The title to this article is, to some extent, something thousands of people are still looking to find the
answer to. What makes a successful website? Depending on the area the website is going into will, of course, depend on the answer. However, there are some fundamentals to creating websites, especially from having experience of creating several high-end websites myself. Therefore, here are some of the elements I have found to always be around successful websites to help those looking to also create successful websites.
- High quality content – I know it is the most obvious element to a great website. However, it still has to go on this list because the vast majority of websites out there will be nothing without the content that is on the website. The trick behind great content is making content that is not on the internet already (niche content) since this is guaranteed to rank highly and gain a high traffic share from the niche area online.
- A user friendly navigation menu – The navigation menu of websites is key to the success of it. It should allow the web user to access any part of the website easily and intuitively. Therefore, making sure you have a menu with the possibility of expanding upon hovering would do well for a website. On top of this, making sure you choose the right links to put in a navigation menu is just as vitally important.
- Speed – A slow website, even if it has the best theme and content in the world, will have poor stats associated to it simply because web users are impatient of websites loading and will simply click away to the next best alternative website. Every millisecond it takes a website to load is contributing to how the web user perceives your website. Therefore, keeping loading speed down to a minimum will do wonders for stats such as your bounce and exit rate.
- Internal linking everywhere – Websites tend to do well when the web user is on the website, that we can all agree about. Therefore, once the web user has landed onto a website, everything should be aimed at maintaining the web user on the website. This can be done through internal linking, both in the content and around the content, such as before and after the content as well as in the sidebar.
- Clean theme – Everything is going cleaner and more minimalist, in terms of the themes of websites online. Evidence of this comes with Google Android software, which was very intense on the theming a few years ago. But, with every year, has got simpler and simpler in its appearance. Having a theme that has, at maximum, two colours will work well for a website and make sure the web user is aesthetically pleased by the look it too.
