Internet Marketing Blog - Search Engine Marketing, Online Marketing, Web design.

Web Design – Essential Features of Successful Websites

at June 29, 2009

Web design industry has been one of fastest evolving industries. We all know how important a website is for a company today. What is important for a website day has changed significantly from what was important for a website a few years ago. Today in order to be successful, a company not only requires a professionally designed website but a website that offers a number of features that readers find valuable. Whether you require a community website or a company website promoting its products and services, its long term viability is largely determined by the rich mix of content and features it offers its readers. A company website today needs to offer visitors with information that is of value to them, not only information about the company and its products.

The number of websites on the internet is increasingly rapidly. Not a long time ago, a study estimated over 50 million websites on the internet. Today the number is much higher and is increasing every day.
The competition to get noticed on the internet has also increased. In order to compete successfully online, companies are using innovative ways to make their website more attractive for users. Although social media and other community portals are an excellent method to promote your business online, a company’s website remains one of the most important aspects for succeeding online.

A company’s web site is a direct reflection of the business and the team running the business. The visual appearance of your web site is important in determining your website’s value and is one of the first things noticed by potential customers. If your website does not present a professional or visually appealing design, the chances of your business succeeding online is greatly reduced.

There are certain features that prove useful in determining the effectiveness of your website. However it is the individuality and uniqueness of your website that will distinguish it from others and help establish your brand on the internet.

There is large list of website features that can help your website to succeed. However it depends largely on what features are most appropriate for your business to implement within your allocated budget.
Websites vary significantly in scale and complexity. One of the best ways to ascertain what features are most appropriate for your business is to seek advice from a web design company or an internet consultant. This article can help you decide some features that can benefit your website:

Desirable Website features

The following features should be considered when creating your company’s a website:

Attractive Homepage

A Homepage that grabs the attention of users and guides them to the key sections of your website. The nature of your business should become easily evident to your visitors. Similarly, your main products or services should be highlighted on the homepage.

Contact Details

The contact details of the company should be easily evident on the website. This includes email address, telephone / fax numbers and postal address.

Easy to Use Navigation

The navigation should be well structured and easily visible on all pages. As far as possible a ll pages should be one or two clicks away from the home page. The menu should be available in a consistent place across all pages of the website to avoid ambiguity and confusion.

Readable Fonts

The fonts, colours and other elements should be as consistent as possible across the website. The font face and size should be easily readable by all. Use contrasting fonts and background e.g. white background with dark text or vice versa. This makes the text easily readable and improves the usability manifold.

Terms and Conditions

It is important to include your;’Terms and Conditions’ or ‘Privacy Policy’ on your website. This is particularly important if you collect personal information from your visitors or sell products online. Your copyright information should also be displayed at the bottom of every web page.

Spelling and Grammar

It is important to ensure your website is free from any grammatical mistakes or spelling errors. Use simple but effective language and tone in the website copy.

Optimised Graphics and Scripts

Use graphics and scripts on your website with care. Un-optimised graphics or lengthy JavaScript codes can lead to slow loading time of the website.

Browser compatibility

Ensure your website is tested across all major browser platforms. In addition to Internet explorer and Firefox, you should test your site for consistency on Opera, Safari and Google Chrome.

Wide range of Information

In addition to providing information about your company or products, provide a wide range of information and content on your website that is either related to your industry or valuable to your readers in some other way.

Frequently Updated

Update the content on your website frequently (every day if you can). A fresh, frequently updated website will promote visitor loyalty by providing a reason to visit the site again. It will also help search engine ranking of your website.

Use Social Media

Make good use of social media on your website and interlink your networks and content sources. Use popular sites such as Digg and Twitter and syndicate content between your social profiles and your website. Provide short cuts for your readers to add your content to popular social sites such as Face book or My Space. Similarly, make it easy for visitors to bookmark your pages on social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Delicious or Google Bookmarks. The more your content travels the better it is for enforcing your brand on the internet.

