Successful website

The ultimate cheatsheet for a successful website

A successful website is at the heart of any online marketing strategy. Whether you're a small start-up or an established company, an attractive website is crucial to staying visible and competitive online. Because it can also convert users into customers. In this article, we'll tell you how to turn your website into a successful website.

Note: To get the most out of our blog post, it is helpful if you are already familiar with the following terms. If not, simply click on the relevant links to find out more in our glossary. We wish you much success and enjoyment with your training!

• SEO

Successful website: This is what matters

Websites are a dime a dozen - and they all have very different purposes. But successful websites have a few key things in common: 

1. Clear goal
2. Target group focus
3. High security
4. Attractive web design
5. Fast loading time
6. Search engine optimization (SEO)
7. First-class content
8. High user-friendliness
9. Intuitive navigation
10. Responsive design

10 tips for the success of your website

We will now take a closer look at the 10 points that make a successful website. In the best case scenario, your website will fulfill all the points to make your customers as happy as possible.

1. purpose of the website: Eyes on the target

A successful website does its job. That's why the question arises right at the beginning: What are the goals of the website? 

The objectives of websites can be very different and vary greatly depending on the type of company, the industry and the specific needs of the target group. The most common goals include:

• Increase brand presence and awareness
• Gaining and retaining customers
• Information and education
• Sales and revenue growth 
• Service and support for existing customers
• Interaction and commitment

It is essential to clearly and unambiguously define the goals of the website. This is the only way to measure and track success and carry out targeted optimizations.

Measuring the success of the website: The most important factors

Depending on your goals, you can now determine the factors by which the success of your website will be measured. Various analysis tools can provide you with information about the performance of your website.

The most important factors include:

• Traffic statistics (number of visitors, page views, new vs. returning visitors)
• Bounce rate
• Dwell time
• Conversion Rate
• User engagement (click rate, comments and feedback, social shares)
• ROI (return on investment)

2. define the target group: Focusing on the customer

Before you create a website, ask yourself the question: Who are you creating it for? As a company in particular, it is essential that you focus on your target group. Otherwise, your website runs the risk of being irrelevant.

When defining your target group, a number of different factors are important. You should consider demographic characteristics (age, gender, education, occupation, income) and psychographic characteristics (interests, lifestyle, values, behavior). This will help you get a clear picture of your target group and understand their needs, problems, motivations and preferences. 

The main question you should ask yourself when creating your website: What problems does my target group have and how can my website help solve them? Your website should be specifically geared towards the needs of your target group (in terms of content and design).

Also important: In the course of time can your target group or their needs, problems and demands change. Use feedback, web analytics and market research to keep your website relevant to the current needs of your target audience.

3. safety: regular maintenance and optimization

Regular maintenance and optimization are essential in order to with websites to remain successful. This aspect is often underestimated, but it plays a crucial role in the security, performance and user experience of the website. What you should keep in mind:

• Security updates: Security gaps can that´s good Make your website vulnerable to hacker attacks. The content management system (CMS) and all plugins must always be up to date to avoid potential vulnerabilities.
• Content updates: Keep the content up-to-date and relevant. Regular updates and new content maintain both interest and ranking in search engine results.
• Links and interactive elements: Broken links or non-functioning interactive elements (e.g. forms) can lead to a poor user experience and affect the trust of the target group. Check all links and elements regularly and correct them if necessary.

4. optics: attractive web design 

The same applies in the online world: first impressions are crucial. Visitors to your website form an opinion about your company within seconds. You can positively influence this opinion if the design of your website is professional, appealing and user-friendly.

This is what matters in design to:

• Clear and inviting layout
• Modern, clean design
• Easy to find and clear menu (navigation) 
• Targeted structure of the content 
• Easy to read font 
• Harmonious color palette
• Sufficient white space (empty space) between the elements
• Eye-catching and clear call-to-action elements
• High-quality visual content (e.g. photos, videos)
• Consistency of the design
• branding

5. charging time: fast, inform, inform

An often overlooked factor in the website: The loading time. You probably know how annoying it is when you have to wait forever for the website and images to load completely or for the payment process to be completed. Nowadays, everything has to be fast.

Hence the basic rule: Ideally, the loading time of a website should be be very fast - and best of all less than one second. Both on the desktop as well as on mobile devices.

An often overlooked factor in the website: The loading time. You probably know how annoying it is when you have to wait forever for the website and images to load completely or for the payment process to be completed. Nowadays, everything has to be fast.

Hence the basic rule: Ideally, the loading time of a website should be be very fast - and best of all less than one second. Both on the desktop as well as on mobile devices.

The loading time affects many different factors on your website, including

• User experience (UX):
  A fast website significantly improves the user experience. Studies show that a delay of just one second can drastically reduce visitor satisfaction.
• Search engine ranking:
  Google and other search engines consider loading speed as an important ranking factor. Nimble pages have a higher chance of appearing at the top of the search results.
• Conversion rate:
  A faster website often leads to higher conversion rates. Visitors are more likely to stay on the site, browse further and ultimately convert if the site is quickly loads.

You can measure the speed of your website with various tools, e.g. PageSpeed Insights from Google. 

Is your website too slow? Here's what you can do to improve it:

• Optimize images:
  Use compressed formats such as JPEG and WebP and reduce images to the required size.
• Use browser caching:
  Browser caching saves certain elements of the page locally on the user's device. This allows returning visitors to load the website more quickly.
• Minimize HTTP requests:
  Combine files (images, scripts, CSS files) to reduce the number of HTTP requests.
• Content Delivery Network (CDN):
  A CDN distributes website content across several servers worldwide so that the data is loaded from a server that is geographically closer to the user. 

And if that all sounds too complicated for you... Then simply have your website created by our agency! We will be happy to discuss your wishes and requirements in a non-binding and free initial consultation.