5 Qualities of a Clean, Professional Business Websiteby Gary Messinger

Every business should have a website. Yes, even those owned by technophobes who say they never want anything to do with the internet. If you want your business to thrive, survive and keep up, it’s a must to put up a professional website because after all, more than half of consumers today use the internet to check products and services. Designing a website requires a delicate balance of various elements like design, content, function, and usability. Below, you’ll find a list of the top five qualities needed by every business website.

Great visual appeal

What’s the first thing that you see on a website? The design, isn’t it? That’s why, this is on top of our list. A vital component in web design, the visual appeal establishes a good first impression. It should possess the following characteristics: simple, clean, professional, attractive and relevant.

Simple and clean designs evoke professionalism and should therefore be preferred to elaborate and flashy designs that are painful for the eyes. The overall color scheme should also be customized to reflect your brand. The entire website should also be enticing enough to draw attention from visitors.

Fresh and original content

Equally important to design is the content. As most online experts would put it, “content is king.” People surf the web not to look at website designs but to obtain information. Your website’s content should therefore be unique, updated, original and highly informative.

Apart from a comprehensive company background and history, you should also provide details about your products and services, events, people working in the company, FAQs, contact info and so on.

Don’t forget about grammar and spelling too. Proofread many times. All it takes is one spelling mistake for your credibility to flush down the drain. Take note of the text’s spacing, size, and readability to improve usability. Using subheads and bullet points is always a good practice.

Easy-to-use navigation

Another crucial factor in web design is navigation. The pages should be organized in such a way that it will be very easy for your target audience to skim and browse. Make sure each page is named accordingly. While it’s cute to name the contact page “say hello to us,” it would be clearer to your users if you name the page “contact.”

Speed

See to it that your website works fast enough whether it’s browsed on a desktop, laptop or mobile. It shouldn’t take forever to load because if it does, the visitor will surely lose interest and go somewhere else.

The loading time is affected by the coding, graphics, server speed, traffic volume, and many other factors. Avoid using large graphics and prefer CSS styles. Ensure that the server has the right amount of space or bandwidth. Stay away from fancy flash animation that would only slow down your website. Search engine optimization

Without the right SEO techniques, a website is practically invisible. For people to visit your site, it should belong to the top 10 on the first page of the search engine results. Most don’t have the time and the patience to reach the second page. Conduct an effective keyword research and use tools like the Google’s Keyword Tool. Use the right keywords in the title tags, headlines, file names, article body and meta tags.

Building a professional website isn’t as complicated as some people think. Just put yourself in the shoes of internet users and think about the things that would draw your attention to a business site.