Have you ever wondered what makes a website better than its competitors when they all serve the same purpose?
The answer often lies in the website’s design and core competencies. According to studies, 75% of customers judge a company’s credibility based on its website.
Considering that four in five consumers are digital buyers in the UK, having a functional, flawless, and modern website is essential to establishing your business’s presence.
However, developing and designing a business website is not a textbook theoretical process. It’s ever-evolving, with new trends and techniques emerging every year. Hence, staying up-to-date can be daunting.
To help you, today’s post takes a deep dive into the must-have features for modern websites, covering everything from seamless navigation to mobile optimisation.
With the help of the best web design agency, we will help you create a website that informs you about your business and engages and converts customers.
So, let’s dive in!
Essential Website Feature
A website is typically the first place people find out what your business has to offer and whether it’s legit. It forms the most significant part of your customers’ journey, enabling them to purchase.
Therefore, it is essential to ensure your business website incorporates all the critical website functionalities. These features are essentially the building blocks of your online business address. They guarantee a positive user experience while enabling users to achieve their goals.
Broadly, you can divide the fundamental features of modern websites into two categories: usability/functionality and content/credibility. The features belonging to the first category make your website easy to navigate, comprehend, and user-friendly, such as responsive layout, call-to-action buttons, intuitive design, search bars, and fast-loading pages.
Content and credibility refer to the features your website uses to deliver trustworthy information. These include high-quality content, essential pages like Contact and About Us, site security measures, and a clear purpose.
If you are confused about whether your business website includes the necessary features, ask yourself the following questions:
If you responded positively to these questions, your business website has come a long way. However, if your response has been more negative than positive, keep reading to discover the essential features to make your business website more result-driven and feature-rich.
Critical Components For Modern Websites
Good websites are the cornerstone of connectivity and community for your business.
But do you know what precisely makes a website sound and user-friendly? You must go beyond sheer aesthetics and consider what visitors want when they visit your website.
Typically, customers expect easy-to-navigate and functional websites that load quickly, look good and provide the information they are looking for. They may turn around and head to your competitor’s site if they don’t find what they need.
Let’s glance at the critical components of modern websites that cover all the basic needs of your consumers.
1. Good page speed
83% of online users expect websites to load within three seconds. Hence, fast-loading websites provide a better user experience and decrease bounce rate. Search engines also prioritise websites that are quick to load, making page speed one of the contemporary website elements.
Here are a few things you can do to improve the loading time of your business website:
2. Security protocols
To make your business website trustworthy to users, emphasise following security protocols. You can start by performing security audits to prevent cyber-attacks.
Additionally, consider:
3. Optimised for search engines
Search Engine Optimisation is one of the most crucial features of modern websites. It plays a prominent role in improving search engine rankings and enhancing the visibility of your website.
Optimisation makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index your business site’s various pages, which makes it appear higher in the SERPs or search engine results pages.
4. Structured data
Structured data refers to providing relevant information about various content, including publication dates, metadata, and site categories. It essentially allows search engines to recognise the context of the content, driving more search traffic to your site.
The structure also allows the information to appear in the SERP snippets. You can use the information for voice assistants and the Google Knowledge Graph.
5. Simple inquiry and checkout process
Whether hiring a web design agency or creating the site yourself, remember to keep the inquiry and checkout process simple and secure, mainly if it’s an e-commerce site.
Follow these steps to keep the checkout process straightforward:
6. Up-to-date content
Regularly update your website’s content to inform visitors about new features and news about your business. This will help you confirm a positive user experience, avoid potential security breaches, and ensure the website is compatible with the latest web browser versions.
7. Clear value proposition
The value proposition is one of the website qualities often overlooked when covering all the crucial website functionalities.
To establish the value proposition of your website:
8. Maintain site engagement
Tools such as Google Analytics can be used to track user behaviour. Look for information like how long a user stays on your site or which page they visit most frequently. Use this information to optimise your website and enjoy maximum engagement.
9. Take note of quality leads with analysis
An excellent website will allow you to segment your leads, better understand the interests of different groups, and meet each group’s needs accordingly.
10. The necessary web pages
Regardless of the services or products you provide, there are a few web pages every website should have. Besides your landing page, it includes a contact page, about us, privacy policy terms and conditions, etc.
