3 Must-Have Qualities of an Effective Website in 2014

The worlds of web design and digital marketing will continue to evolve as long as new technologies emerge and are adopted.

More people are using their mobile devices more frequently and more businesses must rely on their digital presence to push their brands forward.

It all starts with a website.

Here are three qualities that are, and will continue to be, extremely important for a website in 2014 and beyond.

1. Mobile-Friendly Design

The amount of traffic coming from mobile devices has been on a steep incline since 2008.

Web analytics company StatCounter pegged the mobile browser usage share at 20 percent of global web traffic in December.

Furthermore, in the last 12 months, mobile’s global usage share grew by 7 percentage points, which is a 53 percent annual increase.

Now that we’ve made the case for having a mobile-friendly design, what goes into it?

Easy-to-read Text

It’s harder to see everything on a smaller screen so your website should be optimized for that.

The font size should be in enough contrast from the background and the size should be large enough so that it’s easier to read.

Lighter Weight Design Choices

Load time matters in general, but usually bandwidth and speed are more limited when it comes to mobile devices.

That means images should only be used as necessary and should be sized accordingly. There should also be minimal “bells and whistles” used in the site design.

Use CSS or HTML5 for Videos

Online video now accounts for 50 percent of all mobile traffic and up to 69 percent of traffic on certain networks, according to the Bytemobile Mobile Analytics Report.

However, embedding a video on your website should be done in a certain way so that it works right on mobile devices, which would be utilizing CSS or HTML5 instead of Flash.

2. Design With SEO In Mind

A website’s load time impacts SEO, along with how cleanly the site is coded and how the meta tags and descriptions are written.

Load time is impacted by design choices, like animations or movements or even the amount of colors or elements, so it’s important to be judicious in choosing the right design elements.

Here are some best practices for writing meta tags and URLs.

3. Explain Who, What, and Why Right Away

If your website doesn’t display who you are and your value proposition front and center (maybe not quite literally but you get my meaning) on your website, a lot of web traffic is going to bounce right out.

Website users have little patience for finding answers and if they don’t know who you are or what you do, they will leave your website and find another one that makes more sense.

Here are a few pages you should have on your website:

Blog

Content marketing will help bring search traffic to your site and will also drive website visitors deeper into lead generation.

Having fresh, useful content on your website will always give more pages for visitors to look at, and traditionally, the more pages a lead views, the more likely he or she is to buy or commit.

Services

Here is where you should state your company’s value in a simple way and provide evidence that you are legitimate.

About

Your site visitors and leads what to know who you are. This is where you build up trust. The About page is almost always one of the most popular pages on a website.

Here’s a tip: put a face to your company, whether you can list all your staff and their photos or you highlight the executive team. People do business with people.

Contact

Don’t overthink this page. This page exists to capture contact information so make it easy.

Don’t make the form too complicated — you want to start a conversation and nothing more.

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