10 Must-Have Features Checklist for Successful Websites

Still wondering if websites work anymore? Yes, they do and there are websites that drive millions of visitors in just one month. It all depends on how you build your website. A traditional website which are just like brochures is not valuable anymore. Your website should have at least these ten features to be successful.

1.      It must Capture your Target audience within 5 Seconds

With over 1.94 billion sites today, your target audience is spoilt for choice in whichever niche that you are in. If your website is not able to capture the attention of your target audience they will most likely just ignore it and move to the next website. It should be able to address the inner desires of your target audience through the design and web copy on your website. To do this, you must be able to be clear on the services that you offer and fully understand your audience and their pain points. When you address these in the fastest time possible then it means you will surely have more target audience and lower bounce rates(people leaving your website) and more sales in case your website is selling something. The website should appeal to the innermost desires of your desired audience in seconds.

2.      It Must have a Call To Action

In whatever information you give on your website, you should be able to call your audience to take some form of action on your website, a call to action could be asking them to call you, asking them to subscribe for your eBook or newsletter, asking them to click on a link to a resource on your website and many others. A successful call to actions involves offering some free content which acts as a form of bribe to entice them to take action. This is called a lead magnet. You could have a PDF download, A free webinar, A free video training and any other form of lead magnet to entice the website visitor to give you their email address. They would otherwise go forever without any form of contact. In case you are advertising and driving traffic from maybe Google PPC or Facebook Ads or any other paid traffic source, you MUST include one call to action to increase the conversions on your ads. You would waste a lot of money driving traffic to your website homepage with no specific call to action, a mistake I see many people making that wastes their advertising money. If you have a marketing funnel integrated in your website then an effective call to action and a good offer would greatly increase the number of subscribers who get into your online sales funnel.

3.      It must be secure

Your website must always be secure. You need to do this by installing a security certificate on your website. This in simple terms makes your website less prone to external attacks and makes your website more trustworthy. If you run Google Ads, this is a Must-have feature. If your website is not secure it can be prone to attacks and you could one morning wake up to find your website hacked and does not load at all and you lose your contents, sometimes forever if no backup plan was not put in place. Secure sites also build trust with your website visitors. If there is a form of information capture or payment on your website, a secure site can greatly improve your subscription and sales conversions. When you use a google chrome browser. Your site is marked as insecure if it doesn’t have an SSL certificate installed. Who would trust or make any transaction on such a website? Try to load your website on chrome today to see for yourself if it is secure or not and take action before it is too late.

4.      It Must be Mobile Responsive

Your website must be easily accessible on mobile devices as a high percentage of website visits (85%) happen on mobile devices. If your website is not mobile responsive then you will miss out on a lot of traffic. Not only in mobile phones but in tablets as well. Your website designer should ensure this while designing your website. There are various tools that you can use to test for this. To be able to test whether your website is mobile-friendly, you can use various mobile devices to access it to be sure. Alternatively, you should load your website on this Link: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly?

5.      It Must Be Fast Loading

Your website speed really matters, especially if you would like to have fewer people leaving your website. Users are more demanding and would easily leave your website if it doesn’t load within seconds. You can check your page loading speeds here: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?

6.      It Must be user-Friendly

Your website visitors should be able to find what they are looking for on your website with ease be able to search your website to find the desired content. Whenever a user visits your website, all the important content should be visible at once and if possible integrate a search feature so that they can be able to search through your website contents.

7.      Must-Have Great Content

You should always publish great unique content on your website so as to attract organic traffic. By organic traffic I mean users searching on the internet search engines who find your content and visit your website without paid ads. Great content is what will keep your visitors coming back and you have a higher chance of converting the visitors into customers. There are websites that get millions of visitors in a month and the value cannot be underestimated. If possible have a mixture of content on your website including Text, Videos, infographics, all SEO optimized to attract the search engines to your website.

8.      Must Integrate Social Proof

If you are selling products or services on your website, it is important to have testimonials on your website. If you can have video testimonials the better. Your audience would like to know who else have you helped with your services. Do not give fake testimonials though, as this will ruin your reputation and may even lead to a lawsuit.

9.      Must Integrate your Social Media Account

Always integrate your social media accounts on your website as these can be great source of traffic to your website. Many potential clients who visit your website would most likely check out on your social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook page, youtube channel and many others.

10.  Must Be well Designed

Your website must be well designed. It is possible to judge the business by the look of the website. As much as the functionality being important it is important as well that your website looks appealing to your audience.

Feel free to add in any additional important feature and ask questions, If you would like to have a website that integrates these features. Do get in touch with us and see if we can help you achieve more with your website.