What Makes A Good Website? 4 Questions To Ask Yourself

What makes a good website

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In today’s digital age, you probably have a website, so the next question you really need to ask is: what makes a good website?

The answer is going to come down to the type of business you are, and what you’re hoping to achieve. For example, an ecommerce product website is very different from a portfolio site. Plus, the goals of your site might be vastly different. For some it’s a landing page to drive traffic to, while for others, SEO is the driver itself.

I sat down with Chris Tilt, Makilo Creative Director, to follow up on his last Q&A and discuss: what makes a good website?

Chris, what’s the first question to ask about making a good website?

The idea of a ‘Good’ website is likely going to be completely subjective – instead think about how good of a job your website does when presenting what you do or who you are. 

Whether you’re an individual or an organisation, your website should be a living thing that evolves as your business or project grows and changes. Simply put, if you’ve made significant changes to your business but haven’t updated your website accordingly, it will be sending the wrong message to potential customers, that’s not a good website.

  • If you’ve added new products or services, your website should reflect that. 
  • If you’ve rebranded, your website design should have the new logo and visuals incorporated. 
  • And if you’ve moved to a new location, your website should have the new address and contact information.

    Get those things in order and you’d be surprised how ‘good of a website you’ve got compared to whats online already.

Why updated information makes a good website experience

Outdated information, hurts the impression a website visitor has of your site almost immediately. It can quickly make your business website look unprofessional and out of touch and difficult for anyone, including potential customers, to find the information they’re looking for. Considering that information is usually the sole motivation for a visit its vital site owners endeavour to keep things up-to-date.

Take some time to review your website and make sure. If it’s not, the first step in making it a ‘good’ or at least better website again is to tackle the necessary changes that ensure it accurately reflects your business.

What Makes A Good Website? 4 Questions To Ask Yourself

Chris’ Question 1: Does Your Website Still Reflect Your Business?

As a general rule, even if you thing the easy factual stuff like address and opening times are correct, I’d run through a list something like this:

  • Has the existing status quo changed? Do you feel a need to level up the website to match the business’s / organisations / your progress?
  • Does the age of your site reflect the age or sensibilities you or your business? Website convention, technologies, and trends change a lot, a website can easily show its age within 3-5 years
  • What’s your Posturing or Positioning like – does the website still reflect the status and expectations visitors would have of you or your business
  • Transformation – If you’re shaking up your business or organisation, or changing the way you do things does the website reflect what’s different?
  • Is there a need to educate or re-educate visitors about how you do things now? Or the way you expect them to engage with the website.

Perfect, so assuming they need to make changes, what’s the next question?

Something around what’s the right amount of resource you can commit to making those changes. That might be in terms of time or effort, but also the money to put towards budgeting for addressing those changes.

When deciding what you think makes a good website its price often plays a part, so it’s important to consider the potential return on that investment (ROI). This means thinking in detail about how your website can help you achieve your goals, business or otherwise.

If you’re an e-commerce business, your website can help you increase sales. If you’re a non-profit organisation, your website can help you recruit more volunteers or donors.

If it doesn’t, it becomes hard to argue that good aesthetics or premium functionality will ever make up for the shortfall.

Once you start attributing a value to your goals for the site, you can use that to help model your project budget. This will in turn give you a better idea of how much you should invest in your website and protect you from making a rash decision or neglecting whats required, leaving you with a site that’s pretty ineffectual.

For example:

Suppose you run a business where an average sale is £1,000, you’re making 12 sales monthly. With a goal to increase sales by 50% in the next financial year, you believe the website can contribute significantly. After some research, you estimate that a website upgrade will play a crucial role in reaching this target.

In this scenario, 50% would equate to an extra £6,000pm in business, generating an annual target of £72,000. It’s a significant expectation to place on a website, so how much of that figure would you feel comfortable spending to deliver that uplift?

Considering your current overheads and income. Would 25%, 10%, or perhaps 1% seem reasonable? Whatever the level, that budget should guide you towards the appropriate provider for your needs and in turn set some of your expectations for the project.

The key here is to make data-driven decisions. By evaluating your current website’s performance, understanding your competition, and gathering customer feedback, you can make an informed decision about the potential return on investment of a website upgrade. It’s essential to set realistic expectations and align your investment with your business goals.

From our experience the website projects that address that calculation head on and agree what’s achievable collaboratively are often viewed as some of the most successful.

Fig 1. While the classic triangle of choice has its merits, weighing up which two choices are right for your project can get problematic. Especially when the quality of the outcome is so subjective depending on your goals as the client. lean into what feels best for you.

Chris’ Question 2: What is Your Website Worth to Your Business?

Let’s break that question down further with some specific questions to ask yourself when trying to determine the value of your website to your business:

  • Will a new website enable you to make more sales?
  • Can you unpack how and why you think that?
  • Will a new website help you recruit more volunteers or donors?
  • Is there a reason why you think it isn’t doing that already?
  • Will a new website help you deliver information to a larger audience?
  • Do you know the size of your audience at present?
  • Can you attach a value to those goals in combination?
  • Can you use that to help model your project budget?

By answering these questions, you can get a better idea of how much your website is worth to your business. This will help you make informed decisions about how much to invest in your website project.

Great, now we’ve got people to reflect a little on their website, what’s next?

A website update is an excellent time to think about the overall presentation of your business and the overall design, your visual identity and branding.

