Investing in a website is a proven way of growing a business. Whatever your business goals or objectives are, a business website is a smart way of accomplishing them. However, if it doesn’t have the essential features of website design, your online efforts of building a successful business might fall short.

From personal experience, you know not all sites are created equal. Some are just designed better than others. Like most ‘net surfers, you prefer those that deliver memorable user experiences.

But what makes one website memorable and another forgettable? It all comes down to the essential features of website design. Without these features in place, you’ll have a hard time generating good returns on your investment.

What Do You Mean By Website Features?

Website features are the characteristics that give the website greater value or benefit for its users.

These features refer to website design elements that highlight its aesthetic brilliance – images, graphics, colors, shapes, and, typography – and user-friendly functionality – responsiveness, speed, navigability, accessibility, and the quality of content.

Website Features Examples

It’s not enough to just have a beautiful-looking website. To support your business goals, a website must be useful, informative, easy, and convenient for its visitors to use.

In this article, we’ll share with you the essential features in navigating your website that will help you grow a successful business.

Top 10 Essential Features in Navigating Your Business Website

1. Mobile-Friendly or Responsive Design

The terms mobile-friendly and responsive design are often interchanged as if they mean the same thing. They’re not.

So what’s the difference?

  • Mobile-friendly Design – An approach whereby a website that was originally built for desktop has been specifically designed to adjust or adapt to mobile screens such as tablets and smartphones.
  • Responsive Design – An approach whereby a website has been designed to automatically reformat or respond to fit the screen size and function according to the features of the mobile device it’s viewed on.

One way to view the distinction is that responsive design is a step or two higher on the mobile technology design ladder.

Responsive design can accommodate a wider variety of mobile screen sizes without losing a degree of functionality. In contrast, mobile-friendly design has its limitations.

For example, it is recommended that default font sizes shouldn’t go lower than 14px. Otherwise, it won’t be readable on a small-sized mobile screen. Likewise, instead of automatically reformatting the screen size, the web designer has to carefully work on the elements of design to avoid page overlaps.

Thus, it’s understandable why even some professional web designers don’t bother to make the distinction between mobile-friendly and responsive design. The message is clear: for your website to succeed, it must adapt to mobile technology.

According to Statista, mobile devices accounted for 58.99% of global internet traffic in 2022. To be discovered, your website has to go mobile.

Mobile responsive design is best entrusted in the hands of professionals. Remember, a website is an investment. The higher the investment, the higher the return.

2. Easy Navigation

Have you ever found yourself in a supermarket for the first time and it took you almost 30 minutes to find a toothbrush? Frustrating, right? The Merchandising Manager could have done a better job making store navigation easier.

Similarly, you don’t want your website to make visitors feel like they’re in a maze. According to a 2021 survey by GoodFirms, 61.8% of visitors leave a website that has poor navigation.

Navigation is one of the key essential features of website design whereby components and elements such as links, buttons, menus, and text are arranged or set up in ways that make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for.

Other essential features in navigating the website include:

  • Consistency in setting up the organization of the navigation elements.
  • Keeping navigation design simple and easy to understand.
  • Locating key information in highly visible areas.

There are experienced web designers who share the opinion that ease of navigation is the most important element of website design.

Thus for this reason and to ensure precise mobile responsiveness, always hire a reputable agency that can provide professional web design services to build your website.

The business logo captures what your business is all about – its values, quality, pricing, expertise, and unique proposition – in a single image.

According to a study by Harvard, the decision to purchase or patronize a product is 95% influenced by emotion and not rational thought. When properly conceptualized and designed, your business logo can leave an indelible imprint in the consciousness of your target market and trigger the intended emotions.

On a website, the logo is typically positioned on the upper left-hand corner of the webpage because when scanning content, the orientation of the reader goes from left to right.

Designing a  good logo needs to consider the following elements:

  • Color
  • Typography
  • Scalability
  • Images/Graphics

Take the time to design your business logo because a good one can survive the test of time. Think Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Apple, Amazon, and Starbucks for starters.

Hire the services of an experienced design agency that can transpose your ideas into a visual format.

4. Clear Call to Actions 

Driving thousands of visitors to your website won’t produce successful results if you can’t convert interest into sales. This is why you need clear call-to-action buttons on your website.

A Call to Action (CTA) is an instruction that you want your website visitor to take. The biggest mistake you can make is to come up with a CTA that allows the website visitor to second-guess his decision or to scrutinize options.

