25 features of a great website
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This in-depth list will aim to cover as many important aspects of a great website for both the user and for Google. Separated into 5 distinct sections, this blog will allow you to focus on the section of your site most in need of some care and attention. We will cover the key aspects of improving SEO, Content and User Journey (UX) by breaking down the features of a great website and their importance in building one.
Here at Embryo we have a team of experts in SEO, web design and web development- so take a look at our case studies page first to see what kind of high quality websites we create for our clients, and if this is something you’d like done for your brand.
To learn more about how we can optimise these elements of your site for you, and more, then get in touch with us today.
Foundational elements of a website
1. Mobile responsiveness
In 2023, Google fully completed the transition to Mobile-first indexing, meaning that Google uses the mobile version of your site to determine rankings, hence it is more important than ever to ensure a seamless experience on various devices, but especially mobile. Many users today search via mobile devices, and mobile-first indexing means that how your site performs on mobile, impacts how it performs overall.
While not essential to appear in the SERPs, Google strongly recommends that each of your web pages has a mobile version. There are different ways to do this, however, Google says that ‘responsive design’ is best, as it automatically displays content differently based on the screen size, all under the same URL.
Other things to consider when creating a mobile-friendly site include checking image sizes, content length, layout, CTA buttons, etc… many of these we will go into in more detail below.
2. Fast loading speed
Improving page loading speed is also vitally important when improving the features of your website. Slow-loading pages mean higher bounce rates, as people get frustrated when elements load slowly or push the other elements on the page around as they do. There is a direct correlation between slower page speeds, and the percentage of people leaving a site.
Slow websites can be caused by unoptimised features on a webpage, such as large image file sizes, excess videos, animation, redirects, and cluttered code. Very easy fixes in reality, but if you have a large site with multiple page speed issues, this can be a big project to reverse.
As page speed has such a huge impact on the first impressions of your website and user experience, there is a knock on effect on SEO rankings, performance and therefore conversions.
Check with Page Speed Insights to see how you’re doing. Make sure that you test both your overall site speed and key service pages, as there could be an issue concentrated to one page only. (You can find more tools like this on our huge SEO Tools Page!)
3. Security
You should always maintain a secure connection on your site with HTTPS. If any unsecured HTTP URLs are discoverable or indexable, these should be re-directed to their HTTPS variant as soon as possible
This is because HTTPS adds an extra layer of security using encryption to keep data confidential between a website and a browser. This is especially important for safeguarding sensitive information like financial transactions, login credentials and personal information, which is made very difficult to access under a secure HTTPS connection.
For businesses, using HTTPS URLs has many benefits. Data encryption means that businesses handling client data or credit card details can do so securely, reducing the risk of cyber attacks, identity theft and data breaches. Not only this, but in cases of data breaches, using HTTPS can protect businesses from legal battles, and hefty fines, as all efforts to protect and secure data were taken. As online security concerns do continue to be a large problem, users are also much more likely to trust and engage with a website that uses HTTPS. Google has directly stated that this is a ranking factor and websites will be favoured if they use a secure connection.
Navigation should be made intuitive, with easy-to-use menus and focused on the user journey. Pages should be placed where it makes the most logical sense for a user to find them, with headings and sub pages to help naturally guide the user to where they need to go.
Utilise both Header and Footer navigation effectively. It can be as simple as thinking about where you yourself would usually go to find information on a website. In the header, you would want to provide easy access to the most searched for pages, log in buttons, account centre, the home page, shopping cart, etc, whereas the footer is usually where you find all of the business information, like policies, contact information, terms and conditions.
If users can easily find what they need from your website, they are less likely to become frustrated, and spend a longer time on your website, potentially browsing through different pages. Navigation spans much more than just the mega-menu, and can include things like page numbers, back buttons, scroll features and sliding blocks.
Having a clear navigation also helps Google to better understand your website, the context of the pages to each other, and your site structure.
5. Clear call-to-action (CTA)
Almost every page on your site can, and should, include concise calls to actions, indicating and guiding users on what actions to take. Short, snappy and direct CTA’s are usually the best to go for with action-orientated wording like ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Sign Up’. The placement of your CTAs can also be strategic, and there is plenty of data-backed research on where best to place buttons depending on what you want your user to engage with.
Clear call to actions are even more important on mobile, as too big and they can become distracting and cover too much screen, where too small they can become frustrating and difficult to click. Colour has a huge impact on conversion rates too,
We have plenty of blogs for you to read if you want to start perfecting your CTA’s:
- CTA optimisation: 18 statistics insights for boosting performance
- Harnesing the potential of CTA’s
- Where to put your CTA: is above the fold still relevant?
