Have you ever wondered why some sites are way more popular than others in the same niche? While preferences differ from one internet user to another, there’s no doubt that website quality is one of the crucial factors in creating a horde of loyal followers and attracting new readers.
Most will pinpoint high-quality content as the main website driver, but visuals and usability are equally important in providing the best user experience.
But how do you create a high-quality website? Jump in as we share a few tips.
How to Create a High-Quality Website
There are numerous ways to help enhance the customer experience. An intelligent design is essential in retaining readers and attracting new ones.
Your homepage is the first thing that greets a customer after clicking on your website link. Hence, visuals play a vital role in creating a customer’s first impression. High-quality content and high usability further convince your readers to follow your site and it with others.
- Plan carefully
Before setting up a website, it is necessary to answer questions such as:
- What is your website’s objective?
- What type of content do you intend to provide?
- Who are your target audiences?
- How can your website provide added value to your target audiences?
Only after providing answers to these questions can you proceed with creating your website, giving you a clear direction on which elements and sections you want to be included in the site’s structural framework.
- Think of a good website structure and design
Guided by the answers to the questions mentioned above, think of a design that reflects your company, or if it’s a personal website, your personality. A good website design not only provides a pleasing visual experience but also helps communicate with site visitors. Make your site clean-looking by not overcrowding the pages with texts and images to allow readers to focus on more important things.
- Draft a content marketing strategy
As they say, content is king. But to create high-quality content that your audience will find useful, figure out a strategy first. Proceed with drafting a content calendar based on your game plan to ensure consistent delivery of information and keep your followers engaged.
- Allow for easy site navigation
After brainstorming about the specific sections that you want to include in your site, arrange it in a manner that’s concise and clear. Ensure that visitors don’t lose their way in finding what interests them. Clarity and conciseness are crucial, especially if you are offering products or services.
- Create high quality and engaging content
Great content helps build trust and credibility. For this, you need to put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Users click on your site because they want to find out if it can help them with specific issues. That’s where you need to focus. They’re likely not interested in looking at all the photos of your company’s corporate responsibility activities nor company newsletters detailing the fun-filled yearend party you just had.
There’s an emerging demand for visual content, so upload photos with your blog articles or create vlogs. Diversify content by creating podcasts, e-books, webinars, and other content types to increase your audience and site ranking.
- Use images properly
The right images can vastly improve your site and impact user engagement. However, posting high-resolution images may impair loading time. Thus, you should optimize images for site use. Be mindful when you use or upload unique business photos because they can be too heavy for a website.
- Make sure all the links in your site work
Having too many broken links on your website gives the impression that you are not serious about providing updated and useful information and drive away potential buyers.
- Encourage interaction with your readers or followers
It is always a good idea to solicit feedback from your site visitors. Ask them how their experience was in visiting or exploring your site. Conduct a survey on which topics they want to know more about and produce content that discusses these issues. If they raise a complaint, address it directly to show that your audience matters.
Remember to place shareable links or icons on your site to make it easier for your followers or readers to share your content.
- Keep your website fresh and updated
Potential buyers could get discouraged once they notice that your website is dormant. Keep your site as updated and as fresh as you can. You need not always write new blog articles, as you can revise existing ones.
A useful tool for updating your website is the recently-released Google Page Experience, a system that measures your website quality. But it won’t go live until 2021. This tool uses search ranking factors such as Page Speed Update and mobile-friendly update, among a host of other features
Additional Tips to Improve Your Website
If you’ve had your site for a while and you’re not sure how to improve it, consider the following:
- Learn the basics of SEO. It’s useless to develop a high-quality website that doesn’t get noticed. Make search engine optimization (SEO) a priority to increase site visibility. SEO is a bit complicated but you can work on some basic principles to help you get started. Begin by learning how keywords can help your site become more visible via the keyword difficulty checker.
- Optimize page loading speed. If your website takes forever to load, you will have a high “bounce rate” or instances where a reader clicks your site but leaves without seeing your homepage. Streamline your website by removing unnecessary pages, sections, and photos.
- Make your website mobile-friendly. There are millions worldwide who use their mobile phones to surf the internet. Don’t be left out. Your website should be easy to view on mobile phones. Keep it simple and remove unnecessary content that your visitors may insignificant.
- Calls to Action. Increase the chances of your offers being availed by visitors by making an attractive call to action buttons.
The keys to a high-quality and engaging website are simplicity and usefulness. You don’t need to develop one that’s full of high-resolution images or Encyclopedic-type articles. All you need is a visually appealing website that delivers succinctly and strategically what the audience wants.