To come up with an effective CTA, the message must be clear and direct, and to the point. It’s a command. Therefore, tell the website visitor what you want him to do:

  • Buy Now
  • Subscribe to Get Weekly Updates
  • Click to Get Your Free e-Book
  • Sign Up Now For Your FREE Trial
  • Be The First – 20% Off Now
  • Book Your Free Consultation Now

You can have multiple CTAs on one page. For example, your homepage can have CTAs for:

  • Direct access to social media pages
  • Newsletter signups
  • Direct access to your e-portal
  • Direct access to other website pages – blogs, products and services, and premium/member-only pages
  • Contact forms

The concept of your CTA is one thing. Creating a design for your CTA button – one that compels the website visitor to take the desired action is another.

We already discussed the importance of having a clear and direct message for your CTA. What other factors should be considered when designing a CTA button?

  • Location, location, location! The CTA button must be located in an area that’s highly visible to site visitors.
  • Size Matters. It’s not necessarily that the bigger the CTA button the better. But it should be big enough to be seen right away and offer enough spacing for the graphics and text to be appreciated.
  • The shape of the Button. There’s a reason why CTA buttons that have a round or rectangular shape are popularly used – they work!
  • Color Psychology. Red, orange, and green are eye-catching and can easily be seen but these colors might not be identifiable for certain businesses. While these colors can be associated with food, they might not work for businesses engaged in banking/finance, technology, and health and fitness.

5. Contact Information

A local search must be included in your digital marketing toolbox because 46% of Internet searches involve local businesses and 72% of consumers who find what they’re looking for will visit an establishment that’s within 5 miles of proximity.

If the Contact page on the website doesn’t have complete or updated information about your business, how will your customers find you?

What information should be found on your Contact page?

  • Physical address (if any)
  • Business hours (if any)
  • Phone numbers – Landline and mobile
  • Email address
  • Map to Business (for business with physical address)

To make things easier for your customers, you can include contact forms where that give you more detailed information about their inquiries or concerns.

6. Testimonials & Case Studies

Testimonials and case studies attesting to the quality of your products and service can positively influence the decision of your site visitors. Testimonials and case studies are more powerful than endorsements because these are organic and therefore perceived to be sincere and honest.

Not convinced? Take a look at the statistics below that support the effectiveness of testimonials and case studies:

  • 98% of consumers read reviews about online businesses.
  • 67% of customer reviews are connected to a positive experience with the establishment.
  • 80%  of customers who initially had a forgettable experience with a business will post a good review if the succeeding visit was a positive one.
  • 34% of survey respondents claimed they read online reviews on local businesses every day.
  • 81% of consumers use Google reviews to evaluate a business.

If your business has received positive reviews from customers, highlight them on your website. The homepage is an ideal location for testimonials and case studies because it’s the usual landing page when a consumer clicks on your link.

Before posting a testimonial or review, get permission from your customers. Chances are happy customers will say ‘Yes’ and send you a write-up. You can also create the testimony on their behalf and have them sign off on it.

It would be great if the customer agrees to have his photo included with his testimonial.

Lastly, use the customer’s complete name. Instead of ‘Bob V.’, write ‘Bob Vanderbilt’ under the testimonial or review.

Case studies involve in-depth research and showcase test results that validate the effectiveness of your product in real-world settings. In effect, a case study provides empirical evidence that your product works.

For example, supplement companies pay research laboratories to conduct studies on their products and compare the findings as well as results to other brands in the industry.

Marketers use case studies as ‘social proof’ – a phenomenon that triggers a psychological or social reaction from readers to copy the behaviors of other people.

Thus, if the case study validates an outcome of more consumers choosing one brand of protein powder over another, then its readers will end up buying the brand.

A case study can be featured on your website on a dedicated page or as a free, downloadable e-book in PDF format in exchange for email addresses or newsletter signups.

7. Blog

Search remains one of the top 3 online activities and blogs are a popular go-to source of information for consumers.  Over the years, more statistics have been compiled to prove the effectiveness of having a blog page on your website:

But effective blogging isn’t just about writing content. For a blog to become one of the essential features of website design, it must have the following qualities:

  • Unique, fresh, and original.
  • Expertly researched using reputable sources.
  • Embedded with links to reputable sources.
  • Informative; provides answers to readers.
  • Engaging enough to compel the reader to take action.

For your blog to be found faster on the Internet, it must be optimized with the right keywords which are the words and phrases commonly used by consumers to launch their search queries.

On average, it takes 4 hours to create an optimized, well-researched, and expertly-written blog. Blogging is usually included in professional website maintenance services.

Entrepreneurs would be better off outsourcing this task so they can focus more on the day-to-day operations of their business.

