(ThySistas.com) Regardless of how small your business is, it needs a website. All companies need a site where consumers can gain information or buy products online. It will be a vital part of your business; if you have a physical location, more people will view the website than see your actual location in the flesh!
Consequently, much depends on the formation and creation of your website. It needs to reflect your brand and provide people with as much information as possible. The biggest challenge is developing a site that isn’t a waste of time or money. Some websites are simply not good enough to benefit your business. This tends to happen when they lack the factors listed below! In this post, you will learn some of the key elements your website needs to be effective. Check them out, then measure them against your site to see if you tick all the boxes.
Fast loading speeds
We’ll start with an obvious one; page loading speeds. A useful website will load up very quickly – we’re talking under a couple of seconds. Any longer than this, and you run the risk of people leaving the site before it even loads up. As a result, your site is highly ineffective as nobody sees what’s on it. You might have some exceptional content and web design features, but the slow loading speeds prevent any of this from having an effect.
With that in mind, your primary concern is to create a website that loads quickly. This is an essential aspect of the user experience, decreasing bounce rates, and ensuring people actually see the rest of your website. 
Valuable content
Content is king. Your website will sink or swim based on the content produced on it. Don’t get confused; ‘content’ doesn’t strictly refer to blog posts or videos, etc. Instead, it relates to everything on your website! All of the information you present to people will be classed as content. This includes product descriptions, information on your business, images, and so on.
Your main aim is to create valuable content, but what does this mean? For content to be valuable, it has to do a few things. Firstly, it needs to relate to your target audience and provide information relevant to them. There’s a great example here https://caltechweb.com/affordable-church-websites/, which demonstrates relevant content for a specific audience. In this scenario, we’re looking at church websites, which obviously target a specific demographic. Therefore, it’s suggested that the website content needs to be geared towards information on the next sermons, church updates, and video recordings of the latest gatherings. It’s all valuable to the viewer as it directly links to the target audience of that site.
You need to take this approach and use it on your business website. Think about your target audience, consider what your business does, then make content that links the two together. It can be as simple as displaying your products with information on all of them. Or, it can be as complex as excellent video demonstrations providing vital info.
Regular updates
On the topic of content, you have to keep your website updated. As it mentions here: https://infomedia.com/blog/understanding-the-importance-of-updating-your-website/, keeping a website updated will help you improve your SEO. In essence, this means you rank higher in search engines, making your site more visible. Thus, you can get more web traffic, and your website is more effective!
Updates will basically keep your site as relevant as possible. Over time, your content may be stale or irrelevant to your audience. The easiest example of this is your contact information section. Many businesses will neglect to update this if they move to a different address or get a new customer service email. As such, the information shared on the site is out of date, rendering your website as slightly less effective. You don’t need to update your business website every day, but it helps keep things refreshed if they seem stale. Also, on this topic, blog posts are a simple way to show search engines that you’re updating your website, and they can be as frequent as you wish!
Landing pages
You can be excused for not understanding some of the different web design terminology thrown about in the business world. Personally, I used to struggle differentiating between landing pages and other pages on your website. Some people think that landing pages are any pages that someone visits when they click a link to your site. This is technically true, but landing pages are usually separately created away from the rest of your site.
To clear things up, these pages are specifically created for adverts or links that people click. You won’t find them if you were naturally browsing a website. They exist to tempt users into offers, getting them to complete the desired action. This could be buying a product, signing up for something, etc. Good landing pages ensure that you convert as many leads as possible. In turn, these leads can be converted into customers. Thus, your website is incredibly effective. Without landing pages, you will struggle to improve your conversion rates, making your site feel like it doesn’t really do much.
Easy navigation
Finally, your website needs to be easy to navigate. Loads of different elements come together to play a role here. Essentially, people should be able to visit your site and find what they want. It shouldn’t be a chore to go through different pages until finally finding what they came to look for. All of your menus should be clearly outlined, you can use internal links to connect pages to one another, and a search bar is essential.
The video above this section will do a great job of showing you how to improve your website navigation. Not all of the tips will be relevant to your website, but some of them will!
All in all, these are the key factors that make an effective website. It’s all about creating something easy for users to use and provides them with relevant information. As a result, you will see improvements in both lead generation and sales!
Staff Writer; Latasha Brown