Edited April 4, 2023

In order to list these traits within this short article, we will qualify them a bit. You see, a complete evaluation of an effective website should take into consideration search engine optimization techniques and metrics. For our purposes, I’ll stick with evaluating websites from the visitor’s perspective, once they’ve landed at your site. I’ll leave SEO/SEM and metrics for another day. This list relays the traits of sites that will achieve objectives. The overall assumption is that you have determined your site’s objective.

  1. Download Time / Speed is very important to your user’s experience
    If your site is slow to load, visitors will leave. It is a very simple fact that has not changed since the beginning of the ‘net. The typical culprit is imagery. Some designers and clients feel imagery is very important to their branding. You need to evaluate the number of large images on your site and if you can accept the trade-off of visitors leaving vs having them there surfing. While there can be many other causes for slow load times, you want to find the cause and speed up your site. If users are required to wait more than a few seconds, they will leave.
  2. Scannability & Value – no one really reads the details unless necessary
    A visitor must have an immediate understanding of what your site is about. At a glance can your visitors, potential customers, understand what value you are offering? This is seemingly obvious, but you would be surprised how many sites have home pages that lack a clear message relaying benefits to their customers. They speak of features, while customers want to hear WIIFM – What’s in it for Me! In addition, the layout is important for quick viewing. Using bullet points and bold text, you allow visitors to quickly pick out important concepts.The scannability of key points is very important online.
  3. Navigation – make it easy to find information!
    Can you get to and from sections and pages of your site easily? Is your navigation clear and consistent throughout the whole site? One very bothersome feature of poorly designed sites is when you get to a page and there is no navigation taking you back, or anywhere for that matter. In effect, you’ve come to a dead-end on the site. Sometimes there is the home button, but it is an annoyance to have to go back to the home page to move ahead. In addition to this, is the navigation set up in a way that is very clear to visitors where they are on your site? You can use various techniques to ensure that they do not become “lost”.
  4. Look/Design – offer your company credibility and trustworthiness
    Does your site reinforce your company’s branding? Does the site look like others? Or is the look unique? A quality design lends credibility to a site. A good solid site designed by professional web designers who know how to blend form and function will pay back multiple times.
  5. Content – Your content’s intent should be tied to your customer’s sales journey
    Content is King as the old saying goes. Recently I redesigned a site for a new client. One of the first things I do when evaluating a site is looking at the stats. In this case, while his 6-year-old site was in desperate need of a redesign, he was getting pretty good traffic. But the stats showed they were landing on the site and not staying around. After reading the landing page, they left pretty quickly. The reason they found his site was the content, as the search engines picked it up. He is an expert in his field and he has good valid information. Visitors would quickly read his article and then leave, ignoring his services. Our job was to pull it all together and have the traffic convert to sales. The site just launched last month. We hope that with his excellent content and the new design that follows all best practices, he will see a good increase in sales. He’s already gotten some early positive feedback from visitors.
  6. Credibility – your website needs to exude credibility
    Building credibility is a key factor. The above 5 items down will certainly contribute to credibility. There are a few other items that will factor in. Having testimonials on your site is one good way to show that others have used your services or products and have been pleased. Others are ensuring there are no typos and your grammar is correct.

If you have anything to add to this list, please let me know. I’d be happy to hear from you.