Well, there have been lots of misconceptions about what makes a good website. As you would expect, the answer to this question largely depends on who’s answering it.
A publisher for instance, care less about the visual aesthetics of a website if he can find useful content that benefits him. Same with a customer looking to buy some items from an e-commerce store. What matters then is the ability to quickly find products from categories of listings and a seamless check out process. A graphic designer searching for stock images for his next project will probably need a website that loads fast with visually appealing layout and high-quality images.
So, it’s difficult to give a straightforward answer to the question “What makes a good website?”
What makes a good website, anyway?
Kristen Friend wrote an article on Back to basics: 10 essential website functions all firms should monitor where she emphasize the need for a good website to at least perform basic functionalities. It’s important that before adding layers of technology and visual aesthetics, you should check with the basics; Do your links work? Does your website load fast? Can visitors find information easily? Can visitors fill out your forms? Do you have clear and intuitive navigation? and more.
I think overall, a good website should load fast, responsive, have a clear purpose, well-structured content, easy to navigate and visually appealing. Good websites are useful, functional and attractive.
So, if you’re launching your website anytime soon, here are examples of good websites that put all these attributes mentioned above into consideration.
1. Amazon website
Amazon is an ecommerce website that has a simplified process for customers to shop from around the world. It also allows vendors to exclusively showcase a curated collection of their products on the website. With over 300 million active users worldwide, you should expect massive amount of traffic will be recorded daily. Here are some of the things that makes the website one of the best in the world.
- Fast Load speed: Despite having thousands of images uploaded daily on the website and the huge traffic generated, it’s still amazing how fast amazon website loads compared with some smaller ecommerce sites. This reduces bounce (Bounce occurs when someone visits your website and leaves without interacting further with your site) rates to the barest minimum and impact positively on the user experience.
- Clear and intuitive navigation: Another thing amazon got right is providing a clear and intuitive navigation which makes it easy for users to move through countless numbers of pages without stress. It’s quite easy to find products either by going through the search bar at the top of the page or just browsing through categories of products displayed nicely on the homepage.
- Well Optimized images: It is true large images can affect page load times negatively, so it is important that images are exported for the web and compressed to the smallest usable size. Amazon has also been able to do this perfectly. As hundreds of images are uploaded daily by vendors, the website compresses the images without losing its qualities. This makes it load easily when users click on it either using a computer or on a mobile device.
- Responsive: The website adapts to different screes sizes of a variety of devices. It looks good on all devices.
2. YouTube website
YouTube is an online video sharing and social media platform. It allows users upload videos and share with friends. With roughly 2.29 billion users and 720,000 hours of videos uploaded on YouTube daily, it’s expected that this should impact negatively on the experience of the numerous users. But NO.
Here are some of the things that makes YouTube a very good website.
- Fast Load speed: As you would imagine the number of videos uploaded daily on the website should affect the load speed, but it does not. Just like Amazon compresses images to the smallest usable size, YouTube does same for videos uploaded by users. This reduces the sizes of the videos and make it load fast with minimal internet. Of course, this will impact positively on the user experience.
- Well Structured Contents: It’s easy to find contents on YouTube as it only shows users relevant contents. For instance, if a user has previously viewed some contents, YouTube will continue to display contents like what the user has watched before and provide options to categorize such videos. This helps the user stay longer on the website which improves overall user experience.
- Clear and intuitive navigation: How is it possible to make millions of videos accessible to people without confusing them? YouTube got that right with simple navigation menu that highlights only what’s most important to the user. For video creators, it’s amazing to find an icon at the top menu where videos can be uploaded quickly. There’s also a search bar at the top to help find contents easily.
- Responsive: The website adapts to different screes sizes of a variety of devices. It looks good on all devices.
3. Udemy website
Another good website worthy of mentioning is Udemy. An online learning and teaching marketplace with over 155,000 courses and 40 million students. Just like the websites mentioned above, they all share similar characteristics.
- Fast Load speed: Just like YouTube, large numbers of premium video contents are uploaded by content creators regularly too on Udemy which are made available on-demand to users. It is expected that it impacts negatively on the load speed of the website but that’s not the case. The video still appears in high quality irrespective of where you’re viewing it from.
- Well Structured Contents: It’s an online learning platform where users search for premium courses which are well organized to meet their needs. Users must be able to find courses quickly without stress. Contents are well structured on Udemy and categorized such that you can continue from where you left off the last time you logged in. It will also suggest what other courses to take in order to achieve your goals.
- Clear and intuitive navigation: It has a user-friendly navigation menu that help users find contents easily. It has a ‘categories’ tab positioned at the top menu which when users mouse hovers, it displays the list as a drop down. The navigation menu helps users make quick decisions about what they want as it’s not too jampacked with options which can confuse users.
- Responsive: The website adapts to different screen sizes of a variety of devices. It looks good on all devices.
Conclusion
There are quite a lot of qualities not mentioned above as to what makes a good website, but I decided to concentrate on the most basic functionalities. Every modern website should be responsive, load fast, have well structured contents and have clear and intuitive navigation to help users find contents easily.
Are you planning to launch a new website, or maybe you have been maintaining one already? Either way, it’s always important to check the basics as listed above.