After launching numerous websites, there are some basic principles of successful websites that have jumped out at me.
Give your content room to breathe. White space increases readability. Cluttered websites cause confusion and may often lead to lost readers. Make sure your main and most important content is on the first few pages or can be easily accessed within as few clicks as possible.
KISS. It’s been said and repeated, but it’s important. Keep it simple silly. Your website’s not done until you can’t take anything else away without ruining it. Internet users are looking for quality information, quickly. Anything that stands in their way or slows them down simply aggravates them. (See User Friendly Websites: Hints & Tips for information on how not to annoy your visitors.)
Optimize for your visitors. Use clean and semantic mark up, decrease page site and load time by using cascading style sheets and optimized graphics. Ensure that your visitors, even those with disabilities, will be able to easily use your page and understand the flow of content with alt attributes in images, title attributes in links, and avoiding unnecessary Flash and javascript. Often, when you take the time to optimize for your visitors, you’ll find that you’ve also optimized for search engines as well.
Market to the right audience. If you’re selling widgets, you don’t want to market in the sprockets forum. It’s like trying to teach a pig to sing — it annoys the pig and makes you look stupid. Learn what your audience wants, how they want it, and when they want it by allowing them to leave you feedback. Having a way for them to share their thoughts reminds them that what they have to say matters.
Provide great content, but don’t plagiarize. Yes, the internet is a big place. Yes, there are billions of web pages out there. But, no, plagiarism isn’t good for your site. Thanks to Google and many other search engines, finding plagiarizers and scammers has become infinitely easier. Plagiarism isn’t just uncool and unprofessional, it’s also illegal. If you use someone else’s work on your website, make sure that it falls within the guidelines of fair use and that you give proper credit.
Organize your site. When you’re not organized, it will be reflected in your website with elements that seem thrown in at the last minute, or an incoherent structure. Map out on paper, before you begin, what your website will look like. Consider the navigation elements, the pages, the graphics and their purposes. But, don’t forget to allow for slight detours when you actually begin your project.
Think of building a successful website like a road trip, there are steps you need to take in order to make it fun, enjoyable, informational, and safe all around.
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