Best Websites

Identifying websites as quality and best Websites is based on several factors. On many occasions, we come across websites and mindlessly ignore the functionality of a web page. Also, we have become accustomed to quickly browsing well-put-together essential web pages, but have you ever stopped wondering what makes a good website? What was the purpose of the website design process?

What Makes A Website fall into the category of Best Websites?

A website is a collection of web pages on the World Wide Web considered as a single entity linked together. Most websites are usually handled by the company that created the website for a person or a company via web developers with the skillsets for the whole website development process. The skills such professionals will include would be HTML, Cascading Style Sheets, and PHP (Server Side Scripting), to name a few.

It is also just for someone who owns it individually and works on it themselves. Websites are usually directed towards one topic, often the general purpose. Still, there are always exceptions, such as Amazon, which sells items and online video streaming services. Every website has a home page, the first page the viewer sees. A home page can make or break a website because, at first glance, the viewer either likes it or does not, which dictates whether they will continue to browse the website.

User Interface (UI Web Design)

When we see one, most of us know a good website but have never thought about what makes a good website. A quality website always has a good UI Web design (User Interface). When a website is well put together, according to Skeptoid, when judging to tell if a website is good or bad, the first thing they wrote was Style of Presentation, stating that how a website looks is one of the first ways someone judges whether a website is good or bad. An example of a great website is Merci Michel.

Best web pages contain:

• Simplicity: Keep your site simple and well-organized.
• Fast loading pages: Limit the amount of data you use because if it takes too long for a page to load, you’ll lose more than half of your potential visitors (Refer to AMP websites for more information on mobile websites)
• Minimal scroll: Create links from the main page to read about a particular topic.
• Effective website development and website ranking.
• Consistent layout: Use a consistent structure and repeat certain elements throughout the site.
• Prominent, logical navigation: Create navigation with links because your visitors are in a hurry
• Descriptive link text: Make it easier for visitors to find their way around a site
• Cross-platform/browser compatibility: Different browsers often have different rules and resolution
• Effective SEO, first-page ranking, and online marketing strategies.

Simplicity of Websites

(image source for Best Websites: www.merci-michel.com – Small Business Websites)

When discussing simplicity in terms of the website, they refer to the organization. “perfect websites” maintain order and similar patterns in their texts and images. You cannot have your pictures in different places away from the text about the photos because a mess will scare away visitors.

Not overloaded with content

Ensuring that your website is not overloaded with data is essential because that reflects your page’s load-up time. If your homepage has many things going on, it will take longer to load up, which could irritate a visitor and make them click off. A way to minimize the chances of a visitor clicking off is by creating a loading wheel that shows how much has loaded so that the visitor knows how much longer they have to wait (which is often less than 10 seconds).

Best Website Development includes Effective landing pages.

The best web pages provide all the essential information for the website within the primary aspect ratio for a device. Creating a landing page (home page) that is short and to the point will be more helpful for your visitor and make their experience on your website much more efficient and more straightforward. Also, creating links from the main home page will reduce the amount of clutter and unnecessary information.

Page layout

Page layout is a vital part of a website. How text, graphics, and other elements appear on a page is essential for how your page appears. Making sure all your text part of a similar section follows the same rules regarding centering and that the size and graphics have the correct aspect ratios are some of the basics of the page layout.

Intuitive navigation

Having a navigation panel in a visible and easy-to-use manner on your website will result in high satisfaction for visitors, along with saving them time. A navigation panel may sound bland, but creative websites are known how to jazz up navigation by doing things such as creating a drop-down menu effect or the effect of a rolling letter.

Descriptive images

If you have a link to a page or an image, and it is unclear what it is, having a mini description of it is helpful to make your website efficient. It will allow the visitor to navigate the website without confusion or misunderstanding. A great way the mini description can be implemented is through a hover-over effect.

Understanding screen resolution will make creating visually appealing websites much more achievable. Because every browser and device can have its screen resolution size, it can be hard to predict how to format, but once you figure out the tricks to make it appear evenly over any browser, your web page will shine. A laptop to a mobile phone format will be different from a desktop computer, but maintaining your layout through all of them will help you reach the most visitors, hence why responsive websites are a must!

Great Web Designs Always Have The Right Color

Selecting the right color combination is the most prominent element in creating an appealing/attractive website. Color is a great way to add aesthetic appeal, but you must ensure your colors go well together and create a nice pallet. You do not want a neon yellow background with a neon orange font. Also, website color balance is necessary for a good website. Ensuring that your website has a single theme throughout the pages (unless having different colors is a part of the theme) is a great way to maintain neatness.

A great website to visit to test different colors is Adobe Kuler. The website allows the user to view a color wheel and choose a color rule between Analogous, Monochromatic, Triad, Complementary, Compound, and Shades. These color rules result in perfect color palettes that look professionally chosen. Another website you can visit if you do not want to choose colors is Color-Hex, which has hundreds of user-made color pallets.

Poor Websites

source: suzannecollinsbooks.com – Best Websites

Overall, websites can be found in many formats and creative designs, but that does not always mean they are good. It is straightforward to create an inefficient website or not work. This can either be caused by a failure in the coding of the web pages, or it could be because the idea for the website is simply one that has no purpose or consideration for visitors.

Visually boring

Coming across a bad website is not that hard, and one example of this is the official website for the author of The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins, who has sold over 87 million copies worldwide. Her website is bland and uses a minimal style. Although her website has some good content, facts for viewers, and simplicity, the creator has made it a visual bore, resulting in people not wanting to continue to read the website’s content. Today, when we have many options for using our style sheet or JavaScript, this website has failed to draw attention, which is needed to make viewers stay on the page.

Actual functionality

If we choose not to view aesthetic features and focus on the actual functionality of the web page, there are many hyperlinks on the pages throughout the website. The links to the book merely take you to a page with a list of books. There is no purchase option for them. There is also a link for Amazon, and I, and others, I assume, would think that clicking this link would take me to the Amazon page with her books, but it turns out to take me to the Amazon home page. Still, they all seem to be missed opportunities.

A panel of reviews on the right side of the website is poorly formatted, making them a nuisance to read. This website fails to take a well-made design, ease of navigation, quality graphics, and basic formatting into account, making this an excellent example of things you should not do when creating a website.

Security Within Websites

The internet has various ways of releasing data. Any information can be found hidden on websites. It is imperative to have security to protect yourself from intruders, from credit card numbers to secret passwords. If you access certain information on the World Wide Web, you want to be ensured of proper security. The last thing you want is a random person to cash out your credit cards. Learn more about HTTP vs. HTTPS and why this should be seriously considered when building a brand new website, whether a startup or a large organization.

Social Media

In today’s time, social media is everywhere around you in different ways. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are some of the biggest social media platforms. These applications interact very well with audiences of all ages. Nowadays, many companies integrate social media into their websites. Fans of any sport can connect with others through social media, and websites target that. Also, social media on a website increases awareness of whatever you want the audience to view or buy. Social media will only continue to evolve, which is positive for companies and websites.

The internet is a large part of many people’s everyday lives, whether for social media, entertainment, or work. There is no doubt in my mind that in the next five to ten years, social media will be more associated with websites. Top-notch websites know how to maintain aesthetic appeal and functionality because, in modern times, we want quick results, but we also want the results to appear as though they were created by people that knew what they were doing. The best websites understand the need for simplicity and efficiency and see that they cannot compromise quality.