How do you spot a modern spider? He has a website!

Hello there! Welcome to this blog where we talk about the things that your website must have and will take your website to the next level. The secret to taking your website to the next level is to have an effective website design! Having knowledge about what things a website must have and how they can be added via website design is crucial for development.This blog will help you gather the knowledge you need regarding website design.Let us first establish what a website is first:  A website is basically a collection of interrelated web pages, which include text, images, videos and hyperlinks. It has a common domain name and a presence on the web server.

The importance of websites is now growing due to the growing usage of the Internet by consumers. It is important (essential, actually) to have a website for your business as it helps the users gain credibility. More and more customers are shopping and looking for information online and if you are present on the internet, you have an equal chance to increase your sales and develop a sense of trust and credibility among the consumers. It also provides a means through which you can directly connect with the consumers and get feedback. Another advantage is that having a website is less expensive to advertise on than the radio, newspapers, television etc.There are many types of websites you can create!

Imagine if websites like Gmail, Facebook, Wikipedia, Youtube, Amazon, Yahoo, didn’t exist. It’s unimaginable! They are all such important tools used in our day to day lives. Think, why are these websites so popular and important?

Let’s jump right into it: What are things a website must have?

Obviously, it is more important for a website to be useful. Before you even pick a server or type an HTML tag, you should first plan out how you would like the website to work, what kind of content will be displayed and how it will be displayed.This is important both for consumer experience and for Search Engine Optimization, since Google considers the content and structure of a site when it ranks for search. So, chalk it out and make a design for the site (something called “wire framing” and make sure it makes sense and is intuitive.

Easy navigation around a website is one of the up-most important things a website show have when it is in its designing stage. There is no point of having a really creative and exciting website, if the consumers are unable to use it and navigate around it to find all of the important information they are searching for. Navigation is best understood as the method in which you explore and move around the website.

Without navigation, websites can appear unstructured and disorganised. Here are some reasons why good navigation is one of the things a website must have:

3. Crucial Business Information

This is another important thing a website must have. You need to clearly define your company. A good company description can get the reader’s attention and interest. We all have short attention spans, so keeping the amount of text minimum but just enough to get the message across is important. People should be able to skim through the text available. Try to include all the vital information in a comprehensive way.

Depending on your business, you should have a few things on your website that fall into the realm of “information.” For example, restaurants need a menu and a list of locations (ideally with directions or a map). The retailers need to put product images, and the service industry has businesses that rely heavily on customer service and referrals need to put some testimonials on their websites. A wedding planner could have one of her recent brides write about her experience with the business. A web designer should include screenshots or links to previous work.

Another important thing a website must have is an easy to remember web address. It should be easy for a user to type the web address in the Web browser or email address.

Among things a website must have, display of contact information is very important.  Providing easy to find contact details is important as not every customer will click through a series of pages just to get to your contact details. The contact information must be placed in a prominent place such as the top left or top right corner. It is also a good idea to display the contact details on each page of the website so that the customers can get in touch whenever they want to. It is important to note that the consumers should be provided with more than one way to contact you, that is, phone number, email address, chat and contact form. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and try to understand the goal of a potential customer.

Security is another thing a website must have. One of the best ways to keep your website secure is switching from a standard HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) to HTTPS(HTTP Secured), which adds an additional layer of security and encryption. It works by using a SSLCertificate (SecureSocket Layer) which protects the data and any sensitive information that is passed between server and browser. This ensures that any information your customers and clients provide on your website is secured and protected, which in turn makes it more difficult for a third party or hacker to get their hand son the information.

You need to renew your domain occasionally otherwise this will wreak havoc and leave your website vulnerable to hackers. When you first purchase your domain name you have to decide how long you want to buy it for, and after that period of time has passed, it expires. You have to renew it. You will be presented with the option to automatically renew the domain once it expires, which is highly recommended. Leaving your website open gives other people, including your business competitors the chance to buy your domain.

6.Mobile-Friendly Experience

With the dependence on phones growing day by day, making sure your website is accessible through mobile devices is now one of the important things a website must have.More than 60% of internet users access online content through mobile devices.In April 2015, Google updated its SEO algorithm to include mobile responsiveness. This basically means that if your competitors’ website is mobile friendly and yours is not, their website will show up in Google searches before yours, which is not ideal.

7.Social Media Icons

Social media is a fantastic way for your customers to learn more about your business and stay up to date with what offers are available to them. It is a way for them to connect with the business on different platforms and for the business to put some personality behind the brand. These icons are especially important when you are posting content. The whole point of posting a blog or uploading a portfolio is to get people to see it and by providing them easy means to access that content, you will be able to reach a wide audience with a strong impact.

All of these things mentioned above are what makes popular websites popular. They are all keeping themselves updated with the changing times. Your website must too if you want to be successful.

So, how can you make your website that extra bit better? Through the website design of course! The website design is the face of your business online. As Steve Jobs once said, “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

If the website design is faulty, the website will look inferior and of poor quality. Website design is a broad term that encompasses a wide variety of tasks, all involved in the formation of webpages. These are essentially two types of web designs you can decide on: static and dynamic web design. Static web design is typically based on HTML code and dynamic website design is built with superior and refined technologies according to the information available in the database. You can learn more about static and dynamic website designs here.

Hiring a professional web designer to build a clean, neat and professional looking website, making sure that all the things a website must have are present, is the correct way to go. The web designer will make sure that the website has all the things a website must have by performing these duties and roles:

Web development services help your company to increase product knowledge, maintain communication between you and potential clients, sell your products or services, generate leads for the business, and increase the popularity of your company and much more. To have a successful website, make sure your website has all of the things mentioned above. Take the necessary time to do some research and find out what is best for you. Remember, you can always outsource this project to web designers. By getting professional help in creating and maintaining your website, you will be able to always stay ahead with the newest trends and technology. This gives you an edge over your competitors!