Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

In my profession I have to analyse a lot of websites on a daily basis. And what I just don’t ever get is the fact that there are still so many badly created websites out there? Not necessarily just from design point of view, but functionality too!

And it’s not just the latent–old–school–frames–embedded websites, what’s more concerning is that I’ve seen some recent work (including “web 2.0” classified sites) that even get the balance wrong.

A well structured site will sell more and will keep people coming back for more, so these kinds of details are important.

Some of the things to look out for are:

Persuasive and relevant content

Search engine friendliness

Scalability, Platform and Content Management

User-friendliness

Five key elements to consider to you to help ensure at least a structurally sound, user-friendly search optimised website:

Competitors — This is one of the most crucial things to look for. When starting a business, you look at who your online competitors are. Always start locally. If you are for example a shoe company in Pretoria, try Google South Africa and actually type in shoe company Pretoria, in this way you will get to know your key online competitors. If they’re ranked above you, chances are they’re doing something better than you. Compare their content, functionality and user–friendliness to your own site to determine how you can improve your own website’s content and functionality.

Content — The content of your website should be relevant, persuasive and keep the interest of your target audience. Create a sitemap and classify your content according to categories. This will help with your usability and your design. Scalability of content is another important consideration for structure and also the website platform and design

Platform — Content and scalability considerations will influence platform. Do you want an eCommerce enabled site or purely a informative one? Do you require a content management system, a blog, a gallery, or all of the above? The designated platform of your website therefore will also have some influence on the look and feel of your website. The platform itself is also hugely influential on the search engine marketing abilities. Too many people discount that in their conceptualisation.

Look and feel – The ‘look and feel’ of your website is greatly influenced by your target audience, therefore it’s important to determine exactly who your target market is and what they want to see on a website. If you want any search engine placement you should steer clear of flash only sites, for example. The end result of your website should not only attract the eyes of your audience, but should be easy to understand. Look and feel has a strong influence on Usability.

Usability — Your website should always be as user friendly as possible. The more easily someone is able to navigate through your website, get to the essential content they are looking for, the better for your website and your sales at the end of the day. Three clicks are all it should be from entry to conversion.

So there you have it. As long as you follow a few simple steps, you should end up with a well structured and well written website that can be found on search engines, and that will also convert your visitors to sales.