Your visitors care about page load time. They also want to visit a site that is well-designed and easy to use.

Creating a website isn’t as simple as it may seem. Not only do you need to lure visitors in, you also need to wow them enough to return in the future.

Knowing what makes a good website is hard if you’re new to web design.

Did you know that globally almost 60% of visitors prefer a beautifully designed website over a simple one? Do you know that a second difference in page load time can drastically impact time on page rates?

The Internet is home to millions of websites. Now is the time to make yours memorable.

Keep reading to learn about 4 factors that make a good website.

1. Load Time

Slow to load websites are frustrating. In today’s on-the-go world, consumers want information quickly and hassle-free.

One of the most important factors to what makes a good website is page load time.

Most web users expect a site to load within 3 seconds or less. Any longer and it’s more likely than not that the visitor abandons the site altogether.

Envision your website as your brick and mortar storefront. If you ran a store, you’d likely fill it with attentive customer service representatives. No consumer wants to talk into a store, only to have to wait 5 minutes to be acknowledged.

The same stands for your website. It needs to be quick and ready at all times.

If your page load times are over 3 seconds, now is a good time to figure out the culprit.

2. New & Useful Content

Within a few seconds, your website must convey its value to keep a visitor’s interest. No one wants to re-visit a website that has had the same stale verbiage for months.

To lure web users into your website, fresh and interesting content is a must. New content is also important for your website’s ranking in search engine result pages.

To keep your website interesting:

• Create a blog that is routinely updated
• Highlight new topics on the homepage
• Use new images and graphics
• Add new statistics and informational tidbits

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

An important aspect of content creation is to write content with SEO practices in mind. SEO is what drives traffic to your website’s content. Without SEO, your content is all but invisible.

Proper SEO techniques involve:

• Using quality keywords
• Building backlinks
• Linking to authoritative sources
• Using proper content formatting
• Optimizing URLs

Don’t waste time creating and posting content that isn’t optimized!

3. Fonts & Colors

Content and other elements on your pages, such as images, play a huge role in the success of your website. But, even the small factors are important in knowing what makes a good website.

Have you ever visited a website with small or unreadable text? Have you been greeted with clashing colors that immediately caused you to close the page?

With web design, fonts and colors matter.

Typography

The font you choose on your website should be fluid with your company’s brand. Fonts are also a fun way to show your business’ personality.

Serif fonts are classic and traditional. Think Times New Roman and Georgia.

Serif fonts are best for formal and elegant web themes. Serif fonts also give your brand a touch of establishment.

Sans-serif fonts are modern and contemporary. Arial and Helvetica are the two most commonly used sans-serif web fonts. These fonts are ideal if you want to achieve a clean and minimalist look to your pages.

Both font types can be used on web pages. The key is to avoid overly small or overly large sizes. Readers should be able to read your web pages effortlessly.

Colors

Colors are more than just hues that make your pages eye-catching.

Color can make consumers feel a certain way. It also speaks to your company’s brand, message, and purpose.

When designing your website, you want to avoid the overuse as well as the under-use of colors.

When choosing webpage colors:

• Stick with two focal colors
• Use accent colors
• Look at colors competitor’s are using
• Keep brand personality and mood in mind

The right color scheme is crucial for the success of your website.

4. Mobile Optimization

Want to know what makes a good website? One that loads on all screen sizes! There’s nothing worse than browsing a website that wasn’t optimized for small screen usage.

The days of just designing websites for the big screen are long gone. Just a year ago, mobile internet usage surpassed desktop usage. In fact, almost 52% of all web traffic came from a mobile device.

With this said, the importance of responsive web design is larger than ever before.

Responsive web design not only incorporates screen size, it also considers orientation as well as platform.

This means that your website will load for a user on their iPhone 7 through Safari. It also means that your site will load just the same for a visitor using Firefox on a 24″ desktop monitor.

What Makes a Good Website: Wrap-up

Having a well-designed website can make or break your success. With the tips above, you have a great starting point for building a website that is dressed to impress.

Looking for more in-depth information? Want to learn even more web design tips and tricks?

If so, look no further than Site Report Card. Our website offers free website analysis to take your website from a C- to an A+.

After analyzing your site, our tool determines areas of improvement. From creating optimized URLs to SEO techniques, our report card will

By improving your site, you can increase your site’s search engine rankings.

Ready to put your website to the test? If so, contact our team today.