How to Make a Great Website _ What No One Tells You

Building a great website is not about technology .

It's not about choosing wordpress or Wix for squarespace .

Instead there are some , some , there are some simple principles that make websites great .

You probably already know these principles intuitively , but I just never thought about them before .

Don't build a website because you need one , build a website because it accomplishes a goal for you .

For example , a clothing company wants to sell products .

Uh a landscaping company wants to sell wants to generate leads or a publication might want you to sign up for its newsletter .

A goal is a clarifying thing .

Once you have a goal , you can make decisions about adding or removing elements based on one question , does it help me accomplish my goal ?

Navigation is meant to be used ?

So it should be simple and conventional think of it like elevator buttons , people are using these buttons to get somewhere .

So don't make it confusing .

Navigation should always be found in a typical location .

Most commonly the top right corner or occasionally vertically along the left when you write the titles to your navigation links , try not to be too creative .

Instead use conventional link titles like services contact or about finally keep navigation simple , four or five links is ideal um resist the urge to have more than seven links .

You really don't want to have a wall of links .

Always remember , navigation is meant to be used .

You never want your visitors to have to think in order to navigate the secret to great looking websites is typography .

I mean think about it .

Websites are mostly made up of text .

So it makes sense that a beautiful website has chosen strong fonts that are well arranged .

Don't feel like you need to choose an unusual artistic font .

Your best bet is going to be a popular font , something like open sands or Roboto uh or Merriweather or Laura .

Keep things as simple and clear as possible .

White space is good .

Don't stop your website full of content .

All that extra content is just gonna be ignored .

Remember , people don't read websites , they scan websites , visitors have short attention spans .

So right with that in mind , edit text down to the bare minimum pictures are greater than words .

Apple is great at this .

They're always showing not telling .

Um And this is gonna be doubly important if you're an e-commerce website , don't hide behind technical language and and uh jargon , people will glaze over when they read words like specialize uh think outside of the box operations leverage , resonate .

Don't use those words , speak humanly and plainly .

If you're not a large corporation , don't pretend to be one own .

Your smallness small and human works really well on the internet , make it clear that there's a real live person behind this website .

People will respond to that .

A good way to act .

Human is to include a picture of yourself .

Pictures , build trust and people trust people .

Not websites always make contact information obvious .

For example , if your a restaurant makes your hours of operation and holiday hours and your phone number and location , make sure they're displayed prominently .

I know it seems obvious , but it's just an easy thing to forget when you search uh best website builders in Google .

My website comes up first .

It beats major brands like Go Daddy and Wix .

Now , I don't have any secret advice for ranking in Google .

Here's the best advice I know , create really , really valuable uh content for your visitors .

That's the best long term seo strategy .

Don't roll your eyes .

This is simple but Devilishly hard .

Of course , there are some basics you should learn .

Um You can start with this guide but there are no shortcuts and that probably doesn't surprise you .

So does it matter what technology you use to build your website ?

No , or at least it matters way less than most people think .

Choose something that you feel comfortable using .

My full time job is running site builder report where I've spent hundreds of hours testing website builders and there are definitely good and bad website builders , but do you know what the truth is .

There are great websites built with bad website builders and bad websites built with great website builders .

You honestly don't need a custom web design .

95% of websites should be built with wordpress or a website builder .

Unless you're reinventing the wheel .

And I would caution you against trying to reinvent the wheel .

You don't need a custom web design .

I've purposely avoided talking about technology in this video .

But if there's one part of your website , you wanna make sure it's modern .

It's this , it should be mobile friendly .

Mostly this just means your website should work on phones .

A easy way to test this , load your website on your phone .

Um Does it look like the desktop version or is it a version that fits your phone ?

If it fits your phone , you shouldn't need to pinch in zoom .

We design websites on our computers , but mobile is clearly where most visitors are accessing our websites already .

More people spend time on mobile devices than they do on computers .

One last tip .

Perfect is the enemy of good .

Your website is not a work of art .

It's meant to accomplish a goal for you .

So try to remember that being published is like oxygen for websites .

Once it's out there , the sooner you can find out whether your website is accomplishing a goal for you .

And that's the most important thing your website is here to accomplish your goal .

Thanks for watching .

If you want to see the written version of all these tips , you can go here .

If you're curious , my day job is running site , build a report where I do in depth reviews of website builders .

You can find site builder report right here .