If you are creating a website for the first time and have no idea about the best features to include don’t worry by the end of this article things will be clear to you.
Although every business is unique, there are features that you should always plan for to make your website stand out. Below is a list of some of those features.
Table of Contents
Feature #1: Personalized Web Pages
Personalized web pages create customized experiences for your website visitors. Rather than providing a single, broad experience, this feature allows you to present visitors with unique experiences tailored to their needs and desires.
This feature helps you provide accurate and relevant recommendations to users based on their past website visits and behavior. Personalized web pages help in building engagement and enhancing conversions. You can also use the gathered data to retarget ads to get users to revisit your website in the future.
Feature #2: Customized Colors and Fonts
Good typography should be attention-grabbing and it makes your website visitors feel secure about your business. The font for your website must be as clean and legible as possible to attract attention. Ensure you use fonts that are easy to read and that the web copy has the correct choice of font, color, and text size to attract your audience.
When a visitor comes to your website, they might produce any of the three types of feeling about your business which can be Yes, No, or Wow! The type of feeling your visitor will create for your website depends on you.
Your goal should be to build a breathtaking website that is as clear as it is beautiful, otherwise, it will turn off your visitors and generate a poor first impression about your business.
The font styles/typefaces and color you choose for your website have a very huge impact on your site visitor’s experience. For the best results, It is advisable to work with a web design agency.
Feature #3: Interactive Interfaces
Users are more likely to spend more time on a website that interacts with them. This increases the conversion rate, decreases the bounce rate, and can boost the SEO of a website.
What makes a website interactive is the ability of the user to actively engage with the content and various elements. A well-made interactive website interface will break past a one-way form of communication to start a two-way conversation with the user.
Feature #4: Responsive Design
Responsive designs helps adjust to any changes in browser width by adjusting the placement of design elements to fit screen size. If you open a responsive site on the desktop and change the browser window’s size, the content will automatically rearrange itself to fit the browser window.
Responsive web design makes websites faster, more accessible, and more importantly easier to navigate. It makes it easier for the site visitors to find the information they are looking for and typically encourages them to stay on the site. In addition to that, its fantastic usability may encourage users to come back to the website in the future.
Feature #5: Visual Content
Visual content on your website helps break up written content and keeps visitors exploring for longer. It has been estimated that visual content is viewed over 90% more than text-only content. This means that visual content is important to search engines.
Visual content tends to attract more attention than text-only content. Visual content is a key to getting your site visitors to engage more with your content. People like looking at pretty things and if they have the choice, they always prefer an attractive design or image over an ugly or neutral one.
Interactive maps are great website assets to businesses or institutions with a large geographical reach. A map does a great job of showcasing the scope of a company’s work, its influence, and its success. Interactive maps can present data in a way that makes it easier to identify, locate, manipulate, format, and effectively communicate information.
Feature #6: Video Content
Videos are among the most important features of a web page especially if your company follows content marketing trends. Through video content, you can show how your products work, present the production process, company culture, or behind-the-scenes footage.
Feature #7: Social Media Integration
Social media integration helps accomplish a few key goals, such as increasing your brand reach and awareness. It also encourages engagement with your website and helps build a bigger audience on social media platforms.
This feature allows you to easily share an interesting piece of content without having to copy and paste the URL. It is important for businesses and brands to give their audiences more ways to interact with them and there is no better way than through social media. Since the pandemic, more people have turned to social media.
Feature #8: User-Generated Content
In a competitive online space, businesses can benefit from authentic reviews, sentiments, and attention that their customers generate through reviews. UGC can boost social media reach and growth, as most buyers are willing to accept recommendations for products and services if people who have used the product or service make them as opposed to the brand itself.
According to Adweek, 85% of people say UGC is more influential than content made by the brands themselves. One reason why UGC is more trusted is that people will always talk about products they like.
While generating the content, users provide you with information about their journey and their experience. They are also engaged and prone to answer more questions when you ask them. Therefore, make use of UGC to know your customers better, as well as their expectations and what makes them choose you.
Feature #9: Personalized Shopping Experiences
A personalized shopping experience makes your customers feel special and appreciated, which also improves their overall shopping experience. When customers feel special they tend to be more loyal to you which translates to higher conversion rates for your e-commerce store.
