A website that is interactive while being easy to use is an essential aspect to succeed online. Having a well-designed site can bring in traffic, while one that is poorly made can turn users away. For those of you who are trying to expand your business, you will want your website to attract users and improve brand awareness. With that said, what are the main differences between an effective and ineffective website?

Let’s take a look at five essential components a website needs to have to be effective.

1. An Effective Website Has a Purpose

Prior to setting up the website, it is vital that you map out your website goals and purpose first.  Are you looking to let people know about the services of your business? Perhaps you want them to learn about a product you just launched? Whatever it is, ensure that the purpose of the website is clear.

What you can do is to create a content map outlining how you set up your website and how it incorporates your purpose and goal. You can make this map using Word, PowerPoint, or even with just pen and paper. Use the tools that you are most comfortable with to make a draft and a clear map for your business website.

2. Effective Websites Follow a General Theme

A website that is visually appealing would be able to attract more visitors than one that isn’t. So what you want to ensure is that its design is inviting, clear, and great to look at. However, be conscientious of the use of color. You want to ensure that you grab the user’s attention, but not make the website too loud. You can use bold colors to emphasize certain aspects of the site. Subtle shades can be used for less essential parts.

Another vital function of web design is the use of white space. This area can funnel focus on every component of your site while making it look clean. You can think of designing a website similar to how you would set up a living room space.

An empty room that doesn’t have anything but a sofa can be unattractive and dull. However, a place that has too much clutter can seem dysfunctional and annoying. Setting up a tidy room with just the proper balance of décor is enough to get people to be comfortable. The same is true with a small business website. 

As you play around with various colors and themes, find the right balance to the site as well to bring practicality and beauty in play.

3. Effective Websites are Optimized

Another critical aspect of web design is search engine optimization (SEO) since it determines how many visitors can be directed to your website. Letting users find your website by typing certain keywords in Google is one of the main goals in SEO. As you make relevant content, use strong keywords, write fantastic meta descriptions, and prepare geotagging images, you can enhance your site’s ranking significantly with the search giant. All of these things make a website easier to come across organically. Furthermore, it also leads to more traffic generated by a business website.

4. Effective Websites Have Great Usability

Remember that as you design your website, make sure that it is easy to use. People need to be able to find what they want in front of them. You don’t want people to go through several pages just to get to what they are looking for.

In fact, you only have approximately two seconds to grab the attention of your user with web design. This means that your pages need to be clearly identifiable with the right content. Ensure that your headlines tell users exactly what the purpose of the pages are, while buttons that help navigation should be set up throughout.

In terms of usability, the home page is the best place for you to enable this. It would be best if you directed people to what you want them to do right from your home page. For instance, if you are offering a corporate software product, then you should have a button that offers a free trial or something similar. This button should direct users to the page where they are able to test the software.

Apart from that, the overall website should be simple without the need for users to dig through content to find what they are after.

5. Effective Websites Are Well-Maintained

Any business won’t benefit from content that is outdated. It doesn’t matter how you design a site, there will come a time where the content will no longer be accurate and that you need to do something about it. There are many platforms that can be easily maintained without having to hire a web developer for coding. Doing so lets you make changes to the website faster and without the need to rely on someone else. WordPress is a great platform to get started as it allows users to make changes immediately. Coding expertise is a bonus here and not a requirement. 

People who are still deciding to set up a website may want to check out WordPress and what it has to offer. It is definitely one of the site-building platforms that will let you make changes without much hassle. With a platform that you can quickly make changes to, you don’t have to spend much time maintaining it. Users will still have more time, energy, and money to do other things, such as run promotions, to bring in more people to their channels.

Conclusion

Whether you wish to build a website on your own or hire someone to develop it for you, hopefully, the tips that have been provided should help you out. Just make sure that your website is easy to manage and maintain so that you won’t have a lot of problems in the long run.

The tips that have been listed above are some of the top components that every effective and successful business website has today.