What makes a good web site? Ten things you should know before you start.

At first glance, this may seem like a question with an obvious answer. We’ve all seen and used enough web sites to intuitively understand when one is “good” and when one drives us mad. Whether a web site is visually aesthetic or glaringly horrific is a matter of opinion, so we don’t include “pretty pictures” on our list of what makes a good site. But there are a few things that make a web site “good” across the board, whether it is strictly informational or a complex eCommerce site.

The next ten points will provide some general principles for building a good web site. For even more ideas, read about good web site design practices and how little things can make a big difference for your site.

1. A web site should be informative.

Although the Internet is considered a visual medium, it is a common myth that web sites should contain large graphics and minimal text. People who visit your site want information about your products and services. They want to be convinced that your product or service is right for them. They want to know that you are the expert. Your web site is your opportunity to prove to potential customers that you have what they need and that you know what you’re talking about.

Too little information is worse for your business than too much. Visitors are capable of filtering information to find what they are looking for. One customer may be convinced of your expertise after a paragraph, but another may want paragraphs, essays and explanations worthy of a doctorate degree.

A content-rich site gives visitors the opportunity to read more extensively about your organization and learn something that may positively influence them to contact you. The key is to let your customers decide how much or how little information is necessary before they make a decision about you.

2. Information should be well organized and properly distributed.

You’ve done some homework and now you have dozens of beautifully written pages about your organization. What you do with this information is equally important as how it is written.

Information should be distributed over a number of clearly defined and well-organized pages. Too much information concentrated in too small a space is just as detrimental to a visitor’s experience on your site as too little information. Nobody likes to scroll through large blocks of text searching for that one idea or piece of information that they need.

Format your text in a way that facilitates reading on a computer monitor. Studies show that people read differently on the Internet than they do in print. The nature of a computer monitor as opposed to the flat page of a book makes the two reading experiences quite different. People tend to skip around and scan web pages for specific information rather than reading straight through. Many times, people will read only your headings or bullet points, stopping to read more extensively when something is personally interesting or informative.

Improve your site by breaking up large blocks of text into smaller paragraphs or multiple pages, create headings with unique styles, make appropriate use of bold or multicolored text (be careful not to overdo either) and use bullet points or numbered lists liberally.

3. Information should be relevant.

If you’ve ever gone to a web site’s home page, scanned through a couple of paragraphs and sidebars, and still asked yourself, “But what do they DO?” then you know how important it is to describe your business effectively.

Unless you are a huge multinational brand recognized on sight even by a chimpanzee, then your home page should clearly state the purpose of your organization. You can offer details later, but a visitor should never have to click to figure out what your company does.

Assuming that you would never make such a mistake, what about the rest of your site? Is the writing geared toward a specific audience? Does it meet the needs of this audience, and not those of your CEO who has spent a weekend with a thesaurus and wants a Pulitzer for his rendition of your mission statement? The key to keeping people reading is to cut out the lingo and the jargon and the marketing hype and tell them what they need to know. To do this, you must know your audience. Decide if you are gearing your site toward middle class white-collar dog owners, children between the ages of six and ten, stay-at-home moms who watch Fox News, self-employed contractors or rising corporate stars. Your audience should dictate your writing style, not your marketing department.

4. A web site should be easy to use and navigate.

The ideology for good navigation is fairly simple.

• Make your navigation consistent and easy to understand.
• Visitors should always know how to go back to your home page.
• They should always know where they are in the site.

Consistent navigation is always in the same place. If you have a link to your “Contact Us” page in the upper right hand corner of one page, the link to your “Contact Us” page should be in the upper right hand corner of every page. Generally, the only page that is allowed to “break” this rule is the home page. Home pages may be somewhat structurally different than other pages, since this is where you get to show off your pretty pictures. However, there should still be a consistency between the home page navigation and the navigation of other pages in the site.

Always name your navigation using standard and generally accepted terms. “Contact Us” is self-explanatory. Don’t be cute and clever and name your contact button “Mission Control”. Visitors won’t get it. They won’t waste time trying to.

Clicking on your company logo should bring you back to the home page. It’s also standard to simply place a “Home” button in your navigation scheme. Keep in mind that visitors may not enter your site through your home page. Search engines may list a number of pages from your site. Depending on what a person has searched for, he or she may enter your site on another page. The important thing is that this visitor can get to your home page at all times.

In fact, a visitor should be able to get to any important page of your site at all times.

• Make sure that your pages have clear titles.
• Make sure that you have well-organized product or service categories.
• Use a sitemap as a basic navigational tool.

Also be sure that visitors can always get to your company’s contact information. A vital part of customer relationships is communication. If a visitor cannot communicate with you (via e-mail, phone or a contact form), that visitor is likely to move on to another site.

If yours is an eCommerce site, information distribution and structure are especially important. Once you master the general principles of a good web site, read more about developing a good eCommerce web site.

5. A good web site should contain a call to action

Whether you run an informational, service oriented or eCommerce web site, you're doing it for a reason. Define that reason and then prompt your visitors to take action. A good web site needs a purpose to drive visitors to some intended action, whether it's to sign up for a newsletter, buy a product, request more information or refer a friend. Make it clear what you want your visitors to do, then prompt them to do it. A good web site instructs visitors to "sign up here" or "buy now". Even if it's something as single as "contact us", make it an obvious directive, so visitors know why they're using your site.

