There are certain things that every website should have regardless of industry, (in fact, websites are essentially the same other than the words on the page). There are also things that should be avoided at all costs.
Web Design: Must Haves
Domain and Hosting
These are the first must haves. Without it, you don’t have a website at all. The domain is very similar to the address to your business, it’s the address that people will type in to reach your website. The Hosting is the physical house at the address that contains all the files and information your website needs.
Logo/Tagline
A logo and tagline are major parts of your brand, these should be prominently displayed throughout your website.
Call to Action
A call to action is a button that directs user to the step you want them to take next. Whether it’s to contact you by phone, form, email, or head into the shop section of your site, it should be repeated several times throughout your site.
Navigation
This is a given, but your site needs a navigation (usually at the top of the site). It should dictate the major pages of your website like the home page, about page, services/shop page, contact page, and the portfolio/gallery page.
Business Info
Some of the most critical information on the site would be your business info. This would be the name of the business, the phone number, email address, physical address, and hours.
Social Media Links
You should have links to all of your social media profiles in order to boost your online presence.
Mobile Responsive
This is vital, most customers are viewing your site on their mobile device. You need your site to look good, and function correctly on mobile devices in order to convert those potential customers.
Other Good SEO Items
Spell Check
Many times misspelled words go unnoticed by the company on their websites, doing a quick spell check can prevent those unsightly errors.
Google Analytics
This is an amazing tool that allows you to see how visitors got to your site, and how they behave on your site. You can use this to optimize your site to get more conversions.
Sitemap
Sitemaps are basically a list of all the pages on your website. Search engines use this to index your site and then list them in the search results.
SSL
This is a certificate that says your site is secure and not a scam. This helps immensely with e-commerce websites, as you don’t get that big warning sign before entering the shop page.
Testimonials
Customer reviews are important parts of a brand. They build new customer’s trust, and ensure that you put your best foot forward.
Web Design Must Avoid
There are many things that you want to avoid on your website, these include
- Background music
- Flash elements
- “Click to Enter”/Splash Page
- Server-side videos (Use YouTube instead!)
- Plagiarism
- Clashing or excessive numbers of colors
- Horizontal Scrolls (Especially on mobile!)
- Flashing Text
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