3 minutes Alongside topics like soccer, viruses, and energy energypolitics, the characteristics and principles that make websites successful are something everyone thinks they understand, but few truly have reliable knowledge about. We don’t promise that reading this post will make anyone an expert on the subject, but we have gathered a few (5) general design considerations and essentials.
The most important points of this post are summarized below, but it’s worth reading the entire entry as well.
SUCCESS IS SIMPLY MEASURABLE (?)
Businesses today can’t afford to be without a well-functioning website. Considering the global market, 51.4% of the world’s population uses the internet daily for administrative tasks, information exchange, and communication. However, the fragmented focus of site visitors breeds impatience: numerous studies (like this one, or this one, or this one, to name a few) show that a website has roughly 3-5 seconds to capture users’ attention; otherwise, visitors will quickly start increasing the bounce rate.
Websites offer solutions for a wide range of services and needs, making it difficult to formulate general design and development principles that apply in most cases.
By reverse-engineering and examining an already functioning site, we find that the saying “money talks” is true: if a website is financially profitable, fully serves its purpose, and users are satisfied, it can be considered “successful.”
USER EXPERIENCE AND FUNCTIONAL DESIGN
Let’s approach the question scientifically and uncover both the explicit and implicit needs of our users! This immediately addresses one of the main aspects of successful online presence: user experience must be prioritized above all else.
User experience is primarily defined by two factors: ease of use and emotional engagement. It’s no secret that these two go hand in hand: if the design is functional and usable, it creates a good foundation for visitors to spend their time on the site willingly.
Characteristics of an easily navigable site include:
- Simple navigation
- Logical structure
- The visitor gets answers to the following questions:
- Who are you?
- What do you do?
- How can I contact you?
- Is this site for me?
- How are you better than your competitors?
SECURITY, CREDIBILITY, AESTHETICS
Functionality alone is insufficient for success if it isn’t accompanied by engagement—this is best achieved by providing an outstanding emotional and aesthetic experience. We can most positively influence users’ emotions by providing clear answers to the following questions:
- Now that I’m on your website, what do you want me to do? In fact, what should I do?
- How does your service work, and how much does it cost?
- Why should I trust you and not your competitors?
- What do others say about you?
DON’T FORGET TO CONVERT!
Websites that prioritize users’ goals and needs also better serve and achieve their own conversion objectives. Since users are impatient and crave a smooth experience, the journey from arrival to payment must be as short as possible—the fewer clicks to reach the goal, the better. Besides optimizing the conversion funnel, a fundamental principle of dealing with impatient users is that pages must load lightning-fast.
Instead of testing in a sterile environment like PageSpeed Insights, the speed perceived by human eyes (and brain) is a much more appropriate metric. Speed is closely related to mobile optimization as well. A successful and modern website must be responsive across all types and sizes of devices, from mobiles to ultra-wide desktop monitors, as surveys indicate that desktop research precedes making significant decisions.
TRACK AND MEASURE YOUR VISITORS!
Optimizing a site is unimaginable without adequate amounts and depths of data. Users may be interested not only in the company’s other communication channels, branding, offline connections, or feedback from other users but also in seemingly irrelevant data that can be valuable in certain situations. Therefore, it’s crucial that every action and user activity on the website is trackable and measurable. When placed in the proper context, data that initially seems useless can help uncover opportunities that bring economic benefits.
Contact us if you’d like to turn your site into a revenue-generating asset!
Photos: www.unsplash.com: John Schnobrich, Firmbee
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