Social Bookmarks

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Top 10 Tips, Web Design

Website Content – 5 ways to improve your content

Posted by K.Singh-Kronik Media

at June 25, 2009

In one of our recent posts, we published the results of an online poll that identified what users believe to be the main factors that tend to drive visitors away. The results identified poor web copy or content to be one of the key factors. 22% of participants believed that poor quality of content on website was the main factor that drives visitors away form a website. Load times and Web design quality were some other main factors. The importance of quality content on a website is well known. It is not only important to retain visitors but equally important for search engines.

Good content is one of the best ways to ensure a website is able to retain visitors. Quality content or Web copy promoted visitor loyalty as users tend to visit such websites again and again.

There are many ways to make your content more appealing to your visitors.Some ways in which you can make your website more attractive to users are given below.

5 Ways To Improve Your Web Page Content

1. Be personal but professional

The language used on the website is important. It is better to address readers directly in a personal manner. A majority of internet users are looking for specific information. The text on your website should direct users to the right information in a friendly but professional choice of words.

As far as possible the wordings should be professional. In certain cases it may be OK to use some humour but it should be done with utmost care and caution. The website is accessible across the word to many different cultures and humour can be easily misunderstood.

As far as possible the copy o the website should be professional and business like.

2. Offer content that is valuable

When you are planning the pages on your website, you should always place the needs of your visitors first. A wide variety of content can prove useful for visitors.
You should place yourself in your customers’ shoes and try to understand what type of information can be useful for visitors. When customers vist your website they do not only wish to read promotional content about your company. Today customers expect to find a wide range of information on a website that will be useful to them.

You should avoid freely available content or content that is available on reference sites or already published elsewhere. Try to offer specialised content that specifically targets the needs of your audience. If you provide specialised content targeting the needs of your market, it can help establish you as an authority in your sector.

It is also important to use appropriate words and jargons that users will be familiar with. The use of complicated languages or words should be avoided in order to make your content readable for most of your intended audience.

The language and tone used should be simple and effective.

3. Make information easy to find

Customer behaviour has evolved with time. Customer expectations have increased manifold. A good website allows users to find the information they are looking for as quickly as possible, without wasting any time.

Visitors visit the website for many reasons. Some may visit the site to find out about the services of your company. While others may be looking for information relevant to your industry in general.
The content on your website should be easy to find. The copy on the home page for example should guide users to the right information and sections of the website quickly and without wasting user’s time.

Providing good navigation and search feature can further make it easier for users to find the information they are looking for.

4. Write creatively

You should be creative in writing content for your WebPages. It is important to try and test different things to know what works best. You should feel free to test out different approaches.
You should pay more emphasis on the important elements within your content. An effective method is to use repetitions to enforce important points. While repetitions are not considered appropriate in normal writing; it can be acceptable within reason on website copy. Repeating words and phrases on a web page makes copy more clear.

Repeating the appropriate keywords also improves your site’s search engine optimization.
We have also discussed that visitors tend to scan parts of the web page content as opposed to reading all the content from top to down. You can take advantage of this by planning your content properly and introducing main points in short subheads or titles. This can make the web copy (web page content) effective and easy to scan.. Repetition can thus prove to be an asset in this context.

5. Less content is often better than more

Internet users are impatient and only want to find the information they require quickly and efficiently. The process should be as less time consuming as possible. The copy of the web pages is important as it provides this information to visitors. Although offering valuable information is good for users, as far as possible you should try to edit the content and deliver the message clearly on the website. It is better to say “less than say more online”. Studies show that internet users preference to read information that is short and to the point. Lengthy content can loose is effectiveness and readers may lose attention half way into reading the content.

According to usability analysts, less content on a web page makes your website easier to navigate and read. Users have a tendency to scan for information on a website rather than read from start to end. Shorter words, shorter sentences, shorter paragraphs are known to be more effective.

Following the simple methods outlined above, you can make the content of your web page (web copy) more attractive and appealing to readers.