Two Key Features to Building a Great Website
There were times when you needed to hire a professional website designer if you wanted to build a website for your business or to create a blog where you can share your ideas with the world. Thankfully, those days are behind us, and thanks to the likes of WordPress, you can create a website in a matter of minutes and with a few clicks of your mouse. Although making a website is easier than ever, it isn’t easy to create a great one.
Do Not Scrimp on Web Hosting
Web hosting is your first port of call before you even consider what your website looks like. There are thousands of web hosting companies out there, each claiming to be the best in their field, so choosing the right one for you is critical. You want your web hosting company to have as much guaranteed up-time as possible; otherwise, your website may not be visible. It is also crucial to have web hosting that is fast in addition to being reliable. Slow loading speeds put off internet users. Indeed, studies show eight percent of users leave if a website does not load within one second. This increases to 19 percent if it takes 2-3 seconds to load.
Storage is another key feature of web hosting companies. All your content must be stored somewhere! When you are first starting, you can opt for smaller storage space unless your website is media-rich with many large video or image files. The best sports sites in the world store tons of data and, therefore, require a web hosting company with plenty of storage space on top of lightning-fast connections and 99.9% up-time.
Web hosting is available for a couple of dollars per month but can also be quite costly. Do not simply opt for the cheapest because it will cost you money, views, and clicks in the long run.
Build a Responsive Website That Works on Mobile
We live in an age where many tasks can be completed and enjoyed on mobile phones or tablets. The way we consume content has vastly changed in a short space of time. For example, according to Statista, in the first quarter of 2015, only 31.16% of users accessed the internet from a mobile device. Fast forward to the first quarter of 2022, and that number has increased to 58.99%; that is more than half of internet users accessing the World Wide Web from a phone or tablet.
With that in mind, not having a website that looks great and functions as intended on a mobile device is criminal. If you are using WordPress or similar, ensure that your chosen theme is responsive. This means your device displays perfectly regardless of the screen size or device the visitor uses. Visit a big player to see a responsive website in action. For example, head to Coca-Cola on a laptop and note how it looks. Resize the window and watch how the website automatically responds in order to display the content correctly. Visit the same website on a mobile phone or tablet, and the site may look different from when you visited from a computer, but everything is still displayed correctly, and the website functions as intended.
A Google study in 2016 showed more than half of internet users abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds to load. That figure has likely increased over the years as mobile internet speeds have soared and mobile devices have become more powerful. Mobile internet users are becoming increasingly prominent, so it pays to have a proper mobile website strategy, which you can start by having a responsive, mobile-optimized website.
