5 Things a Website Should Do: Functional is Not Enough
Fort Myers Web Design can create a website that works. They can create passable text and put it up with a few images and perhaps throw in a video from YouTube. Then they can market and allow that website to be seen by hundreds, potentially thousands, of people.
The problem is functional is not enough today. Viewers have thousands upon thousands of websites to choose from and they are no longer impressed by bare-bones websites. They want more.
If your website is functional, don’t sit back satisfied. Make sure it does all five of these things as well before you call it good enough:
1. Introduce & Brand
Your website should introduce your business, your topic, or yourself to everyone who clicks into the site. They should get a sense of who you are and what you have to offer and that should happen very soon after clicking onto your site.
Make sure there is a unique flavor or a splash of personality to the site. Make sure everyone feels genuine, like it is coming directly from someone who cares enough to share with others. Professional is great too, but don’t make sure you are so corporate that your target visitors cannot relate to you.
2. Leave an Impression
Visitors should leave your website with a favorable impression. They should remember your site above all others because it has something special. Just functional is not going to leave an impression. You don’t necessarily need to go the way of big flash presentations, but there should be something that makes your site memorable to those you want to be memorable to.
3. Educate & Inform
Visitors come to your site looking for information. They want to validate what they already know, learn something new, or even be proven wrong on something they are thinking. Most are not just blowing time. They want to learn more about something or make a decision on purchasing a product or doing something different in their life.
If you don’t answer their questions and give them the information they really want and need, they are going to go elsewhere. This is extremely important. Pay close attention to your content and what it teaches your visitors. Inform them, even if your ultimate goal is to sell something.
4. Relax & Comfort
Your visitors should not come to your website and feel confused, frustrated, upset, or anything negative. They should feel comforted, relaxed, and reassured. Even if they are looking for solutions to serious problems weighing on their minds, you should make them feel as if there is reason to have hope and remain positive in thinking.
If you make them feel worse about their situation, they aren’t likely to visit you again in the future.
5. Easily Navigate
Your website can’t do any of the things listed above if it isn’t easy to navigate. It doesn’t matter how reassuring and informative your content is if no one can get to it. If they are stuck on the homepage for five minutes trying to figure out how to get where they want to go, they are more likely to click away to another website than to hang in there and keep trying.
Make sure your website is much more than just functional. Make it memorable, easy to navigate and packed full of valuable content that sends visitors back time and again.
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