Website Features Checklist: What are the best features of websites?
Your website will have to be feature packed if you want your business to succeed online. To achieve this, you will have to concentrate even on the minute details that can actually make a huge difference in your website. This refers to the aspect of giving customers trust and also providing them with additional functions that support conversions and enhance the overall user experience of your website. All this will help your website and your business to stand apart from the other’s giving you a competitive edge.
To promote your business and make it grow steadily, you invest in developing a website but ensure that in this process your website actually meets the very purpose you are investing in. Meaning, all visitors to your site should be able to find the information they require and also provide you with the necessary reporting and notifications that will help you to continue with the process of improving your website.
Several companies get carried away with just the designing of their websites. It is an accepted fact that an excellent and attractive design will indeed provide an instant impact you want visitors to have, but this expectation will be fulfilled only if the website is actually working and driving sales for your company. On the contrary, agencies frequently fail to offer all of the features a website will need in order to be successful. Given below is a brief description of the best website features that will help your business growth and provide your visitors with all the information they expect to get from your site.
7 Essential Best Website Features
Some of the best website features include:
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Flexibility
A website is always going to be a work in progress as it will have to adapt to changing perceptions and demands and leverage new technologies to remain competitive and secure. Flexibility is important so that you or the webmaster/owner will be able to easily implement changes. These changes could be the addition of new features and adjusting or removing the existing ones. Hence, Web platform needs to have a vibrant and active development community behind it to allow automatic updates and developments. -
Appearance
A website will have to be visually appealing and professional as it reflects your products, your services, and your company. An attractive website is far more likely to produce a positive impression and keep visitors on your website once they arrive. With businesses continuing to populate the web, your challenge here focuses on attracting and keeping users' attention in order to make your businesses successful. -
Content
Apart from your website being attractive, it must also have substance. This is a necessity because your site’s visitors are looking for information that will help them make a decision, and hence it will have to be relevant and informative. The content presented in your website will have to increase the confidence of visitor’s in your company's competence and knowledge. -
CMS Tool
A content management system (CMS) helps in organizing and retaining all of the content that is present on your website. Even after taking a particular post down (linked to a holiday or event), you can still store it within the CMS if in case that particular post is needed again sometime later. -
Functionality
Make sure to organize features based on the specific categories they fall under. If your software product is capable of updating and organizing customer contact information, then go ahead and list that under a contact management category. -
Search Engine Optimized (SEO)
For effective search engine optimization, just follow these simple rules:- Include an adequate amount of written content in HTML format. Do not use JavaScript, Flash, or image-only objects for your navigational items.
- Use your vital keywords frequently and properly in your copy.
- Curtail the use of tables and use Cascading Style Sheets for layout and positioning.
- Leverage your links by making them descriptive and use your keywords in the link text.
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Usability
The degree of usability is one critical component of a successful website. Your site must be easy to read, understand, and navigate. Some vital usability elements include:- Simplicity: Let your website be simple and well organized. The best way to keep visitors glued to your website is through good organization, attractive design, and valuable content.
- Fast-loading pages: You will lose almost all of your site’s potential visitors if a page fails to load in 20 seconds or less via dial-up.
- Reliable layout: For usability, the site layout is very important. Make use of a consistent layout and repeat specific elements all through the website.
- Prominent, logical navigation: Place your menu items at the top of your website, or above the fold on either side. Limit your menu items to 10 or even less than 10 and always remember that your visitors are in a hurry, hence don't make them waste time searching for information.
Following the above-discussed features will surely enhance your site’s properties, but also make sure to avoid the features listed below on your company website:
- Refrain from using elements that need Adobe Flash Player, as all visitors to your site may not be able or keen to download the corresponding software.
- Do not include background music as some people can consider it to be irritating when they are forced to listen to music they did not choose.
- Do not upload video content directly to your website, this will only increase the probability of errors to take place. Instead, make use of video hosting websites and also embed the video to your site. Auto-playing videos could also become a trouble to some.
At this point, besides getting to know about the different ways of employing the best website features for your business site, you will also have to think about protecting your website and all the information contained in it. This information can be your site visitor’s personal details (credit and debit card numbers, login details, banking details etc). To accomplish this, you will have to install an efficient web security tool like cWatch – a managed security service developed by Comodo.
A website security tool like Comodo cWatch is becoming a growing a necessity because data breaches and hacked websites can actually damage a company’s brand reputation and customer trust, and the whole business can even go through a major loss while recovering from an attack. Thus, by investing in a managed security service, like cWatch, the value of integration can be maximized, and companies will be able to strengthen their security position, lower their operational costs, and detect issues quicker.
Comodo cWatch Web security stack provides customers with the most enhanced managed security service for monitoring and threat management. Key features provided by cWatch Web include:
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Malware Monitoring and Remediation
Detects malware present in your business website, provides the methods and tools to remove it, and prevents future malware attacks -
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Powerful, real-time edge protection for websites and web applications providing advanced security, filtering, and intrusion protection -
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
Improved intelligence that can leverage existing events and data from 85M+ endpoints and 100M+ domains -
PCI Scanning
Enables service providers and merchants to stay in compliance with PCI DSS -
Secure Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A global system of distributed servers to enhance the performance of websites and web applications -
Cyber Security Operations Center (CSOC)
A team of always-on certified cybersecurity professionals providing round-the-clock surveillance and remediation services
