Companies often overlook an essential aspect of design and the features their website must meet to be fully functional. That is why in this blog post we have put together a roundup of the most essential aspects when designing a quality website.
Now then, let's begin... In the case of quality content, it can be worsened by an unattractive design. Or also, the lack of interactivity and animation on a website can lead to users leaving if the page text is too dense and monotonous.
We have decided to dedicate this article to listing a series of features that we consider vitally important when developing a website:
15 Most Important Features of a Website
1. Useful content
The topic and the search intent must align with the end user, otherwise it is most likely that the visitor will leave the page quickly.
2. It must be intuitive
Making navigation simple allows visitors to easily achieve their goal. In addition, it prevents users from leaving your page.
3. Attractive web design
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. On a website, first impressions matter, since it represents our business and even ourselves. If a user does not like what they see, or it does not inspire trust, the most likely outcome is that they will leave the site, often without even considering the content.
So a good design creates trust, seriousness, and a very good impression.
4. Well-structured content
A clear and simple breakdown of the content, well explained, is guaranteed to succeed. The importance of a clear and objective structure is what will keep your user engaged.
Remember that information should always be concise and simple.
5. Importance of website speed
Pages that take a long time to load are a problem. For everyone, our time is valuable, and what annoys anyone most is having to wait.
A page should load quickly, otherwise many users will leave the navigation without giving the site a chance, even if its content may be useful to them.
6. Contact information
It is essential to place our contact details, phone numbers, and address in visible places. Emails should never be linked directly, but rather use links to contact forms and, most importantly, encourage the user to take an action, such as contacting us or requesting more information. If our content generates interest, it is very likely that the user will want to know more, therefore, after presenting the information that is of interest to them, it is very appropriate to invite them to resolve their doubts by contacting us and to always know that we are there to help them.
7. Promotion of the site...
There are many companies that believe that having a website means the work is done. Well, not at all, not by a long shot. Behind a website there is a lot of work to do to make ourselves known to new users.
First of all, if your site is new it is very difficult to appear in the top positions of search engines. If you want to appear in the future, you will have to think about carrying out ongoing SEO positioning work for your website, with the most appropriate terms and also gradually increasing them according to the results you obtain.
Secondly, it is important to periodically update the website content and gradually expand its sections. It is essential to have a blog where users can be informed of news and updates that may be of interest to them.
Finally, it is advisable to promote your website through all communities with a theme similar to your website, in order to reach users who are truly interested in your content and thus gradually get those same users to actively participate in promoting your website.
8. Your site must provide valuable information
You must provide valuable information that solves the user's intent or objective in the body of each page, that is, concise and easy-to-consume specific information.
We should not waste the user's time on your page with irrelevant information, because it will greatly affect your organic positioning when you try to rank in Google. If you do not show irrelevant information, users will leave quickly and you will have a high bounce rate, which is bad for Google. This feature of a website has taken on greater relevance in recent years and will continue to do so in the coming years.
9. Provide a good user experience
This is known as usability or user web experience, and it is the essential feature that every page should have. Perhaps years ago websites were made without usability planning or fixed goals, but now if you want to have conversions and online sales, you must make life easier for the user and reduce, for example, if you are in an online store or conversion pages, the purchase process to 1 or 2 clicks.
One point to consider in usability is having a page with adaptive design, today it is no longer an option to have it but rather an obligation
Remember that in order for your site to be 100% functional, you must have performed usability prototypes before developing it; it must be tailor-made.
10. Your site must be adapted to mobile devices
This feature of a website is and will continue to set the trend in the eyes of Google, because it encompasses usability, positioning, and professionalism. Among the features of good adaptive design are large and legible elements, and good adaptive design allows the user to take action by chatting via WhatsApp or calling the business.
Currently, almost 50% of users browse from mobile phones, and more than 30% make purchase actions from them, which is why having an adaptive website is a mandatory feature on a website.
If you want to see the cutting-edge web design features offered by a web development agency, visit our web design section
11. Amazing and persuasive copywriting.
Copywriting consists of promotional texts that encourage conversion, written by the copywriter. It is not highly valued by many Latin companies, but in Europe, where they have been ahead of us in digital for many years, most restaurants, clothing stores, as well as bloggers and SEO professionals, achieve conversions in their businesses because they pay attention to and master the art of writing to promote themselves, copywriting, with ideas or phrases that make the user get involved while consuming information from the site.
12. Focused on conversion
Each page on your website should have a purpose or action that we want the user to take. That means having a landing page in every section of the site where we summarize all the information the user needs to know about the product or service, such as, for example, “download a brochure or technical sheet”, “request information”, “request a quote”, “watch a video or testimonial”, “view portfolio”, “view gallery”, among others.
13. Make yourself memorable
Design each element of your website elegantly, every button, photo, interaction, popup, focusing very well on your business's visual identity, copy, and colors that should relate to each element, adding professional elements and valuable content.
Install notices, launch promotions, and update your content regularly. Users return to your website every time they hear about you, and this is very beneficial for your brand, as far as the positioning that search engines will give your website is concerned.
14. Professional photographs
If you have an online store or a product portfolio gallery, the presentation of your products will attract the attention of your visitors, which will increase the time spent on the page. This notably benefits your website's SEO, and it will also help you achieve better conversions from potential customers and make your page gain relevance better than your competitors.
15. Achieve user retention.
I'll make it very simple for you, all social platforms, mobile apps, internet search engines, YouTube, WhatsApp, always seek strategies to keep users on their platforms for as long as possible, why? Because the more time a user spends on a platform, whether browsing, reading and/or viewing an image, a video, an article like this one, or chatting, the more that platform will stay in people's memories. And what does this mean? It means that you will remember the brand more and therefore it will have positioned itself in you, and you will have a favorable perception of the brand.
This is what will make your business great, it will make you generate many sales in the medium and long term, but only if you surround yourself with true professionals.
Of course, all this is very well, but... in the meantime, what do I do? Do I wait years?
Promoting a website is a task that requires time and dedication, although, if there is no urgency to reach users who may be potential customers for our business, there are solutions that can help us reach customers through an investment in sponsored ads in search engines, while we work day by day on promoting our website. One of these very useful tools is Adwords. This tool will allow us to advertise our site in the top positions of the famous search engine, bidding a cost per click on our ads
To achieve good results in an Adwords campaign, it is necessary to optimize our campaigns very well and have advanced knowledge of this tool. If we do not have it, our investment may fail or be extremely expensive. In our company, we have a department specialized in Adwords campaign management, so if you need help, you can contact us and we will advise you as best as possible
Another important means of reaching a significant number of potential customers is entering the world of social networks, or social media marketing in web applications such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+.
These social networks are essential and strengthen everything that concerns your website, improve your positioning, offer new channels of communication, and provide simple dissemination of content, news, products, or services.
In another article we will write about our experiences with these social networks and how to use them.
