A website that aims to honor and invite loyal visitors needs to be approachable in terms of attractiveness and performance. By forming the archway to entertain and board users, a website plays a decisive role in procuring or abandoning visitors.

In order to decide whether a website conquers or defeats in the online world, elements like speed, quality, display and usability play a major role. All these elements when equally distributed not only improve the performance but also maximize revenue and sales for an online business. For a website to be successful, it is important to offer a seamless user experience for visitors.

This blog explains the ten most important ingredients of a feature-rich website which are implemented to deliver a refreshed, visually inspiring and a visitor-friendly website that will definitely attract leads and produce conversions.

1. Content Marketing

A content-rich website is much more than an eye-candy. Original, fresh, updated and informative content is the most important trait of a great looking website. The type of content you share with your audience should attract and convert prospects into repeated buyers and all time customers. In other words, it should educate people about your services and products so that they trust you enough to do business.

A well-formatted content is not only useful for visitors but also easily navigable by Google bots. The proper use of headings, sub-headings, bullets and break up text, makes it simple for readers to scan it from top to bottom. Basically, your content should satisfy the expectation of a visitor by offering something valuable or interesting. It should be “future proof”, relevant and offer extensive knowledge on the subject. In other words, the content posted on a website should meet not only the needs of consumers, but also your business.

2. Responsive Website

With one-quarter of global web searches conducted on mobile by billion of users, mobile websites have become just as important as desktop versions. When it’s about better brand engagement and increased traffic, mobile websites have become important than ever. A satisfying mobile experience tends people to return to your website later and consistently fosters trust and affinity with users. Optimizing your website for mobile has proven to boost engagement. If your mobile site is easy to navigate, your bounce rate would drastically reduce and customers would spend more time and money, which in turn results in an increased sales and engagement.

3. Speed

Page speed is an important part of user-experience. Of all the bells and whistles, you want to add to your website, page loading time is one such functionality that should be worked upon. With increased load times, you lose conversions and visibility from top searches. According to popular searches, people wait only for 7-8 seconds for a website to get loaded up before exiting the browser. A quick page speed ensures your visitors to get a glimpse of your content. Remember, the more people see your website, the more they are likely to get converted into visitors. To ensure that a website loads quickly, it is important to include optimized images and use pixel-perfect markups along with W3C coding standards.

4. Using Content Management System (CMS)

Content Management System (CMS) is used to create websites with interactive features and out-of-the-box functionality. While there are tons of great CMS options like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, OpenCart and so on, it is always recommended to pick the one which includes ease-of-use, extensibility and updated functionality to create a web portal. The usage of a CMS offers security, saves time and increases performance by designing a website which is appealing and futuristic. Additionally, it also opens multiple options to create a customized store with proper layout, content and other elements. It also improves search engine ranking by keeping the content on your website fresh and updated. Advanced CMS like Magento, OpenCart and Prestashop also offer mobile optimization which automatically tailors content for different devices.

5. Quick and Simple Navigation

Navigation in the web design plays a major role in a website’s usability as well as user experience. In order to deliver websites that are easy to navigate internally and externally, it should have a menu which is simple and organized. The website should have information grouped into specific categories to make search quick and simple for the users. The search, being easy, results in a hassle-free web experience.

6. Involving the use of Social Media

Whether you are designing an online store or a blog site, the use of social media icons counts to be the trendiest approach. Having a social following can help your site look legitimate in the eyes of users. By having social share buttons on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn, you can share your posts and other related information and gain more popularity amongst users and fans. These buttons allow you to see which parts of your blog or website are popular. The larger number of times an article gets shared, the more it becomes popular.

7. Use of Background Videos

A fully featured video that describes web services in detail can add a lot to the page. Video marketing has been one of the emerging trends in recent years. It quickly satisfies the information and entertainment needs by employing visual communication and building emotional connections with people. Using video is a completely different method of engaging audiences which adds an artistic and stylish element to the web design.