That overall look and feel of a new website is frequently what a lot of the people we work with are chasing, they focus on the idea that freshening it up will be enough. However, a site can only convey so much about your business, through visuals. It’s important to remember, outside of how you think it should look, that the impression others have of it, how it looks to them, goes a further in supporting any branding efforts. ‘It’s not what you say about yourself, but what others say about you’ that makes the biggest difference.

By extension it’s likely you won’t know what makes a good website until it starts working harder for the people that actually visit it. So thinking about content updates, or reorganising the information you present becomes a crucial consideration. More so if a ‘sense of style’ that you love quickly falls flat when the fundamentals aren’t in place.

So, take some time, early on in a website project, to consider whether you’re happy with the current approach to your visual identity and by extension branding. With a particular focus on how it works alongside your expectations of what the website should do for its visitors.

Harmonising design, content and functionality will have a key role to play in delivering a good website. Here are a few things to think about:

If your website’s design matches your brand identity.

Without going into the nuances of Brand vs Visual Identity, your website should at least aim to be a clear visual representation of you or your business etc. Both in your eyes (yep, that looks and feels like me) and in the eyes of your visitors (that looks and reals like the thing looking for). So, make sure VI is consistent with collective expectations; the colors, fonts, graphics, photography and tone of voice you use on your website should all harmonise.

Whether your branding is still relevant to your business.

Similar to the last question, your branding and identity should evolve as your business grows and changes. So, if it’s been a while since you’ve updated your branding, now is a good time to take a fresh look at it before things look out of context on your new website build. People expect things to change, but being clear about the reasoning behind helps build a sense of trust between a site and its visitors.

If your branding is consistent across all channels.

A good way to assess the need for any changes is how effectively you’re able to be consistent across all of your marketing materials, including your website. But also via your social media, and print materials. While this helps to create a strong and recognisable brand identity any gaps that you do have can be spotted quickly and inform the brief for or direction of your website.

If you’re not happy with your current branding, a website update is a great opportunity to refresh it, knowing that the work completed will then trickle down and inform the work across other channels feels like a win win.

By taking the time to think about your design and branding in the round, you can create a website that is both visually appealing and effective at communicating your brand message across multiple points of contact. All of which makes a website better.

Fig 2. A quick search across several ‘site of the year’ style lists online and its easy to see the
role visual consistency plays in producing a favourable reception to your website.

Chris’ Question 3: Are You Happy With Your Current Branding?

Here are some specific examples of how you can match or consolidate your visual identity to support your branding or marketing efforts:

  • Use consistent colours and fonts throughout your website. This will help to create a cohesive look and feel for your brand.
  • Use high-quality images that are relevant to your business. This will help to make your website more visually appealing and engaging. Good photography can make or break a website.
  • Spend time on developing a visual identity that is unique to your brand. This will help to set your business apart from the competition.
  • Develop a style guide that outlines your design/branding standards. This will help to ensure that all of your marketing materials are consistent with your brand identity.

Thanks, now what’s the final question they should ask?

The final, and most important question is centered around the people. The users of a website underpin everything, from the decisions you make about content, to the colours you choose.

Good websites and by extension design projects in general, are contingent on striking a balance between your expectations as the client (the owner, operator, employee of the client organisation) and the realities of the people experiencing an interaction with you. Get that right the website and by extension the work/cost involved was all worth it.

Here are a few reasons why understanding your users is so important to creating a good website:

It helps you create an experience that is relevant and engaging.

When you know who your users are and what they’re looking for, you can create content that is tailored to their needs and interests. This will make your website more likely to be visited and becomes a huge factor in regards to how long they spend reading and exploring it.

It helps you design a website that is easy to use and navigate.

When you know how your users interact with websites, you can design one that is easy for that audience to use and navigate. They then find the information they’re looking for and stay on your website longer. Websites sometimes forget that utility is still important even when the content is more casual or entertaining.

It helps you choose the style, visuals and brand identity for your website.

Stylistic choices like the colours and typography you select for your website can have a significant impact on how users perceive your brand. When you know who your users are, you can lean into decisions that appeal to them specifically.

By taking the time to understand your users, you can create a website that is more likely to be used and by extension enjoyed –  another undervalued marker of what makes a good website.

Here are a few tips for understanding your website users:

  • Conduct user research. There are a number of ways to conduct user research, such as surveys, interviews, and usability testing. Work with others, ideally with an alternative perspective, to conduct your research. This will not only help you learn about your users’ demographics, needs, and goals, but often throw up inspiration previously overlooked.
  • Create user personas. User personas are fictional representations of your target users. They can help you to better understand your users’ needs and motivations.
  • Use analytics to track user behavior. Analytics can help you track how users interact with your website. This information can help you identify areas for improvement.
  • Accept that sometimes you’ll come across outliers early on. Users who have a particular way of doing things that seem ‘unconventional’ try and avoid chasing the approval of a select few.

Chris' Question 4: What Do My Customers Need?

Understanding your customers’ needs is essential for creating a website that is both user-friendly and effective. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

  • What are my customers’ goals?
  • What information do they need to achieve their goals?
  • How can I make it easy for them to find the information they need?
  • What kind of support do they need?
  • How can I create a website that is easy to use and navigate?

By answering these questions, you’ll quickly gain an understanding that ‘what makes a good website’ has a lot to do with an experience that meets the needs of your customers. Put them first and you’ll always be on the right track.

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