The Key Components To A Great Professional Website
BY ANTHONY MASTERTON
It’s common knowledge these days that most any serious business needs a website to stay competitive. As a college student, it can be difficult at times to get working professionals to take your input seriously, but building any old website simply doesn’t cut it these days. It’s important that the site also be attractive, easy to use, and generally helpful to visitors. In other words, it has to be professional and performative at the same time.
As many of us in the millennial generation know, building a professional website is sometimes easier said than done, but sometimes proves much more difficult than anticipated. Whether you’re directing a web design team regarding your preferences, or you’re trying to handle the creative process on your own, there are a lot of considerations at hand. It’s important to take advantage of your tech-first knowledge as a college student, and provide input to those in the older generation who may not be familiar with terms like SEO, page speed, and keyword traffic. If it’s your first time building a website, don’t worry if many of those same considerations sounds equally new to you as well. To help you out, we’ve taken some time to put together a few words about the key components to a great professional website.
Font Consistency
As a student, it’s important to understand just what key factors go into setting a professional website apart from the rest of the crowd. It might surprise you to learn that professional design tips for websites often make mention of things like font and formatting. But when you actually think about it, this is a very important component to web design. First, you want your font and content format to be easy to read and process. But you also want them to be consistent from page to page, because if they’re not the website seems unprofessional and hastily thrown together.
Clear, Large Images
Images may seem secondary to the actual content and functionality of a website. But ultimately how people feel when they look at the pages of your site is the most important thing. You want to draw the eye, capture attention, and ultimately convey a smooth, polished, and professional appeal. One of the best ways to do so is by stocking your site with clear, large images, either as background banners or to break up written content. You don’t want to overdo it, but it’s one of the best ways to make your site attractive.
A Mobile Element
It’s increasingly important for professionals today not to think of websites in a vacuum. Rather, they have to think of entire web platforms, which include mobile-compatible websites, and in some cases even specially built apps. If you look for a digital growth partner online rather than trying to do the job yourself, you’ll likely find that this is the way of things now. There are a multitude of creative digital agencies out there well versed in all aspects of cross-platform design, and many will help point you in the right direction with helpful blog posts and digital tools to assess your own site’s needs. As a student, you should be using your own network to gain knowledge about different aspects involved in the process and not hesitate to ask questions! Web design and mobile solutions are lumped together as a single unified effort, and it’s vital to think this way if you want your online presence to come across as professionally as possible.
Easy Navigation
This is another of the most important factors in presenting a professional, likable website. You want your menu options to be clear, and your navigation to be intuitive. People need to see directions to where they want to go and what they want to do on your site exactly when they want to. This makes the experience more pleasant, even if on a nearly subconscious level, and it makes visitors more likely to return.
Content
As a final but vital point, you also need rich and engaging content. It doesn’t matter what kind of site you’re running, or what its purpose is. Well-written and up-to-date content gives visitors something to engage with, and conveys that the person behind the business (in this case, you) is putting energy into it. Content, in the end, is what people are there for.
Anthony Masterton is a young entrepreneur trying to break through in the Tech world. When he’s not working on growing his young startup, he writes about everything from tech advancements to his own experiences as a young CEO. A self starter, he likes to help others learn from his own successes and failures, as it’s always easiest to learn from experience.
