There are websites for every purpose now, from selling products and providing services to delivering news and providing an entertainment platform. While each site type has its own goals and audience, who also impose their expectations on the features you provide, you may not have thought of all the ways that your site could be more user-friendly. Users these days have become accustomed to easily navigating websites, with many features built in to make them more convenient.
Features that were once considered advanced are now seen as the standard, and the absence of key tools can quickly frustrate visitors, reduce engagement, and even lead them to actively avoid your website; this could prompt them to use a competitor’s site. But knowing which features matter most for each kind of website helps organisations create better digital experiences.
E-commerce
Online shops must look and feel reliable to users; their success depends on this, so strong, accurate product presentation is essential to achieve this. You must feature high-quality images with detailed descriptions (this will also help your website rank more highly) these are really important, especially when your customers have to trust your products more than if they could see them in a shop. The euro lottery website demonstrates this effectively by incorporating clear visuals, comprehensive product details, and a user-friendly design.
The tools that would be helpful to build into your website are searching and filtering tools, which make it easier for customers to find what they are looking for. They are also particularly useful if your site has a large product catalogue; customers can save time and search more efficiently.
The last thing customers will experience on your website is the checkout; this makes it a really important element that can be a make-or-break moment. If the checkout process offers plenty of payment options and feels secure, then people are far more likely to both go through with the payment, and also more likely to visit your site to buy products again.
Learning
Websites designed to facilitate learning are often most successful when they incorporate structure and progress tracking into their design, for example, Duolingo. Straightforward course options must be explorable and allow users to learn all about the different subjects available on your site.
The actual courses must accommodate people who have different learning styles, from doing, listening, and repetition, and provide a supportive environment to those who might be lacking confidence. Depending on the style of your website, games and interactive quizzes could be used to track learners’ progress and to add a bit of fun, as well.
Social
Platforms that are intended to be social websites must have some very basic but key features that you may not immediately think of. In order to keep users safe, some key features that must be available are ‘block’ features and ‘report’ features. This means that if a user wants to, they can stop a certain individual from seeing their posts and from messaging them; they can also report them, meaning users could flag someone’s online behaviour for them to decide whether it was inappropriate or not. Sanctions must be available for users who choose to break the policies and rules of the platform, in order for there to be an incentive to follow the rules.
Being able to interact with other users fully is great online, especially on smaller-scale platforms, because some people are coming from larger platforms and feel genuine connections are watered down by celebrity and influencer posts and updates.
The search feature is something vital to any online social platform, as it enables users to connect with people that they know and care about in real life. If people have an emotional connection to your website, like they see updates from family and friends who they don’t live close to, then they are more likely to keep using it.
Business
Corporate and business sites must look professional and trustworthy; if they fail to do this, then they risk losing potential clients. Your website needs to represent you and your company truthfully, and include a section for reviews or testimonials, so that when clients or customers can see other people’s experiences working with you or employing you, it builds trust and confidence.
Contact forms, a map with your business’s location, and enquiry tools make it easy for potential clients to reach out, increasing the likelihood they will. Many organisations also include blog or news sections on their websites, now, both to share updates and improve visibility in search results.
News and media websites
Sites that have a primary focus of providing news must ensure that their content reads well and is truthful, above all else. Articles should be easy to scan and to find the important information in, this will increase readership more than anything else. Linking to related stories will not only improve your SEO, but it will also make it easier for readers to access more information on the same or similar topics.
Having topics that readers can pick from is a useful way to make it easy for certain articles to be found, some people will never want to use your website for anything other than sport, for example, so don’t make it hard for them to find it.
Many news sites also include comment sections or discussion areas to increase engagement from readers. Another great way to increase readers on your page is to make your pages load quickly and also to focus on optimising them for mobile phone screens, as so much of the news is now consumed on the go.
Overall
There are so many ways that you can add features to your website, increasing people’s likelihood of staying on it and using it again and again. The main reason people will go back to a site, even when there are so many other options out there, is that it feels intuitive and easy to use.