6. Forms should be easy to use and understand.

Forms can serve a variety of purposes. They can be a place for visitors to submit questions, place orders, request price quotes, sign up for free newsletters and even provide you with a little bit of marketing information. A very little bit of information. Nobody wants to be bogged down filling out lengthy forms. If you can get visitors as far as your form, that’s great news. Now don’t drive them off by driving them crazy.

First, decide the purpose of your form. Then, decide the minimal amount of information that you need from someone who is using that form. If it is a simple contact form, do you really need a person’s first and last names, date of birth, job title, phone number and ring size? Make the form so simple that a person would feel dumb not to fill it out and submit. Naturally if your form is a more complex part of an eCommerce site, you would require a name, address, credit card number, etc. But do stop and think about what information is truly important and what can be eliminated.

Another good idea is to pre-populate as many fields as possible. This simply means controlling the information that a visitor can enter into a text box. For instance, don’t give a visitor the opportunity to enter the wrong abbreviation for the state they live in. Instead, supply them with a list from which to choose: NY, ME, CA. All fifty. You will never wonder where to ship something when you mistakenly get “MC” in the box labeled “state”.

If there is a single kiss of death when it comes to forms, it’s this: let a visitor fill out a nice, long form and submit it. Then display an error message explaining that a required piece of information is missing. Force the visitor to go back and enter the information, but when the visitor goes back, make sure that the form is blank. Make sure that the visitor has to reenter all that information from scratch. This is a surefire way to lose business. Many visitors won’t bother to go through the process again, and if they do, they will be annoyed with you before the relationship even begins.

7. News sections should be updated regularly.

If the last news article in your site’s “News” section is dated Any Time, 1999, it’s time to start writing. Better yet, if there's nothing to say, eliminate the news section entirely. Non-updated news sections portray a number of images about your organization, none of which are flattering. It may seem as if your company doesn’t care about its web site or the people using it. Or that you are simply too busy to provide good service. It may tell visitors that nothing much is happening with your company or that it’s behind the times. Whatever the perception, nothing good can come of it. Either get someone writing, or get rid of the section. And no, “Coming Soon” is not an option. We’ve all seen pages that have been “Coming Soon” for the last five years. Doesn’t inspire confidence, does it?

It’s important to keep your site current. This applies to the entire site, not just the news. If you’ve discontinued a product, don’t offer it to customers who only find out the product is unavailable after filling out an order form. If you list dates and times of special events, remove them once the date has passed. It is not helpful to see “Free cocktails in Building A! February 3, 2003.” Much like outdated news, outdated dates tell visitors that you don’t care, are too busy for them or are simply too preoccupied to notice your calendar.

8. A web site should be Search Engine friendly.

You’ve followed the “rules” and you have a fantastic site. You’re ready for the world to see it. Chances are, the world is going to discover your site through the search engines. Even customers who know your site’s address may still go to search engines to type in your company name or web address to reach the site, rather than typing the address directly into a browser.

You don’t care how it’s done, all you know is that if a person goes to Google and types in “really great product”, you want your site to be listed, or ranked, at the top. There are a number of ways to achieve this, and a number of ways to really mess it up. One of the primary ways to ensure a good rank is to have a good amount of relevant information on your site. This should sound familiar. If you have quality, well organized and well-written information on your site, you have a better chance of being ranked highly, both in the minds of your visitors and in the search engine listings.

When dealing with search engines, you want to keep one important word in mind: text. Text, text, text. Search engines cannot “read” pictures. They cannot read flashing buttons or sparkling images or cool animations. All those interfere with a search engine getting to the actual words on your page. Eliminate the bells and whistles. Chances are you don’t need your logo to blink and sing the National Anthem.

9. Your web site should be better than your competitor’s.

Sounds obvious, but pay attention. If you haven’t visited, used and scrutinized your competitors’ sites, then you are missing a huge opportunity. You should be aware of what other organizations in your industry are doing, what works for them, what doesn’t. This is also a good opportunity to look for “empty spaces” that you can fill with a new idea. Find out what your competitors are missing, then rescue your customers (and add a few new ones) by offering something that your competitors don’t.

Now for the disclaimer: don’t “follow the leader” when it comes to online marketing or you will look like what you are – one entity in a long line of many of the same. Figure out where your competitors are going and then take one extra step. Just because “everyone’s doing it” doesn’t mean they’re doing it right. Use your competitors for the really-great-ideas and show them up in every other way.

10. A web site should be part of the big picture.

A good web site does not stand alone. It must be an integrated part of your marketing plan and an extension of your company’s message, values and goals. Don’t stop mailing your monthly newsletters just because you’ve posted them online. The key to marketing success is branding, and branding means repetition, and most importantly, consistency. You want your customers to recognize you as a great company both on- and offline.

Now that you understand the basic principles of good web site design and development, you're ready to begin planning. And don't forget that part of planning a good web site is selecting an effective domain name. Before you start your project, give some thought to this important aspect of web development. For more information, read about some important considerations in selecting and buying a domain name.