Having a good business website is extremely important in this new decade. Further, it is essential and a must have if you want your business to succeed in this era of digital technology. This article is about some must have features of a good business website.
The internet and new advancements in digital technology gives businesses immense opportunities to connect with millions of potential customers. Here, a good business website with some effective and functional features and impressive look is the best tool to establish your business online and so to make a lasting impression on your target audience.
What Makes a Good Business Website?
All websites are not good websites. There are lots of websites designed for businesses which don’t make any difference. They neither increase income nor reach to the target audience. Consequently, these websites fail to establish a strong online presence.
Then, what makes a good business website? Some useful features can make a website a great business website. Valuable contents, easy-to-use interface, clear navigation, social media integration, SEO optimization, regular updating, and impressive style are some of these features. Following is a brief description of such must have features of a good business website.
Must Have Features of a Good Business Website
Here are the nine essential features of a good business website. So, ensure your existing web or newly built one have these features.
A Clear Site Structure
Site structure is the site map. It is a vital part of any business website. It means how well you organize your web structure. There are lots of benefits if you organize or structure your website in a useful way.
Most importantly, by structuring the web your visitors and Google will be able to easily find what they are looking for. Google can understand what your site stands for and what you’re offering. This will help the site rank high on it. Also, a nice structure is crucial for better user experience as well. Visitors will not be confused when they come to your online place.
Business Information
Without proper and clear business information your site will confuse the visitors. They may not understand what services you are providing and what products you are selling. Hence, a clear business information is a must have for your business website.
Essential business information includes your contact information, products and services you are offering, a brief history of your company, and relevant FAQs about your business. Providing live or quick chat options such as Whatsapp and Skype or any other medium will help customers easily connect with you and fulfil their requirements.
Fresh Content and Images
Having fresh and genuine content and impressive images is another important feature of a good business website. As we all know, content is always the king. Genuine, relevant and valuable contents can help you rank high on search engines. Further, content should be readable and SEO friendly.
SEO-friendly content means you produce contents in a way that helps the search engines rank it high. Just like with content, images also help your site perform high and generate leads. It’s worth investing money into professional photography to show your services and products. Use high quality photos that relate to your visitors.
Responsive Website (Mobile Friendly)
This is the most important one among the features of a good business website. A responsive or mobile friendly web design improves the way your site looks on devices with small and large screens.
Also, it helps you enhance the site ranking on search engines. From 2015, Google began using mobile friendliness as a ranking signal in search results.
As per a 2019 report from Statista, mobile accounts for approximately half of the web traffic globally. According to the report, mobile devices created 52.6% of worldwide website traffic in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Professional Coding and Design
Since your website is your online shop, build it with professional hands and awesome design. Otherwise, it may fail to impress your customers and so affect your business in a negative way.
Coding is the foundation of your website. Hence, hire highly professional designers with thorough knowledge in coding and latest coding technologies. Yes, even without proper knowledge in coding designers can develop websites. But, there is a huge difference between the site developed by professional and unprofessional coders.
Just like with the coding, website design also matters. A well architected web design makes difference as it impacts how your audience perceives your brand. Create a user friendly design because it will keep your leads on your page.
SEO-Optimized Pages
Search Engine Optimization- SEO is important for any business website. SEO is not only about ranking your website high on search engines but also improving the user experience and increasing the trust among the users. Hence, SEO puts your site ahead of the competition.
You can enhance your SEO features in many ways such as adding readable and genuine contents, clear title and description, use internal and external linking, quality images, etc.
Similarly, improving site navigation, mobile site optimization, increasing site speed, and improving metadata can also enhance your site SEO.
Blog Page
A blog page is also one of the essential features of a good business website. Blogs are a great tool to generate fresh content on your site and so to drive search traffic to it. Further, blogs helps get your website found on search engines and also gives your business a strong voice.
Updating your blog page with valuable contents on a regular basis will develop a better customer relationship. Consumers always like to be clearly informed and appreciate that you are giving them what they are looking for.
Social Media Integration
Social media is the most powerful tool to promote your business online.Therefore, social media integration becomes one of the essential features of a good business website.
With more than 40 percent of the world’s population (3.2 billion users) on social media, your business will never get a better platform than this. Integrate your business website with all major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Around 74 percent of Facebook users check it on a daily basis. Globally, 326 million people use Twitter every month. Instagram has 1 billion active monthly users.
Security and Good Hosting
Security is of utmost importance especially for a business website. Lack of security can be harmful to your business and result loss of income. Internet is an accessible platform to everyone, including criminals.
So, while choosing a hosting service, choose the most secure one. Make sure it has a SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate. SSL certificate helps prevent customer information from being stolen. Also, it gives the security of credit card or banking numbers and other information.
Secure hosting services also assures site speed which is important for SEO. In addition, they provide regular backup, malware scanning and other security precautions.
Unwanted Features of a Good Business Website
Many designers and developers make mistakes by adding unnecessary features to the websites. Ensure that your business website is free from such features. These features include but not limited to:
- Automatic music in the background.
- Poor use of content and white space.
- Ads in all the wrong places.
- Invisible navigation menus.
- Flash animations.
- Slideshows.
- Long videos.