competitive online.

A good website will attract more qualified visitors, keep people on your site for longer, give off a better impression on potential customers, and drive conversions like an increase in signups, readership, and sales. To do well online, a website needs to be secure and possess certain characteristics that every website needs to thrive online. While there are many types of websites (i.e. blogs, portfolio sites, business websites, etc.) available, they will all still need some of the same features needed to succeed.

Essential Features of a Good Website

Having a secure website is vital to attracting users to your website, not just to protect users while browsing, but also to prevent them from encountering error messages. The easiest way to do that is to have an SSL certificate for your site, which will guarantee users’ data is safe when they’re online. Without one, they’ll run into a page that informs them the connection is not secure and not private, and it will recommend users go “back to safety”.

While having a secure site is a start, other essential features include:

Mobile friendliness: how well a website looks on a mobile device. An easy way to make sure your website works and looks great on all devices (including mobile devices) is by using responsive design practices.
Search engine optimization: elements that affect how search engines rank your website in its search results.
- Page titles: the title of a web page.
- Meta tags: an HTML code snippet with information about a website.
- Alt tags on images: read-aloud text for users that conveys the “why” of images that search engines index to determine your site’s search ranking.
- Header tags: HTML tags that separate headings and subheadings on a webpage.
- Title tag: an HTML tag that defines a web page’s title.
- Sitemap: a file that lists all of a website’s pages and how they relate to each other.
- Page load time: how long it takes for a page to load. The longer it takes, the lower search engines will rank your site.
- Backlinks: a link on your website that links to another website.
- No broken links: If a link on your website doesn’t properly link to another web page, search engines will rank your site lower in the search results.
Clear calls-to-action (CTAs): a direct instruction on what you want users to do on your website. Without CTAs, website visitors won’t do anything on your site, which is a missed opportunity to convert them into customers.
Easy and helpful navigation: a menu of buttons and links that let users explore your website. Making it easy will lessen the possibility of users getting frustrated.
Fresh, high-quality content: new or updated content on your website will result in a more favorable search ranking, and exceptional content will encourage users to not just come and stay on your site, but it will also encourage them to come back.
Strong brand identity: A website is just another opportunity to create a cohesive brand identity with your company logo, color scheme, types of graphics, tone of voice, and brand messaging.

If you’re not sure how well your website fares or if it needs an update, check out our new free website evaluation tool that will help you assess your website at a basic level in just minutes. Just check out our Web Design page to try it out for yourself!

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.