Content and engagement
6. High-quality content
High-quality content will always be king. The Content is the very substance of your website, and not utilising relevant, engaging, and valuable information in your content, is akin to building a house without bricks.
While your content should be made for the user first, you also need to think about making your content SEO friendly. Optimised headings, strong internal links, no keyword stuffing and optimised images are all there to help make both the user and Google trust and understand your website.
- Ensure that your content is readable, relevant, interesting and most of all, useful to your readers and users.
- Use the correct type of content for the page you are writing for.
- Keep up with the times, and ensure that content remains relevant and dynamic.
- make sure that all aspects of your content topic have been covered.
7. Interactive elements
Examples of interactive elements include: videos, scroll animation, sliders, galleries, gamification and carousels.
Engaging features are great for driving user engagement and increasing the time spent interacting with your content and website. By having the user interact with your website, you are also helping them to retain the information they read, rather than just passively taking in the content. This builds trust, displays knowledge and understanding of your subject matter, and can also drive conversions if used effectively enough.
8. Video content
Video media is becoming increasingly prevalent in the digital world, with apps like TikTok and features like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels becoming the popular way to get your content or products seen en masse.
Video content is also critical for building trust in your service or product. Showing users exactly how they are to interact with your offering is a great way to build interest and trust on their journey through the messy middle.
We have plenty of blogs talking through the depths of video content and video advertising:
- The value of social videos for e-commerce businesses
- 30 vertical video stats that will make you re-think your marketing strategy
- 5 case studies: What makes a successful video campaign
9. Blog or news section
This section should serve users with relevant and up-to-date information surrounding your industry or service. If you’re clever about it, you can also include guest posts from relevant and high-authority sites as part of a link exchange partnership. Either way, the content in this section should aim to keep users informed and engaged.
For a user, relevant and frequent blog posts are also a way to let your website users know that you are experts in your field and keep on top of updates and trends. For Google, blog posts show that your website is topical, fluid, active and very much alive.
10. Customer testimonials
Since the addition of the second E to E-E-A-T, and its rising importance in the algorithmic ranking decisions, customer testimonials that are used to signal trust from user-experience, are also rising in importance. What better way to prove your product or service is worth it than to have a previous customer say so?
Customer testimonials are great to support case studies and display on social media platforms. A customer in the middle of their buyer journey might resonate well with a testimonial, fueling trust in the brand and encouraging them to convert.
User interaction and support:
11. Clear contact information
Contact information should be clearly visible and accessible across the web. This means ensuring that the contact information on your site is consistent across all digital platforms, including Google My Business, Local and National Citations and even on social media.
Getting customers to contact your business can come in many forms and doesn’t have to just be phone numbers, emails and postcodes. And it’s not just about new customers, it’s about providing accessible support for existing customers and those with potential issues with product/service too
Many lead-generation companies choose to have contact forms for users to fill in, call back features, and email forms. For e-commerce businesses, the use of AI chatbots, live chats, and social media DM’s are becoming more popular.
The aim of the game is to make it as convenient, useful, helpful and quick for both your business and a potential customer to get in touch.
12. Simplify user registration/login
Don’t make user interaction and personalisation a laborious or frustrating process for your users. Try registering for your own site/business and see what problems your users might encounter when they try to register. Take steps to make this process as simple as possible to avoid bumps in the road.
Simplifying user registration, however, does not mean compromising on security. Features like two-factor authentication are there to protect your and your users’ data.
13. Feedback forms
Feedback is vital. It lets you know what you’re really good at, but more importantly, where you need to improve. Take note of your feedback through feedback forms or CTA’s and pay attention to what is said, it just might provide you with answers you didn’t know you needed.
14. Chatbots or live chat
Providing instant support or assistance through a 24/7 live chat means that your customers feel cared for and attended to. Quickly responding with a friendly and human tone, to provide assistance on their purchase journey can really assist in conversion. Having a chatbot available on your website also increases accessibility, for those who speak different languages and those who can’t speak over the phone.
Again, live chat conversations might glean some hints into where there is room for improvement in your business.
15. FAQ section
An FAQ Section is a staple on any website. It serves to inform users at the awareness stage of the conversion funnel, of commonly asked questions and answers.
By having an FAQ section, it can also help users to find what they need before turning to customer service or chatbots, again improving user experience. If your customer service team is receiving the same question over and over again, then there is a clear fault in giving the customer what they need.
FAQ sections can also pull through to the ‘People also ask’ sections on the SERP, further increasing your visibility and traffic to your site.
