Here's the whole article from the snippet that appeared in "Ask The Experts" in Business First.
10 ELEMENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL WEBSITE
It’s well known that businesses without an effective website are missing revenue opportunities daily. So why don’t all businesses make their websites a priority? One reason is that they may be confused on where to start or what a successful website needs. Here are 10 elements that all websites should have:
1) Navigation: The site should be easy to navigate and the menu items should be easily accessible from every page. The viewer should always know exactly where he or she is on the site and have easy access to where he or she would like to be. A “Site Map” is a great tool for this purpose and will be used if available. This may sound elementary, but most websites could be improved upon in this area. Remember, there is a fine line between an interactive menu and an annoying one, so functionality is key!
2) Design: People are visually-oriented creatures, and utilizing great graphics is a good way to make your website more appealing. However, it's important not to go overboard with too much. Scrolling text, animation, special effects, and Flash intros should be used sparingly and only to emphasize a point for maximum effect.
3) Content: This is the backbone of your website. Not only does your content play a major role in your search engine placement, it is the reason most visitors access your site. Your content should be informative, easy to read, and concise. Well thought out content will do more than anything else to make your site engaging, effective and popular.
4) Web-Friendly: No matter how informative, beautiful, and easy to use your website is, it's useless unless it's web-friendly. It is important that your web designer know the keys to making your website work on all the major web browsers, utilizing meta and alt tags, and the many other factors that effect not only your search engine placement but also the visual appearance of your site.
5) Interaction: A truly effective website engages your visitors immediately and continues to hold their attention through EVERY page, as well as influences them to contact you. Again, there is a fine line between "interaction" and "annoyance", so the level of interaction should never outweigh the benefits.
6) Information Accessibility: Not all visitors to your site are interested in, or have the time to peruse, the entire site. They may only need to access a phone number or address, or just a certain bit of information. For this reason, it's important to place key information in plain sight, in areas that are easily accessible. We’ve all had the experience of not being able to locate some needed information on a website. The experience is frustrating at best, and a frustrated visitor won’t stay on your site very long and is unlikely to return.
7) Intuitiveness: A great website knows what your visitor is thinking and caters directly to his or her needs, and its elements are arranged in a way that make sense. A good website displays all the information that a customer may want to access, while a great website gently nudges the visitor’s activity to areas of the site the business owners want them to see, all while giving the visitor a sense of being in control of their own experience on the site.
8) Branding: Your website should be a reflection of your business. Your visitor should immediately make a visual/mental connection between your logo, print material, and brick-and-mortar location with your website. A website that does this not only contributes to the familiarity of your brand, but adds a level of credibility and enhances the image of the business it represents.
9) Maintenance (Updates): There are several very good reasons to update a website often. Not only does it give your visitor a great reason to return (and there is a ratio between the number of visits and the odds of converting visitors to paying customers), but it can also drastically improve your organic search engine rankings, which in turn increases traffic to your site. In the end, it adds up to more customers and more revenue.
10) Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Your website needs to contain content that not only makes sense to your visitors, but contains key words that are highly relevant to potential searches on search engines like Google and Yahoo. Furthermore, there is a long list of constantly changing rules that need to be regularly observed in order for your website to continuously rank high on these search engines. For this reason it's important that your web design firm is well-versed in SEO, as many of these optimizations must be done as the website is being developed, and others after it's completed. It's your money, so make sure your website is designed right the first time!
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