10 Things Every Website Should Have
Date of Update: 10-19-2016
1. Logo
Your logo is used to identify your business, products, or services. Your logo should be added to your website so your website will be immediately recognized by your customers.
2. Clear Navigation
The navigation on your website ensures your visitors will be able to easily access and find what they are looking for. When designing a website, ensure that your navigation is not just visually appealing, but also usable for your visitors.
3. Clean Design with White Space
Clean design is so important. You want your visitors to feel like they are looking at a professional website. Too much clutter will make your visitors feel ill at ease. White space can be used to give your website an elegant and professional look.
4. Responsiveness
Websites have moved to the mentality of “mobile first”. This simply means that websites should be designed for mobile devices before desktop. The reason for this is most people view websites on their phones and tablets instead of on a desktop computer. Make sure you are providing the content you want to the greatest number of people.
5. Contact Information
A website without a visible way to contact the business can feel untrustworthy. You should always have a means of contact prevalent on your website. If you decide to have a one page site, ensure you have an anchor link in your top level navigation to the contact section of your site. For those sites with multiple pages, ensure you have a contact page for your visitors to utilize.
6. Useful Images
Every website needs images. Without them, the site would be too text heavy and most (if not all) visitors will quickly leave the site for another option. However, the images you use need to be useful. Useful images add something of value to the content. Secondarily, you should remember not to add too many images. You need to have a balance between text content and image content.
7. Call To Action
A call to action or CTA is a button or link that drives your customers to becoming leads on your website. The CTA should be clear, well placed, and trackable. Tracking the clicks on your CTA can help you decide if your site needs updates.
8. Engaging Headline
The headline on your website is like the welcome mat at your front door. You want your welcome mat to be engaging and creative. If your headline is drab and boring, your visitors won’t want to continue viewing the rest of your content.
9. Security
If you have a business website (or even a personal website), you need to have security in place to protect it. If your site gets hacked, you can potentially lose all the work you’ve put into your site. If you are using a Content Management System (or CMS), the easiest way to set up security is through a plugin. WordPress has several plugins that make security easy.
10. Social Media Links
Social media links allow your visitors to interact with your site. Your customers can have a more personal experience when they can interact with you on social media sites. You need to make sure your website not only links to your social media sites, but you should also post regular content on those social media sites. Posting regularly on social media helps your site to remain relative and gives your business another layer of marketing.