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.

101 Essential Features Of “The Successful Website” is a post from: OE Design Blog

If you’re going to have a successful website, you will need to follow certain principles in order to make sure you can attract new potential clients.

From the smallest business to the largest business, all will be able to benefit from the following 7 keys to a successful website.

1. Good Domain Name

When choosing a domain name for your website, ideally you should use your business name as the domain name. For example, if your business name is “Wedding House” it would be best if you could register the domain name www.weddinghouse.com.au. This will make it easier for people to remember your website address and will also help with your Search Engine results.

Another way to make it easy to remember is to find a short domain name. Technically your domain can be up to 67 characters long, however the longer the domain the harder it will be for your potential clients to remember.

If you need help finding a great domain name, you can use the following website: Bust A Name. This website will come up with available domain names based on your business name.

2. Professional Design

When potential customers view your website, the first impression will decide whether your business is worth their time, so you need to make sure your website design is outstanding.

Grab the attention of your potential customers by making sure that your website is unique. Show these potential clients why it’s worth their time to go deeper than the home page of your website.

Some of the key points you need to take into account regarding your website design are:

1. Clear Layout – Easy to navigate.
2. Accessibility – Must display correctly and quickly on all browsers.
3. Visually Attractive – Capture attention.

3. Search Engine Optimisation

A large number of people who visit your website are getting there by clicking on a link from a search engine (ie. Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc). Search Engine Optimisation is the process of positioning your website to be found on these search engines which increases the traffic to your website.

These days it is vital to use SEO on your website. If you’ve invested in a website, you really can’t afford not to have your website optimized. After all, what’s the point of having a website if it can’t be found.

Here are a few tips you can use to improve your website’s SEO results:

1. Write fresh content regularly.
2. Use links within the content of each page.
3. Share your website with Social websites (Facebook, Twitter, etc)
4. Share articles from your website with www.ezinearticles.com
5. Create a sitemap of every page on your website.

4. Update Regularly

Original content is important. People may come to your website once, but in order to keep them coming back, you’ve got to add fresh original content regularly.

Most of the time, when people are searching online for a product or service, they will be looking at multiple websites at once. Often they will not immediately make a decision on which business to move forward with, and will come back to these websites at a later time to make their final choice. Having fresh original content, when they return to your site, is a great way to convince them to do business with you.

Some good examples of fresh content are:

1. New menu items for a restaurant.
2. Weekly live music schedule for a café.
3. Latest promotion or special.
4. Instructional tips for your industry.

5. Encourage Interaction

There are two types of visitors that will view your website:

1. New Visitors
   Those that visit, read, and leave. They might not return if they received all they could from your website.
2. Returning Visitors
   These visitors are those that visit, read and interact. For example, they might submit their vote on your latest poll, or leave a comment on your latest blog post. They might also bookmark your website to return and visit later in order to see the response to their interaction.

In order to encourage interaction, you will need to be prepared to respond to comments and emails. The benefits of encouraging visitor interaction far outweigh any time spent on these small tasks. Remember, it often takes 6 or more ‘touches’ of contact before someone will do business with you.

Here are some tips to increase the interaction on your website:

1. Publish a Poll – Ask your visitors for their opinion
2. Set up a Blog – Create a post with a question for the title
3. Upload a Video – Allow comments
4. Hold a Contest – Give away valuable information

6. Use Testimonials

Testimonials are important as they help your potential client to build their trust in you. When done correctly, testimonials can be a strong aid in establishing the credibility of your website.

If you do decide to use testimonials, make sure you use honest comments from real customers. If the testimonial is not real, it may actually have a negative impact on your brand. In order to maximise the benefit of testimonials, it is important to include at least the customer’s full name rather than just their initials. You can improve the credibility even more if you include the full name of the customer, a photo, a video and possibly a link to the customer’s website.

You can take your testimonials a step further by including case studies of some of your clients. A case study presents a detailed story of how you helped a particular client. You can explain how you helped the client and display the work you did for them.

7. Contact Details Clearly Visible

One of the most important goals of your website is to convert your readers into potential clients. In order to do this, they are going to need to contact you at some point. If your potential client can’t easily see your contact details, they might be forced to take their business to your competition.

You may have a great website that provides lots of useful information for your clients, however sometimes they just need to call or email you. Most people tend to look for a link on your website that says “Contact Us” when they want to phone or email you.

Here are some of the ways to make your contact details more visible:

1. Name your main contact link “Contact Us”
2. Add a contact form to the bottom of each page.
3. Add a signature to your emails or newsletters.
4. Show your phone number on every page in large font.

One of the common misconceptions companies new to the web have is that if they put up a page, people will visit. However, in order to have a popular site you have to offer something useful to the user. This might include good information, interactivity, fun, something for free, etc. You can’t just add your 1300 number and expect phone calls the next day.

The web is an interactive and rapidly changing environment. Here at OE Design, we are continuously finding ways to achieve better results through your website to take it to the next level. We can provide help for you in any of the 7 areas mentioned above + much more.

Contact us today to see how we can help you.

7 Keys To A Successful Website is a post from: OE Design Blog