Simply having a beautiful and functional website aren’t cutting it anymore to attract attention. The chance that your site succeeds in conversion lies in many factors, such as guaranteeing the necessary elements of a great website are considered.
As the Web gets crowded with sites of various kinds and sizes, getting noticed is a tough call. Without building a site that’s appealing and relevant to your audience, there’s no chance your brand would ever establish itself on top of your visitor’s minds.
The 5 Seconds Test
Typically, the first 3-5 seconds are crucial in making your best impression and bring your visitors to stay long enough to check out what you’ve got. So it’s essential that you don’t miss out even one vital basic website element to convert more visitors.
Five seconds, right? That is a very short time in fact to get your visitors read your content and be absorbed with your idea. But according to some studies, it is only enough for people’s emotion-based brains and perceptions to react to layout, design, color, headline and even perhaps navigation.
If you have not caught your visitor’s attention by then, you’ve lost the chance to keep them. Don’t hope they’ll ever return again.
Sticking Around with You
When you’re planning for your brand’s website structure and what basic website elements to include, don’t forget stickiness. It is a term that refers to keeping your site visitors on your page.
According to some studies, the average visitors will only stay and go to fewer than a couple pages all at 30 seconds or less. Most of them will only visit your homepage and it’s bye bye for you.
Here’s why it pays to understand stickiness. Your job is to want to bring these average visitors to spent longer time at your site to find your offers. Your homepage must not be your visitors’ end destination but a door to your video testimonials, and a lot more.
You would need to lay down a sticky trail with a plausible website architecture, strong content, calls to action, interactions with website elements, link structure, basic site SEO, what visitors can do, and articles to share to social networks.
Every click, every action must contribute to making your visitor deeply engaged and tied to your website.
Imitate These Necessary Elements of a Good Website!
Great websites offer some lessons to imitate – such as its own basic website elements and ways– and achieve online success in an ever-growing online market. Here are a couple of necessary elements of a great website:
1. Smart Information Architecture
An attractive, professional site are made with easy, focused and strategically-mapped website architecture. Ensure that your visitor’s not lost when they visit your website. A visitor need to know they’re in the right place.
In layman’s term, this could be the brand logo’s placement in the header, the navigation menu under the header, the placement of search box, calls to action buttons, video testimonials, and the likes.
Make sure basic site SEO tactics are strategically placed, from including appropriate links for SEO or PPC compliance and brand building, namely About Us page, Service, Contact, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use of Service, and the likes.
2. Original Images
What images type you use tells a lot about your brand and your integrity in the online marketplace.
Do you prefer stock over original images? Over stock images, great websites use original images because the same evokes a more professional approach.
Stock images often tend to be overused and seen a couple of times already makes for a dull and uninspired website. Plus these external images are often linked not organically to you, weighing down to your site’s performance metrics.
3. Simple, Fresh and Content that Communicate
Short and punchy straightforward, these are qualities you often get from great websites. And these are what almost everyone’s looking for.
Try to build websites that provide answers to the most frequently asked questions of your visitors. And if it is entertainment or efficiency your visitors are after, give it to them with no strings attached.
But make sure that the content are fresh, from your homepage to your landing pages. If you have up-to-date deals section or price list, it sends the message that you’re, as always, committed and relevant in their space.
No one want to see the same dull thing repeatedly. And unless you want to annoy or frustrate your visitors, you should give time to edit and proofread your messages for clarity and impact.
The ability to share your content must also be considered when making your basic site SEO. Not only sharing content by them is helpful for your SEO, you also got yourself a marketing ambassador for free!
4. Site Speed
Want to make your visitor happy? Make sure your webpage loads in less than three seconds. At three or four seconds, visitors may already be thinking of backing out from your online web space. And when your visitors stay longer than five seconds, congratulations then, you have them thinking you have something worth waiting for!
To give the best loading experience, make sure you don’t skimp on resources, like web server, that will enhance the experience of your web visitors. Tips like testing browser compatibility, correct link structure, and making your website mobile-friendly, are important and must be followed.
Additional Resources:
5. Smart Design
The right combination of fonts used, color, images, and everything you employ on your website can roughly be termed as design. While its value is often underestimated, there’s a recent surge in attention and interest, especially in drawing visitors to take a look.
The color must jibe with the kind or type of brand employing it in their website. Is it a tech-based or high-tech site you are building or a medium-sized shop selling interior decoration for condominium owners? If you’re selling high-end products, giving more white space will make your site look spacious and rich.
It would not hurt hiring a professional web designer who have a good grasp of branding and marketing.
Final Thoughts
Although we can discuss as much about what basic website elements you might consider when planning and building your website, you’ll never get close to delivering a perfect website if you’ll not think of your visitors.
Offer as much reasons for your visitors to return, from blogs, great promos and price discounts to irresistible contest. After considering all the necessary elements of a good website, there’s one simple rule to live by: make the five seconds truly a lasting first impression.