Video gains better customer engagement in a lesser period of time. Further, it also helps to increase the chances of conversion. When incorporating video, it is important to complement the web design rather than disrupting it. Designers should keep in mind that the video fits in seamlessly with the surrounding elements. It is also important to make sure that functionality and other aspects of the website are not affected.

Using videos is a proven way of increasing trust in your brand and making a memorable impression. It is a far better way to display the benefits of your products and services. When it comes to creating online content, it is better to think about how you can maintain relationships. Listed below are some reasons which suggest that you should definitely start spending in video marketing:

• Reduces bounce rates
• Increases the time people spend on your site
• Increases search ranking
• Improves visitor’s purchase decisions

In short, videos can help businesses stand out from the crowd and keep people interested in your brand.

8. Contact Us Form

Contact forms help avoid vagueness in the visitors inquiries. It is a great idea to put a contact form which a person is able to fill and submit. It is a user-friendly option than other modes of connecting with customers. Being one of the safest and secured methods, contact forms assure the safety of personal data submitted by customers.

While designing a contact form, developers need to include elements that entice visitors and compel or convince them to go for a purchase or avail any service. It should look great, interesting, well-written and also include a CTA button. It should be responsive to work well on all mobile devices. A good “Contact Us” form needs to acquire the attention of audiences and attract them towards a purchase. For achieving the same, you should try to keep it short and to the point. Providing a contact form provides the following benefits:

• It is convenient and secure
• Customers can get in touch 24*7
• Site owners can provide better service
• Makes data easy to analyze
• Improves customer relationship management

If you are using any of the Content Management System (CMS), like WordPress, Drupal or Joomla, it becomes even easier to include a contact form with the help of plugins that add functionality to the web page.

9. Cross Browser Compatibility

In the modern era when every single website can be viewed from different browsers, it is important to take cross-browser compatibility an important feature when designing a site. Cross-browser compatibility ensures that a website can get accessible easily regardless of the type of browser. By ensuring your website’s compatibility across different browsers, you stand ahead in satisfying mobile users and increasing conversions. This feature allows a website to fulfill its purpose while consequently increasing sales.

Before launching a website, it is recommended to conduct cross-browser compatibility tests. This helps you to get an overview how your website looks and functions across different browsers. There are many more efficient ways to test websites across browsers. With these great options, it has become rather cost-effective and easy to test web compatibility. Some popular ones include Browsershots, Adobe Browserlab, SuperPreview, Lunascape and so on.

10. Embedding the power of testimonials

Testimonials are one of the most essential and valuable marketing tools which help to establish trust and encourage visitors to fill a form, buy, sign up or take an intended action for the product and service. According to research by Nielson, “68% of consumers trust consumer opinions before opting for a product or service. The use of testimonials in a web page can do wonders for an online business when done in the right ways. The main reason for using them is to help establish credibility and convert more of visitors into customers. There are excellent ways to incorporate videos across the web pages. A few of them include:

• Use authentic Testimonials – A true testimonial must be genuine and verifiable. The moment you fake it, it gets noticed. When you ask for testimonials, do remember to ask for permission to be used on a website along with name, address and other details. Using these parameters, improves the genuineness of the testimonial.
• Target market – The testimonial used must address the benefit your potential buyers would be interested in. They should ultimately convince your prospects to take a decision.
• Mentioning Real life instances – Success stories have an air of credibleness because the testimonial connects to the reader’s situation instantly.
• Should focus on the positives of your business – A well-written testimonial should target the strong points of your business. This would increase business value.

Concluding It All

Using the tips mentioned above, you will definitely be able to amplify brand awareness and drive new customers to your business. All you should do is to recognize and focus on your target audience and understand your business goals to create a website that interacts with visitors, sells and creates a sparkling identity in the online world. Thus, with a fast landing page, keyword-rich content, mobile view, cross-browser compatibility, easy navigation and inclusion of contact form, you can easily convert your website visitors into loyal consumers.