Purpose

The key to any good website - what is the aim or objective of the website? Is it general promotion? Is it to sell things directly? Is it to provide more advanced functionality such as bookings or customer management? - the purpose should be evident within all areas of a site from website visual design to its navigation to provide the best possible experience to visitors.

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Design

Colours, style, alignments, visual elements - these are all areas that make up a website design.

A good design highlights the important areas of a website, making it easy for visitors to find what they want quickly and without hassle. It emphasises functionality making it completely obvious how to achieve a visitors likely goals e.g making an enquiry or purchasing a product.

Content

One of the most important areas of a website - visitors go to web sites primarily for information of some sort (which may then lead to a sale in an ecommerce application) - every page should have a goal and be specifically aimed with the target audience in mind, both with regards the terminology and the way in which it is presented.

The format of the content should also be carefully considered, images and videos are a great way of presenting information but plain text is much better when it comes to search engines (e.g Google can't 'read' images but it can process text).

Navigation

Links, menus, buttons - all are part of a website's navigation and the way in which people move between pages within a web site.

When arriving at a new website, visitors have a limited amount of patience in finding the information they require - if it becomes too difficult or time consuming, they will simply leave and go elsewhere.

Clear and intuitive navigation allows customers to find what they want quickly without any undue frustration, helping to maximise the chances that they will make an enquiry or purchase.

Usability and Accessibility

HTML (the language in which web pages are written) must be properly formed so that the web page is viewable in different internet browsers such as Internet Explore and Mozilla Firefox. Other issues include the use of flash and high quality images - there's not much good having a fancy website if not everyone can view it.

With the increasing popularity of smart phones and mobile browsing, it has also become important for a website to either provide a specifically designed mobile-friendly version or to ensure the website is displayed correctly in the smaller display area.

Optimisation

Making the website friendly to search engines (such as Google and Yahoo) is known as Search Engine Optimisation or SEO and is an important part of a succesful website.

Whilst not critical (if other means are used to advertise), if it is done correctly, it means a huge boost of traffic to a website which is ongoing and costs nothing

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