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Does Your Website Suck?
An exceptional website is not as hard as you might think to create. Knowing what your trying to accomplish and staying focused is very important. It will help keep the site concise and more manageable.
An exceptional website is not as hard as you might think to create. Knowing what your trying to accomplish and staying focused is very important. It will help keep the site concise and more manageable.
The requirements of a great website will vary depending on what it is supposed to do. Whatever the site is supposed to do, make sure it dose it well. It should also do it as simply as possible. Something basic but often overlooked that all exceptional websites have is a contact form rather than a mailto: link. Why? Well, to start not everyone uses POP mail with a local client. Not everyone will be browsing from their own computer. On the positive side, having an easy to use contact form indicates a desire to communicate with your visitors.
How a website is organized, the nature of the site’s navigation, and how visitors will interact with the website are all part of something called Information Architecture or IA. This is one of the more crucial parts of a website’s design. If your visitors can’t find what they need, then they will simply leave and never come back. Great sites understand the visitor and organize their content in such a way as to make it as intuitive for the visitor as possible.
Style and design aspects are what most people think of when they imagine how cool their new website is going to be. This is the emotional component of a website. Much like what a person is wearing, the type of perfume or cologne they may have on, their style of haircut, do they have on a Rolex watch or a Swatch, leather and beads or gold and diamonds. A great website makes the visitors feel at home. It will make them feel comfortable and at ease. This can only be done if you design your site for the appropriate audience. If your website targets teen girls, use common sense and don’t use a conservative business motif.
Something that comes from Web Design 101, but somehow still seems to be relevant is the need to keep a site’s load time down. A great website will not keep you waiting any longer than absolutely necessary. An experienced web user will know when your site is not optimized because so many other sites they visit are. It can be tempting to put a super duper flying 2MB Flash header on your home page, but don’t. Exceptional websites load exceptionally fast.
Great content will always be the corner stone of any great website. Offer timely and valid information and people will value your site. This can be in the form of images, text, music, schedules, etc...I can’t stress enough how important this is.
While quality content is king, it isn’t quality unless it is current. Content that was hot last year probably isn’t even warm anymore. Keeping a website up-to-date is vital to making sure your content is indeed quality and relevant. Keep it fresh and people will eat it.
Making sure your visitor’s time at your website is as safe from hackers and criminal elements as possible is vital to any website. There is no doubting that your website sucks if someone gets their identity stolen while visiting. This can mean spending some money and making recommended changes to otherwise working code, but it has to be done. Security for your website and the people that visit it is critical. Call in the experts and play it safe.