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What Makes a Good Website?

Websites are often the first point of contact when it comes to generating clientele, which means it’s all about making a good first impression. In this blog, we’ll be exploring the essential question: what makes a good website?

Clear & Responsive Design

94% of website first impressions are design-related, so the design of your website must be something that is not only visually engaging to a user, but also easy to use.

Embrace whitespace: But what is whitespace? Also referred to as negative space, whitespace is the unmarked areas between and around elements of a webpage like text, images, and buttons. It's not necessarily white; the term "white space" refers to any area of a design left unmarked by visuals or text. This element can help prevent your site design from looking cluttered and can guide the user’s attention without leading to information overload.

Your site can also benefit from elements like a consistent colour scheme, or a readable font. When it comes to design, sometimes simplicity is key to enhancing user experience and boosting user retention - it makes the key information stand out. Here’s an example from a client of ours:

Navigation is another element of what constitutes a good website. So what do we mean by navigation? We mean implementing a logical structure to your site layout, this includes things like menus that are accessible from any page, or a search feature for larger sites. 

Effective site navigation comes with multiple benefits: 

  • Enhanced UX (user experience): a logical site structure means that UX can be streamlined and therefore enhanced. If users are able to find the information they’re looking for quickly and effectively, they’re likely to have an overall better experience  with your site as opposed to having to sieve through excessive information. 
  • SEO benefits: search engines favour websites that are easy to navigate. If your site is easy to crawl and understand, search engines can better interpret content hierarchy and importance of pages - this could lead to better search engines rankings for your site. 
  • Reduced bounce rates: As stated before, the better your site navigation, the better users can access the information they need. So not only does this enhance UX, but also makes it more likely for users to stay on your site and explore further. This positively contributes to the likelihood of conversions, as well as positively impacting your site’s performance in search engine results. 

When it comes to design, it’s also a plus if your website has a responsive design. This means taking into account elements such as mobile compatibility. 

Testing your website on various devices and browsers is essential to its functionality and UX. This can involve doing compatibility checks across different operating systems such as iOS and Android, or browsers like Chrome, Safari, and others. Ensuring that your site works well across these platforms, as well as making sure they respond well to different device sizes and resolutions, means your site can cater to larger audiences. This is especially important nowadays, considering mobiles account for approximately half of global web traffic. 

Effective Website Banners

Website banners serve as a powerful tool, as they can be used to effectively highlight your goods or services and show off your brands, it can also be used to provide users with proper navigation by presenting the information that matters most to them.

CTA placement: A call-to-action (CTA) allows you to prompt site users to take appropriate actions, such as “Shop Now”, “Register Now”, or “Learn More”, and its placement is pretty vital. A CTA should coincide with the purpose of your banner. For example if you’re a hotel and your banner features an exclusive sale going on at that time, your CTA should coincide with something like “Shop Now & Save”, or something along those lines to align with your banner’s purpose. This creates a clear and direct path for users to follow, and increases the likelihood of engagement.

Fast loading times

The average loading time for a website as of 2023 is 2.5 seconds on desktop, and 8.6 seconds on mobile. Ideally, you should aim for your site to load between 0- 4 seconds for optimum conversion rates and reduced bounce rates - this can be achieved with several practices.

  • Image optimisation: Compress images to reduce their file size without significantly affecting quality. Tools like TinyPNG can be used for this purpose. Consider using next-gen formats like WebP, which provides superior compression and quality characteristics compared to traditional formats like JPEG and PNG.

  • Leverage browser caching: Configure your web server to set appropriate caching headers (Cache-Control, ETag) on static resources. This instructs browsers to store these resources in the cache and reuse them on subsequent page loads, reducing the need to download them again.

  • Minimise File Requests: Combine CSS and JavaScript files where possible to reduce the number of HTTP requests.

  • Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): Distribute content across multiple servers worldwide to reduce latency and speed up content delivery to users.

  • Optimise Critical Rendering Path: Prioritise loading of essential content and resources to ensure that the site becomes usable as quickly as possible.

Quality Content 

Creating a quality website isn’t just about the design, it’s important to take into account the quality of the content you’re putting on that site too- it is the information you’ll be relaying to your users after all. Here are some things to consider when it comes to your site content: 

  • Relevance and Engagement: Your content should be crafted in order to resonate with your target audience, taking into consideration their interests and their needs. You should be able to provide the essential information in a way that engages the reader, keeps them hooked, and prompts interaction. 
  • Keyword integration: Keyword integration means carrying out keyword research, and implementing those relevant keywords or phrases where is fitting. This way your site can become more visible in search engines, making it easier for your target audience to find you, this is a regular practice we use ourselves for writing these blogs! 
  • Consistency: Consistency in tone and style strengthens brand identity and builds trust with the audience. Regularly updating content keeps the site fresh and dynamic, encouraging repeat visits. This includes publishing new blog posts, updating articles, and adding multimedia elements.

In short, a great website combines clean design, straightforward navigation, and engaging content. Keep your site user-friendly, mobile-ready, and filled with useful information to leave a strong first impression. It's all about making it easy for visitors to find what they need and enjoy their time on your site. This approach not only attracts visitors but also encourages them to come back.

For more information on web design, check out our other blogs. And for further support, or if you’re interested in seeking website design services, you can get in contact with our expert team. 

Author Natalie SembianteSubjects Web Design
Natalie is the Digital Marketing Executive here at Arise, helping to raise our clients’ online presence!

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