Important Website Characteristics
While some vital website elements help tell your brand’s story, others encourage visitors to take certain actions.
These elements are essential for encouraging visitors to complete their customer journey and converting them from occasional viewers to loyal consumers.
11. Good copy and relevant content
The copywriting on your website will ultimately connect with your target audience and prompt them to take specific actions. Good copywriting is essential for storytelling and increases your chances of winning over visitors.
When writing compelling copy, ensure it:
Remember to test different types of copy to determine which one works best for your consumers.
Furthermore, relevant content is one of the fundamental features of a website that attracts and retains visitors. It helps communicate your brand’s mission and goals to consumers and establish credibility, trust and authority.
Therefore, craft a result-driven content marketing strategy and allocate a section of your website for blogs, infographics, eBooks and webinars.
12. Clear CTAs
A call to action, or CTA, can be text, an image, or a button. It should guide your visitors through each step of the sales funnel.
The characteristics of a high-converting CTA include:
Core Website Functionalities
The ultimate goals of your business website are delivering unmatched user experience and increasing. To achieve these objectives, you must add a few essential website characteristics to your site.
These characteristics include:
13. Responsive design
A responsive web design approach allows your business website to adjust its layout based on the device used to browse it.
It ensures your website looks good and stays functional across all devices, from desktops to laptops and phones to tablets, making the site more interactive and user-friendly.
14. Easy to navigate
Well-designed site navigation increases engagement, user satisfaction, and conversion rate. It also helps search engines index your website, contributing to improved search engine rankings.
To facilitate easy navigation on your website, ensure it contains a
15. Accessibility
Having an accessible website means everyone can use your website regardless of their disabilities and impairments.
A few features to make your website accessible include:
Essential Web Design Elements
Web design is one of the most significant pillars of a website. While a good design element can keep your audience engaged for a long, a bad one can instantly increase the site’s bounce rate.
Consider some of the most crucial web design elements when developing a business website.
16. A suitable and consistent colour scheme
If you are familiar with colour theory, you already know that specific colours can evoke particular emotions and ideas. Hence, picking a colour scheme that fits your brand is essential. Also, remember to choose suitable colours for your website’s ‘Call To Action’ and other critical sections.
17. Quality visuals
Instead of using stock images, request your web design companyto opt for authentic, quality visuals. Whether using photos, videos or GIFs, ensure they are relevant to your brand and messaging.
18. Dark mode
The dark mode UI is one trending website attribute here to stay. Allowing your users to choose a darker colour palette is a great way to appeal to younger customers.
Besides dark mode, you should assess a few other essential web design elements when developing a business website. These include
Critical Online Presence Features
Creating a business presence online is no longer limited to websites. Now, you can integrate your company’s social media accounts into the web pages, increasing visibility and establishing more robust relations with your consumers. You can also enhance your consumer’s trust in the brand by adding reviews and feedback to the business site, as well as third-party review sites and social media.
19. Social media information
One of the features of modern websites that you cannot ignore is social media information. Connecting your businesses’ social media accounts to the website makes it much easier for users to reach out to you for queries or to find out more about your businesses.
It will allow users to share your content and provide feedback on other platforms besides the website. This will help increase your business’s reach and attract more consumers.
20. Existing and past client list
70% of consumers believe trust is critical when purchasing from a brand. One of the most effective ways to establish trust among your consumers is adding a portfolio of previous clients and works to your website, redirecting your visitors to customer reviews left on social media accounts and third-party websites.
Conclusion
The features of modern websites focus on standing out and being customer-centric. From adding easy and secure checkout options to integrating chatbots for 24/7 support, today’s websites are constantly improving themselves to combine the right features and earn an edge over their competitors.
Simultaneously, modern web design blurs the line between the physical and digital worlds, slowly becoming a gateway to an interconnected digital existence. If you want your business to stand out in today’s competitive digital world, ensures your website includes the above features and is tailored to your business. Reach out to a trusted web design agency for more guidance on business website development.
Atanu Sarkar, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Webskitters LTD & Webskitters Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd., an award-winning Web Design & Web Development Company. He has strong data analytics, business development and entrepreneurship skills. He keeps himself updated about latest technological innovations in his past time and encourages his team to incorporate new technologies and move beyond the defined boundaries of design, development and digital marketing.
