8 Essential Features Every Website Should Have
Getting found online is just half the battle! Once you start receiving traffic to your website, you need to retain them and get them to convert into prospects.
In an age where everything is moving fast, people are becoming very choosy about the content they want to spend time on.
Today, business houses compete for innovations to attract users who want to restrict their time online. You cannot afford to lose customers using outdated website design and functionality. This means companies must incorporate website features users want without sacrificing functionality.
According to a survey done by Clutch to discover which website UX features are important to users and which they can live without. They found that people prioritize access to content over trendy designs and features. Overall, people prefer design elements and website functions that help them discover relevant content.
This is why apart from online promotion; your website should be the most important tool to attract your customers online.
Features Every Business Website Should Have
When people visit a website, they want smooth navigation, engaging design, and captivating content. As people intentionally skip unwanted and boring content, businesses must leverage feature-rich websites to provide value to the users and hold their attention. Here are a few features every business should have on its website to get noticed by its audience:
Easy Navigation
Online visitors prefer a clear menu structure on a website as that makes it easier for them to navigate between pages. They should be able to ascertain where they want to maneuver within seconds. Not doing so could result in losing potential customers.
The most common and simple way to organize your web pages is to have a drop-down navigation bar on the top of the website linking to major pages of your website. You need to plan your sitemap in a structural way and make sure to link them to the relevant pages. Broken links on a website can cause visitors to become frustrated and leave leading to a higher bounce rate. The best example of a website with great navigational structure despite the high volume of content is Amazon.
Responsive Design
A responsive website is a website designed to change its look based on the device it’s viewed on. For instance, if a customer views your website on their desktop, and then switches to their smartphone or tab, the site won’t just appear as it was on the desktop on the smaller screens – that would look disorganized and chaotic. A responsive design unscrambles your website site and makes it compatible with various devices.
This is critical for a website as more and more people now browse the internet, shop, and socialize online through their smartphones and tablets rather than being confined to a desktop or laptop. Your website must allow them to easily access its contents on their mobile devices.
An easy-to-update CMS
One of the basic problems website owners face after creating a website is making any changes to the same. As a nontechie, they would need to hire a website developer which is fine, except that it sometimes takes a considerable amount of time and money for it to actually happen.
A content management system (CMS) is a program that helps in the creation and modification of digital content (like a website) using a simple interface. Having a good CMS for your website allows you to have complete control of your web content. It means you can easily update, change or delete any content on your website without any need for outside assistance. It allows you to keep your website organized and looking great.
Some of the widely known CMS in use are WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and ExpressionEngine among others.
High-quality content
Your website is your best marketing collateral. You will need visitors’ attention and stay longer on the website before they can take any action on your website. For you to achieve this feat you would need to have the best quality content on your website. Having quality content on your website can help you generate better CTR, incorporate the best keywords, provide a better user experience as well as help in SEO.
As quality content is a priority for most people, companies need to understand what people want to watch or read and update content accordingly.
So, whatever the webpage is – be it service listings, pricing, history, or testimonials – make sure that you have engaging, beneficial as well as informative content on it.
Clear calls-to-action
A call to action (CTA) is a button on a website that informs a visitor to take some specified action. A call to action is typically written as a command or action phrase, such as “Buy Now/Read More/Donate/Register/Subscribe/Download Now/Share” etc. and is generally hyperlinked.
Being clear about what you want your website traffic to do on your website. This helps in directing them accordingly and removes any navigation confusion. Be specific – whether you want them to subscribe to your blog/newsletter, fill in a contact form, download content, etc. Use powerful and urgent language for a call-to-action button and put the button on each page of your website.
Contact Form
A contact form is a short web-based form placed on specific pages or locations of a website for visitors to fill out and submit to send a message to the website owner/webmaster. A contact form triggers an email message to be generated and sent to a predesignated email inbox. This lets the webmaster get messages from visitors, without revealing their email IDs to spammers.
A few reasons for having a Contact Us form are:
- Reduce Spam Emails
- Generate More leads
- Keep Track of Inquiries
- Build Subscriber List
- Automatically Populate your CRM
- Delegate Tasks to your Team
- Provide Better Customer Support
Social Media Buttons
Social Media links and buttons help your website visitors easily share your website/blog content with their social media connections and networks. Placing these buttons on your website allows you to expand the reach of your web content or blog to new audiences and generate new visitors back to your website through your website visitors.
Although social media presence is not a direct ranking factor, however, it can help boost the ranking factors that Google definitely considers link high-quality backlinks, referral traffic, subscriber/fan base, etc. According to research, social media networks bring 0.8% – 21.2% of a website’s traffic, with news and informational websites receiving the most social media traffic.
Our tip is to add social media sharing links/buttons to every web content you create, including landing pages, web pages, individual blog articles, email content, and more.
Company Blog
Blogs are informal articles written for the purpose of showing your thought or expertise on a topic. They are considered the best way to create fresh content for your website and also help in creating concepts for email marketing and social media promotion to drive organic traffic to your website.
There are 70 million new posts each month, which shows that blogging still plays a prominent part in the online marketing strategy of a website. Blogs help to slowly nurture your visitors and play a fundamental part in the E-A-T concept – expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
Blogs are important because:
- Shows your expertise in a subject
- They help you get found
- They bring referral traffic
- Convert traffic into leads
- Improve SEO score
Conclusion
Considering building a website?
The above-mentioned advice should get you started in creating a beautiful, functional, and successful website.
One of the most important factors that you need to keep in mind is to keep your website up to date with the latest features and content. This will ensure your site has all of the requirements search engines are looking for in order to rank it on its SERPs.
You can then begin to consider web marketing trends and overall user experience to reach your targeted audience. And yes! Never forget to respond to your customer’s queries.
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