There is not a “one size fits all” solution to make your website successful. However, if you take a closer look at some of the most successful websites, there are quite a few key features that stand out.

The following checklist can be used to do a checkup on your website, and make sure it contains these key features, which can significantly contribute towards the success of your website.

These improvements can be actioned by any small business entrepreneur to increase their web exposure, drive more traffic to their site, and ultimately make more sales.

The Successful Website Checklist

The Design

1. Homepage is attractive to look at.
2. Easy To Use Navigation.
3. Contact details are easily visible. This includes email, phone, address etc.
4. Logo is clearly visible.
5. Fonts are readable.
6. Create an eye-catching logo.
7. Make sure the navigation is in the same position on every page.
8. Any flash in the design is minimal.
9. Create a tagline that will describe your website’s purpose in a single statement and place it in the header.
10. Compatibility – Does it work on every browser?
11. Optimised graphics and scripts so the page loads quickly.
12. Add a favicon to your website so that your users will have a nice icon when they bookmark your site.
13. Make sure any ads and banners are not too distracting.
14. Keep it simple.
15. Make sure the logo links to the home page.
16. Add a search box to your site.
17. Don’t copy the look of another website. Be unique.
18. Reduce unnecessary graphics, as they will slow down your page load time and clutter the page.
19. Add the main navigation links to the footer of your website.
20. Reduce choices. Don’t overwhelm your visitors with too many choices.
21. Keep to 2-3 main colours throughout your website.
22. If using flash for the navigation, make sure you include a text link navigation in the footer.
23. Logo Redesign – Does your logo need an update?
24. Website RE-Design – How old is your website? Often a website redesign can re-ignite your website’s growth.
25. Make sure your website is not using a template design. Again, be unique.

The Content

26. Do you have a CMS / Website Editor?
27. Add a picture of the owner on either the home page or about page.
28. Place the name of the owner on either the home or about page.
29. Do you have a contact form on the contact page and the home page?
30. Add a Terms & Conditions page.
31. Can users easily find the purpose of your website within 10 seconds?
32. Check Spelling & Grammar.
33. Update the website regularly.
34. Set up an event calendar showing planned occasions for the month.
35. Brief description of your company’s history.
36. Major headings stand out.
37. A custom 404-error page.
38. Offer something for free (i.e. ebook, product samples, etc).
39. Create keyword rich titles for each page on your website.
40. Create user-friendly page links (i.e. www.yourdomain.com/your-link).
41. Make sure the important content is above the fold.
42. Styles and colours are consistent.
43. Use testimonials to create a sense of trust.
44. Make sure your website explains how they will benefit from your site.
45. In your contact form, ask users how they found you.
46. Make sure your online forms don’t ask for too much information.
47. Replace any ‘Click Here’ links with more descriptive links (ie. Download this PDF).
48. Add downloadable content to your website (i.e. MP3s, Videos, PDFS, etc).
49. Make sure all your links don’t open in a new window.
50. Add a contact form to your home page. Even if it’s in the footer, this will increase your conversions.
51. Test everything. Do your contact forms work? Do your download links work?
52. Make sure the text size isn’t too small. Remember there are different size monitors, so not everyone will see the text at the same size as you.
53. Use whitespace in your website. Don’t try to cram everything into one small space. Spread it out.
54. Break up large paragraphs of text with photos and sub headings.
55. Only use ‘bold’ to highlight important parts of the content. If you highlight too much of the content it reduces the effectiveness.
56. Can your readers understand the content? For example, don’t use a simile or quote that only people in your part of the world would understand.
57. Talk to the reader directly. For example, instead of saying, “We provide our products to over 100 people worldwide”, say, “We can provide our product to you anywhere in the world.”
58. Make sure each page on your website has a goal and achieves it through the content (i.e. Encourage user to fill out the contact form).
59. Make sure there is a good contrast between the text and website background.  The most easily read content is dark text on a light background.
60. If there are a lot of pages, do you have a breadcrumb navigation setup? Breadcrumb navigation is normally just above the content and it provides links back to each previous page the user navigated through to get to the current page.
61. Use professional good quality photos on your website. Unprofessional photos can have a negative affect on your brand.
62. Use header tags (H1, H2, etc) to highlight headings instead of just increasing the font size.
63. Make sure you provide a physical address to your business.
64. What is your USP (Unique Selling Point)? Do you explain this clearly to your readers?
65. Make an offer that visitors can’t refuse.

Social Media

66. Set up a Forum for your readers to interact with each other.
67. Create an online poll.
68. Set up a Blog.
69. Set up an RSS feed for your blog.
70. Submit your RSS feeds to aggregator sites like FeedBurner, Squidoo, Feedboy, FeedCat and Feedfury.
71. Write an article related to your site and submit it to article sites like ezinearticles, goarticles, webpronews and articledashboard.
72. Use Social Media.
73. Create a Yahoo Group.
74. Create a Facebook Fan Page.
75. Bookmark your website on Delicious.
76. Sign up to Stumble.
77. Create a Technorati account and claim your website/blog.
78. Add a ‘Tell A Friend’ button to your website.
79. eNewsletter – Have you set up an email subscription list?
80. Update your blog regularly.

Other Features

81. Do you accept Online Payments?
82. Set up Google Analytics to track your statistics.
83. Do you accept donations?
84. Good hosting – Is your website slow? Does your host support MySQL and PHP? Maybe you should upgrade to a better host.
85. Set up a 301 redirect for your non www website address.
86. Submit your website to free search engine directories.
87. Write your website address everywhere (i.e. business card, advertising, etc).
88. Offer 5 or more ways for people to contact you (i.e. email, skype, facebook, etc).
89. Make sure your website does not use frames.
90. Create an XML Sitemap and submit it to Google.
91. Ask at least 5 different people to give you honest feedback about the website.
92. Respond to all emails quickly.
93. Make sure your website loads quickly. It should be less than 10 seconds to load the website.
94. Call to Action: Tell visitors what you need them to do. (ie. Click here to contact us today).
95. Make sure your domain name is easy to say and remember.
96. Don’t force users to register to use your website.
97. Make a regular backup of your website.
98. Have you used Google Ads to bring more traffic to your website?
99. Have you paid for professional Search Engine Optimisation?
100. Do you have products? Have you set up an online shop so that your website can make money while you sleep?
101. Have you registered several different versions of your domain name (ie. domain.com, domain.com.au, domain.info, etc)?

If there is anything in this checklist that you don’t fully understand, please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll get back to you with further explanation.