Feature #10: Customized Navigation
Website navigation is an important part of web design for it contributes to the user experience. Customized website navigation allows users to access the information they want as quickly as possible by presenting an enjoyable, intuitive layout while increasing ease of use.
This feature enables users to take quick actions like visiting their cart or searching the site. Ensure that the website navigation is designed in a way that allows site visitors to get the most from it.
Feature #11: Voice Search
Having a voice search feature on your website allows smart device users to search by simply using their voices. The voice search technology translates spoken words into text which the search engine uses as a standard search query and delivers relevant search results.
Using voice search can help your site’s overall SEO and ranking. Voice search can give your site more authority and even higher spots on results pages if you optimize for voice search.
Voice search optimization helps address common verbal queries in your content so that voice search technologies and virtual assistants present your web page to users in voice search results.
Feature #12: AI-Powered Chatbots
AI-powered chatbots help by making your customers’ presence felt as they can automate their communication and augment the support in a big way. This is because if your business is not delivering smooth engagement, customers would definitely never stick with it.
Chatbots help you improve your communication strategy and deliver a better experience. They are an excellent tool to track purchasing patterns and analyze consumer behaviors by monitoring user data. This data can help your company market its products differently and expand your reach.
The AI-Powered Chatbots can also be used to collect feedback by asking users some questions which is then used to improve products or optimize the website. The bots can automate tasks performed frequently and at specific times which gives your employees time to focus on more important tasks and prevents customers from waiting to receive responses.
Feature #13: Simple and Modern Web Design
When it comes to web design features, less is better than more. This simply means that a web design with less tends to load faster than that with more. Therefore you need to choose a simple design to ensure your website: loads fast, is easy to navigate and is lightweight enough for users to find everything they need in a couple of clicks.
You also need to keep in mind that user experience is a crucial component of building a website. If your website is easy to browse through, users will tend to stick around more. Whether you run a fully online business or have physical stores, people will tend to search for your business online before making the decision to visit.
It is your job as a business owner to ensure that your customers have a pleasant experience and aren’t bombarded with bright and loud colors, video autoplay, and a bunch of pop-up windows.
Feature #14: Security and Privacy Feature
Web security and privacy features help keep hackers and cyber-thieves from accessing sensitive information. Without this feature, your website is at risk of the spread and escalation of malware, attacks on other websites, networks, and other IT infrastructures.
Website security and privacy protect your business, brand, and website reputation and also prevents financial loss and shutting down of your business website. Therefore we can say this feature protects your website reputation and helps retain customers or site visitors.
Feature #15: Testimonials and Customer Reviews
Testimonials and glowing customer reviews will help build credibility for your business website. Through testimonials and customer reviews, new customers are able to see other people’s experiences with your company or products and build initial trust.
You can also consider installing a plugin that will show product reviews from all over the internet and the marketplaces where you sell the products. Customers most of the time make final purchasing decisions based on reviews. Therefore it is important to showcase them on your website.
As much as testimonials are important, don’t make the mistake of putting fictional ones to make yourself look good. Customers can easily identify fraudulent behavior by checking if your claims are true in a few clicks.
Feature #16: Business Information & Contact Form
Business information is a crucial part of a website, especially a business website. Your website visitors need essential information about your business, your products or services, your location if applicable, or how they can reach customer service for questions and issues.
A contact form is a place where visitors get in touch with your business directly. For a contact form, you need a simple form with a couple of fields so that your website visitors don’t feel like they are filling out an application. You can also leave your email address on the contact page, in case some people prefer contacting you through email.
Feature #17: CTA
CTA means calls to action and is one of the top website must-haves for businesses and their purpose is to make the user take the desired action. The desired action can be anything from signing up for a newsletter, sharing a blog post on social media, or buying something.
This is like a gentle push for your customers to move forward with their intention without overwhelming them. CTAs can be buttons, pop-up windows, or text in your blog post.
However, you need to be careful with the amount and design of CTAs throughout the website because too much of CTAs can drive your website visitors away instead of making them make a purchase.
Conclusion
A website is very important to your business and getting the right features that make it stand out can be even more beneficial. A website is a valuable asset for your business, especially for its growth.
Features on your website can make visitors stay on your website longer and the more they stay on your site the more likely they are to turn into leads and customers.
One of your major goals when creating a website should be turning your site, visitors, into customers, and adding the unique features discussed in this article can help you achieve that.
