The Keys to Creating an Effective Website
Simplicity, a professional look, and strong content
As in many other areas, simplicity, clarity, and professionalism go a long way in website design. Professional web designers may get all excited about cool new technology, but for most people – and businesses – there’s no need to get so advanced. User friendliness and clarity of purpose are the most important things in determining whether or not a website is effective.
A Simpler Website Is Usually a Better Website
“Some of the absolute best, most effective website are the simplest ones,” says Robert Cooper, strategic director and president of PlusROI Online Marketing in Victoria, British Columbia. “There’s kind of this sense that you need to have the fanciest technology, when in 90 percent of the cases it probably isn’t the best way to go.”
Advanced Web features like JavaScript or Flash can actually hurt a website’s search engine rankings and may not work in all browsers. Few things turn people away faster than error messages. All that fancy stuff can make a site take longer to load and more difficult to browse on hand-held devices, which are becoming increasingly popular.
Susan Daffron, co-author of Web Business Success: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Web Sites That Work, says that a good website is one that makes it “easy to understand within the first five second what it’s about and why anyone should care.” This includes having very clear site navigation. In fact, Daffron recommends to her clients that they have their mother or grandmother test the site to see if it’s confusing.
Building a Good Website Starts with a Professional Look
The site’s design should also look clean and professional. “As far as being effective I always like to say that the day of the purple front page website is over,” says Daffron. “A website has to have a very professional graphic presentation or people will instantly have the oh-my-gosh what a cheesy website response and bail out.”
“Form always follows function,” says Nick Finck, director of user experience at Blue Flavor, a web design firm in Seattle, Washington. "That doesn’t mean there isn’t going to be nice design on a website, but you don’t want to overwhelm the user.”
Users want information to be easy to find. “Do not get in the way of the user,” Finck cautions. What matters is what users want from a site, not necessarily what the site owner or web designer thinks is important.
Effective Websites Communicate Benefits through Strong Content
“The text needs to be short and sweet and plain English,” says Internet marketing consultant Elgé Premeau of eMarketing Strategist. “You know what you want to say, so say it. Tell it to somebody in a conversation, and then put that on your website. That’s going to be plain English.”
Telling stories is more effective than a bunch of dry information. For businesses, this means focusing on successes and benefits to clients. “Tell people the story of how you pulled a rabbit out of a hat for a client,” advises Premeau. Clearly communicating the benefit to potential customers goes much further than just talking about how great the business is.
Rob Cooper agrees. “The single most important thing for a business is that they clearly communicate to the audience that they’re trying to reach. If they can communicate a very powerful benefit for the visitor, then all of a sudden the other stuff is less important. It’s still very important, but if I’m a visitor and see clearly that this person can make my life easier, I’ll take the time to go through the site.”
Sources: All quotes from interviews with the author.
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