Technical optimisation:
16. Cross-browser compatibility
Nowadays, there are a multitude of different browsers in circulation, and optimising your entire site for only one of them could end in disaster. Try testing your site in multiple browsers to troubleshoot before your users encounter frustrating issues like contact forms not loading or text being displayed incorrectly. Try to achieve consistent performance on different browsers and platforms, not just Google.
17. Optimised images
One of the leading causes of slow page loading speeds is un-optimised imagery. When uploading images to your site, enlist the help of a compression tool, such as a browser-based tool like ImageResizer, or a Plug-in Option in your CMS.
It’s also important to tag all images with relevant alt-text. A Google crawl-bot does not have the capacity to analyse an image and must derive context from the alt-text, is a great way to ‘tell Google’ what the context of the page might be. Alt text doesn’t have to be too lengthy, but should add description to the name of the image file.
Images should be clear, not blurry or slow to load. Small things like making sure that images are aligned with the width of the text are so important for a visually appealing website.
Again, we have plenty of blogs to answer all your image optimisation questions:
18. Technical scalability
Don’t lock yourself to outdated software or platforms if you intend to scale your site in the long term. Be ready to migrate or upgrade to more powerful plug-ins/tools/platforms if your workload requires it, and try not to invest too heavily into one thing.
Making sure that your website is scalable, allows for steady or fast growth without compromising on website speed or increasing crash risks. The user can still have a positive experience on your website even during busy periods. Making sure your website is scalable also means your website stays cost effective in the long term as you won’t need major redesigns or software changes.
19. Loading animations
If you have elements on your page that you would like to keep, but take a long time to load, ensure that you support these elements with loading animations to indicate to the user that they should wait for something to appear. Examples of loading animations can be percentage bars, spinning wheels or even branded animations.
Loading animations don’t even have to be an exact representation of how long a user has to wait; sometimes they are just there to improve user experience and lower perceived waiting time.
20. GDPR compliance
It is a legal requirement to ensure that if you collect any personal data from your customers or users, that the way that you collect and store that data is GDPR Compliant. Tracking interactions through cookies and other analytics methods must also be compliant, so it is important to read up!
Advanced and additional features:
21. Personalised user experience
Taking into account the feedback from above, the next step is to personalise the experience for YOUR users. If you find that one page is seeing more paths to conversion than you expected, then push more resources to that page, or build more internal links to it. Ultimately, the users will tell you what works for them.
22. Integration with analytics tools
Tracking and analysing user behaviour is an extremely important way of understanding the behaviour when interacting with your site. Correctly implemented analytics and tracking can give you invaluable insights on what is performing well, and what isn’t.
At Embryo, a huge part of our analytics is done through GA4, and we love writing blogs about how to get the most out of it:
- How to fix unassigned traffic in GA4
- All the GA4 metrics that matter
- GA4 training: All you need to know about the future of analytics
- A beginner’s guide to analysing website data
23. Integration with e-commerce features
If you are an E-commerce site or business, you should ensure that you have an easy-to-use platform for users to check out online.
Go through the purchase journey as if you were a user, note any hiccups that you encounter along the way or any features you’d like to see, and then attempt to implement these. Repeat this until you are happy with the journey. This should aid you in creating a smooth and hassle-free experience for your customers.
Different things that you should be considering for your e-commerce website include:
- A variety of payment options
- Product reviews
- Stock updates
- Delivery options
- Quick checkout
- Shopping cart
- Wishlists
- Order tracking
- FAQs
- Easy navigation
24. Regular backups
Create frequent, full backups of your site to protect against the worst-case scenario. You might be the one to think a disaster-type situation would never happen to you, but that’s exactly what everyone else says too. Backups can protect you against human error deletions, cyber attacks, and system update errors.
Preventative maintenance is always the most effective way to deal with large-scale issues. Regular maintenance also keeps your website speed performing well, and keeps Google crawlers easily navigating your site without redirects and broken pathways.
25. Dark mode
Some users prefer to read white on black, are trying to save battery, or are trying to reduce the amount of blue light that they receive from screens on a daily basis. Whatever the reason may be, more and more people are using a Dark Theme when browsing, and it could be a good idea to offer this as a toggle option.
If you need any help with this…
You should get in contact with us here at Embryo. We have a decorated history of helping businesses perform better online and would love to see if we could help you do the same!
Whilst this list is comprehensive, there are many more aspects of your digital presence to be improved, such as your PPC campaign or DPR offering, and a cohesive online presence will almost certainly drive more sales and traffic!
