One of the big tasks on your list for this year is to either have a new website designed or to book your old website in for a complete makeover! Either way, ultimately you want to get it right and make sure that your website will stay healthy and good-looking for the long haul. You might also have to manage a task like this for someone else and find yourself searching for some guidance. Well, then it’s good that you are here, as there are certain things that you would want to make sure will be included in your design package. Before you seal the deal with your web designer of choice, have a look at our list of 8 important elements that form an excellent website.
1. Hosting Services
Right, let’s start at the start! For your website, you’ll need a hosting service. This is the element that makes your site live on the World Wide Web. The hosting provider that you choose is really important and can make a big difference in your website performance and overall security backup and protection. When you choose a service provider, keep the following items in mind: their level of service when you need assistance, how often they are available when you need assistance (ie Monday to Friday), the quality of service they provide, security, upload space and loading speed, and daily backup service.
2. SEO
Search Engine Optimisation, better known as SEO, in a nutshell, is all about improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to your website from search engines such as Google. This means that as your site is being revamped or built from scratch, keywords should be inserted and in the correct order so that your new site will get a good ranking on search engines. Note that it takes time to rank high in search engines and only happens over time, but a good starting point is to have the right keywords on your website in the right sections.
3. Copy
Copywriting or copy refers to the textual content that you’ll have on your site. This will be everything that you want to say about your business to your target audience on your website. Let’s be real – people don’t like to read a lot of text when they visit a website. They want to get straight to the point and know where to go when they want to take action. Therefore stick to a minimalist style of copywriting so that it is short and sweet! The copy should also be as transparent as possible so that your audience knows exactly what they need to know. The copy should also be written in a way that your key audience will easily understand. Lastly, but most importantly, pay attention to spelling, and grammar and keep the writing style consistent as this can leave an impression on your potential customer or audience.
4. High-quality Images
The imagery that you use on your website should tell a story. Together the images should create a theme and also flow with the text. Try not to choose too many literary images, which visually explain the text. It is really important to use high-quality imagery, no one likes to look at a visual design that is blurry and pixelated. The images should be compressed before they are uploaded to the website, for faster loading times, but this will not make them less attractive if they are of high standard. If you have images that are very different from each other, you can edit them by simply adding the same overlay to bring them all together and give them a cohesive look and feel. You can find free high-quality images on Canva, Pexels, and Unsplash.
5. Mobile Design
People have been using their smartphones to surf the web more over the past few years and also visiting e-commerce websites to make online purchases. This means that it is extremely important to have a website that is mobile responsive, looks good on mobile and also works 100%. This is so important that a lot of designers now start the designing process with the mobile site first ending with the desktop design. Having a fully functional mobile adaptive website will increase the amount of time that visitors spend on your website.
6. Your Business Information
Contact information should be easily accessible on your website for your audience. Have you struggled to find an email address or contact number on a business website? Have you ever visited a website and as you become interested in the service or product you try to establish if the store or service provider is within a reasonable distance from your location? Most people have struggled with this at some point before, therefore it is important to make this information easily accessible for your visitors. Consider adding your contact information and location in the Header or Footer section of your home page and include this on all your pages. If you do not wish to add a specific location, you can add an area in which your business is located. If you do not want to add a contact number, alternatively you can add an email address and specify when you will contact the client once you have received their email. You can also add a frequently asked question section on your contact page.
7. Call To Action Buttons
Once your audience arrives on your website, you can take them on a journey. ‘Call To Action’ refers to a button which will direct the website visitor to the exact place that you want them to go. A Call To Action button will usually follow a paragraph of text. For example, giving your client an option to Contact Us, View the Gallery, Read More, etc. This means that you direct your audience where you would like them to go next on your website. Many businesses miss out because their call to action is either missing in action or in the wrong place. The key is to avoid using Call to Actions leading to a variety of different sections on one page. Instead, there should be one set goal for the page – ie to fill in the contact form. Stick to the main objective and make sure that it is the first call to action at the top of the page. So all together you can have different names for the buttons but they should lead to the same section.
8. Website Maintenance
After your website has been built it’s not over yet! A website requires monthly maintenance. A website requires basic maintenance which is regular backups, updates on software and updates on plugins. Some believe this is not necessary, or that it can be done automatically, however, it only takes one third-party plugin to shut down an entire website. My recommendation is to build a strong relationship with your website design team and create an ongoing maintenance plan that suits your business needs. This can include monthly updates to your website content, maybe even a social media design and posting plan or blogs to increase your website traffic. If you prefer to maintain your website in-house, ask your web designer to give you a training package before you part ways, to keep your website updated and healthy. Unfortunately, if your updates are not done monthly your website will eventually fall ill and not be user-friendly anymore.
It is important for consumers to know the formula for a good website in order for you to make sure you get all the goodies when you place your trust in a service provider. Building and maintaining a good relationship with your designer and finding someone who understands your specific needs, your vision, and business goals is key.
Annemie Web Development
Annemie Web Development is a Website Design agency based in Pretoria, South Africa and was established in 2019. We specialise in Website Design, Website Maintenance, Social Media Management, Copywriting, Blog Writing, SEO, Digital Marketing and Branding. We help businesses become memorable with awesome designs and believe that to make something great, you need to run with your creative ideas confidently!