8. High-Quality Photos

Humans are highly visual creatures. Confronted by images of 2 competing brands, we would choose the one that uses high-quality photos to promote its products.

The use of images also improves user experience on your website and high-quality photos can convey your brand value proposition faster and more effectively than just text.

Marketing influencer Jeff Bullas presented the findings of a study that showed 67% of consumers believe high-quality photos are an important factor in their decision to purchase a product.

Stock photos are a quick solution to finding high-quality photos for your website. But a more effective option would be to use original images; photos that are unique only to your business.

According to Bullas, original photos help establish a real connection with your customers and give website visitors a clearer perspective of what it’s like to do business with your company.

9. Website Security

The website is your business address on the Internet. In the same way that you wouldn’t leave your brick-and-mortar store unprotected by lock and key, you shouldn’t leave your website vulnerable by not having built-in security features.

Here are just a few alarming statistics on cybercrime:

  • More than 30,000 websites are hacked every day.
  • Acts of cybercrime are committed every 39 seconds.
  • Small businesses are targeted by 43% of cyber attacks.
  • The cost of cybercrime to the global economy is US$6 Billion.
  • Since 2013, close to 4 million customer records have been exposed by hackers.

For starters, get Security Socket Layer (SSL) certificates for your website. SSL certificates verify that your website’s connection is encrypted. It used to be a requirement only for e-commerce websites but because of the increasing number of website attacks, SSL certificates are a must for all types of websites.

If your website doesn’t have SSL certificates, Google will add “Not Secure” before your URL and this might discourage potential website visitors.

Related: How to Secure Your Website and Business

10. Aesthetically Pleasing Design

As mentioned earlier, we’re all attracted by beautiful visuals. It’s not enough for your website’s overall look to be good – it must be GREAT!

When we say ‘overall look’ we mean all of your website’s design components – the ones discussed here – must all come together and contribute to the aesthetic appeal and effective functionality of your website.

If your website ticks off the items on the list of aesthetic elements – layout, graphics, images, color scheme, typography, and content – it must likewise, cover all the essentials of website functionality such as mobile responsiveness, navigability, CTA, and security.

A beautiful website is not one that just looks great. It must also feel great.

Website Features That You Should Avoid

If you think consumers are impatient in the real world, they are even more so in the virtual world. People searching on the Internet want to get information at warp speed.

In under 3 seconds to be more precise.

A study conducted by Unbounce showed that 59.2% of respondents said that if a website doesn’t load in under 3 seconds, they would leave the site. Furthermore, 70% of respondents shared the opinion that page loading time will influence their decision to stay on the page or leave.

However, a 2018 study by Google Research revealed that the average page loading time of websites has been measured at 15.3 seconds. The main reason why websites have slow loading page times is that the pages contain elements that affect download speed.

And if someone does get on your website, you have less than 15 seconds to capture their interest or else they’ll click out. If your webpage has too many design elements that serve to confuse rather than complement, your site visitor might decide to abandon the search.

Here are 3 elements that can slow down your website and affect its performance.

1. Auto-Play Videos 

Having auto-play videos on your website might make your business look more fun, entertaining, and innovative but the truth is, this feature will significantly slow down your page loading time.

A 30-second video will require an estimated 10 megabytes of bandwidth to run the content smoothly. 10-megabytes is rough 4x the bandwidth needed to support an image or an HTML-supported webpage.

2. Adobe Flash Players

Adobe Flash is a type of software that’s used to view multimedia content. It was popular among website designers from 1996 to 2010 who used Adobe Flash to run animation and video-based content.

Since then, Adobe Flash has fallen out of favor as web designers as the software provided more problems than solutions. Among the issues with having an Adobe Flash player on your website are security risks, slow page loading times, requiring more power to run, and it’s not supported by Apple devices.

3. Background Music

In the ’90s, it was cool to hear background music on a webpage. Retail websites used background music to simulate the experience of being inside a department store.

Fast-forward 2 decades later and present-day consumers will find background music on a web page annoying. Imagine trying to research products in your office and instead of your thoughts, all you hear is music.

Keep in mind that before your website can play your background music, it has to download the file. Music clips can require a lot of bandwidth and slow down your page loading speed.

Conclusion

If you’ve decided to invest in professional website design services for your business – congratulations! You’re taking a step in the right direction. As the world continues to move toward an Internet-based lifestyle, more and more consumers will rely on websites to meet their needs for work and home.

But to make sure your investment pays dividends, it must have the essential features of website design that we discussed in this article. Without these key design elements, it will be difficult for your website to perform, function properly, and deliver its intended results.

Last Updated on June 15, 2023