The 7 Pillars of an Exceptional Website
1.Your Website Aligns with User Intent and Has a Clear Purpose
Why should people visit your website and engage with your services or products? Simply believing you have an exceptional product is no longer sufficient. “Build it, and they will come” is an outdated notion. You must establish a clear mission and purpose for your website.
Understand Your Audience’s Needs To succeed, you must intimately know your audience. Go beyond what they claim they want and understand their true needs. Does your product or service offer a solution to a problem, or does it genuinely improve your customer’s life? Are you selling a drill, or are you selling the convenience of a hole in the wall?
Focus on Search Intent Your narrative must be spot on, aligned with what people desire and require. This entails nailing your website’s search intent. Identify the various paths users take to reach your pages and tailor your content to answer their questions. Map the user journey from start to finish and strategically place your content. Additionally, pay attention to the way you frame your responses. More often than not, a conversational style will be most effective.
2. Your Website Demonstrates Technical Proficiency
A top-notch website is easily indexable by search engines, free from a multitude of errors, and loads quickly from anywhere in the world. To achieve this, select the right content management system (CMS) and operating approach. While we may be a bit biased, WordPress has consistently delivered the essential tools. It’s stable, flexible, and boasts a large user base. WordPress is inherently SEO-friendly, and with assistance from Yoast SEO, you can quickly optimize your WordPress website. Additionally, choose a reputable hosting provider, one that is flexible and supportive.
3. Your Website Exudes Trustworthiness, Safety, and Security
Both search engines and users seek indicators of trust. Frequent downtime may imply inadequate maintenance, while the absence of a secure connection icon indicates a lack of attention to security. Why are these aspects vital?
Search engines prioritize delivering the best possible results. If they doubt the credibility of your claims or your content relies on questionable “experts,” your content may be demoted. Instead, they will promote trustworthy and reliable results. Thus, you must enhance your trustworthiness on both technical and content fronts.
Safe for Visitors Your site should provide a secure environment for visitors. Ensure your security measures are in place. Preventing a site breach is easier than rectifying one. Keep your software up to date, maintain a secure SSL connection, use strong passwords, and employ tools like Cloudflare to safeguard your site against DDoS attacks.
4. Your Website Features an Outstanding Design and Exceptional User Experience
Is it necessary for your website to be aesthetically pleasing? Beauty is subjective. You won’t please everyone with your design, but it should fulfill your objectives. Your message should be clear, the design should align with your brand, and it should be well-conceived. Above all, your site must be user-friendly and accessible to everyone. Accessibility should not be overlooked.
Consider User Experience User experience encompasses not only aesthetics but also functionality. It entails providing users with an enjoyable experience they will remember. This means ensuring your site loads quickly, preventing user frustration due to colour schemes or mobile site usability, and considering how to transform potential frustrations into positive user experiences. Happy users are more likely to convert, so make sure your calls to action are well-placed!
5. Your Site Features Exceptional, User-Centric Content
Your content should be user-centric, not focused solely on your company. Great content helps users achieve their goals while keeping your business objectives in sight. To accomplish this, you need an in-depth understanding of your users. Comprehend your audience, their behaviours, and craft content that addresses their needs. Make your content clear and comprehensible, using language familiar to your users. Strive to offer unique, well-researched, and original content.
6. Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly (Or Better Yet, Designed with Mobile-First Approach)
Mobile traffic has been steadily increasing in recent years. If your site is not yet mobile-friendly, it’s imperative to make it so. Additionally, focus on mobile SEO. If your site has been mobile-friendly for some time, consider adopting a mobile-first approach to your next site.
Mobile-First Approach Rather than designing primarily for desktop and subsequently adapting it to mobile, consider a mobile-first approach. This mindset concentrates on the tasks users should be able to complete on your mobile site. It helps streamline the design and often results in a clean, focused layout. Remember, less is often more.
7. Your Site Effectively Communicates with Search Engines
For years, search engines relied on interpreting content to understand a page’s meaning. They require this understanding to match search queries with the most relevant pages. However, accurately comprehending the significance of content is challenging for machines. Search engines benefit from structured data in Schema format.
The Power of Schema Schema serves as a translator for search engines, describing elements on a page. This enables search engines to precisely identify content as a review, recipe, and so on. Implementing structured data can lead to enhanced search result presentation, including carousels, star ratings, FAQ sections, and more. Search engines invest heavily in structured data, so it’s wise to embrace it.
We’ve recognized this and have developed a complete and adaptable Schema framework within Yoast SEO. This structured data implementation creates a comprehensive schema for your site, aiding search engines in understanding your content and its context. In addition, Yoast SEO offers various structured data blocks, with more in development.
In Summary, What Constitutes a Great Website?
Building an exceptional website involves much more than simply obtaining a domain, choosing a random hosting service, installing WordPress, and selecting a visually appealing theme. This approach sets you up for failure. Success demands meticulous planning, a strategy, which is arguably the most critical aspect of a superior website.
