What should my website have?

There are certain things that every good website has and which you should ensure are part of your website: purpose - structure - interactivity - appropriate content.

Purpose

The first thing you should think about when considering your new website is what you hope it will achieve because this affects how you will think about all the other elements and enables you to evaluate whether the website is effective or not.

There are many possible objectives for a website including:-

• To sell your products or services directly to your visitors (eCommerce).
• To get new clients for your products or services (lead generation).
• To support existing clients.
• To save money for your business or organization.
• To promote your organization.
• To educate, instruct or inform.
• To showcase your knowledge or expertise.

A website may have more than one objective and you will probably be able to add to the above list yourself.

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Structure

This is dictated by the Purpose and describes what pages are present, what kind of pages they are and the way that they are linked together for navigation. For example the site of a small engineering firm where the objective is to attract new clients might typically have a “Home” page, a “Products and Services” page, and a “Contacts” page. If they also had the objective of supporting existing clients the site could also usefully include a FAQ page, pages in PDF format of data sheets for their products, a form for requesting support etc. The client support area might be separate from the new client area and require registration and log-in forms.

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Interactivity

Your site should have a navigation system which enables the user to interact effectively with your site.

There are many systems of navigation which may be used. These include vertical menus, horizontal menus, text links, graphics links, tabs etc., but whatever system is used it should fulfil the following criteria:-

• It should be clear to your visitors where they are in your website (They may not have landed on your Home Page).
• Your visitors should be able to see where they can go to within your site.
• Your visitors should be able to determine easily where they have been in your site.
• There should at least be a link back to your Home Page on every page in your site.
• Visitors should be able to go anywhere in your site with a minimum of clicks.
• The system should be consistent throughout the site.

Another aspect of interactivity is giving the user the ability to communicate with you. The simplest way is just to give your email address but because of the possibility of exposing yourself to spam attacks we do not recommend this. It is much safer to use a page containing a contact form, particularly if this includes some sort of protection from spam robots

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Appropriate Content

Although this has been left till last, in fact 'Content is King'. It is the most important part of your site. All the flashy gimmicks in the world will not hold your visitor’s attention or bring them back to your site. Good content will.

It may be useful to consider what is inappropriate content. Here we are not talking about nudity etc., but rather those things which distract your visitor from the information you are providing, for example:

• Graphics, particularly animations, which do not support the content.
• Background music.
• Flashing or animated text.
• Low contrast text.
• Excessively small text.
• Poor use of colour.

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