What makes a great website?

As one of the leading web design companies in Brisbane, GO Creative focuses heavily on designing user-friendly websites. This is a vital component of professional website development, and while there are many factors that come together to make a great website, usability is one of the most important.

Essentially, this is all about making it easy for visitors to find the information they need on your website. This is easy to say, but not always easy to do, so here are our top five tips for creating a user-friendly business website.

1. Your website needs to be responsive

With the massive use of smartphones and other mobile devices to search the internet, there is no longer any excuse for websites that do not display correctly on mobile devices. Every website needs to be responsive or, in other words, mobile-friendly. Most web design companies in Brisbane will automatically design their websites to render correctly on mobile devices, but it’s always best to confirm this when you sign up with them.

2. Your content needs to be scannable

People don’t have the time or the patience to read every word on a website. Instead, they tend to scan down the page, picking on headings and subheadings, noting highlighted content, bullet points and lists. Once they have scanned your page, they will decide whether or not to read more or move on. This means that to keep people engaged on your website and increase its usability, you need to make your pages scannable.

3. Your website needs to load quickly

One of the biggest peeves about websites is that they are slow to load, sometimes glacially slow. With people wanting access to information quickly, if your website is too slow to load, they will just close the browser and open your competitor’s website. Loading speeds are one of the biggest causes of poor performance and it’s one of the most common problems faced by business owners today. All good web design companies in Brisbane will aim to create a fast loading website, but at GO Creative, we have a number of specialised steps and processes to ensure every box has been ticked.

4. Your website needs world class navigation

Making it easy for visitors to navigate their way around your website is essential to your success. You need a simple and organised menu structure, as well as multiple ways for visitors to find content elsewhere through your site.

For example, an online store should have a search function that allows visitors to search products by brand, colour, size, price, and so on.

Other important elements of effective navigation include easily recognisable internal links (so that visitors have a good idea where they are going when they click a link) and a custom error page that helps visitors find what they’re looking for if they’ve followed an outdated link.

5. Your website needs simple forms

Forms, like an online enquiry form, are a crucial component of professional website development and they need to be as simple as possible. Complicated forms that require lots of information tend to be ignored by visitors, mainly because they can’t be bothered filling them in. User-friendly websites use simple forms that can be quickly filled in and don’t feel intrusive. Never ask for more information than you need; present the fields in a logical manner; and once submitted, always acknowledge this submission.

Whenever you discuss your needs with web design companies in Brisbane, always be sure to ask what their development process is, and how they’ll ensure your website is user-friendly.