Most businesses have a website. That doesn’t necessarily mean they have a good one.

A business website can look perfectly respectable and still do very little for the business behind it. It might be difficult to find in search, unclear about what the company actually offers, awkward to use on a phone or simply give visitors no convincing reason to make contact.

Good website design isn’t about ticking off a list of fashionable features. It’s about getting a collection of fundamentals right — helping people find you, understand what you offer, trust your business and take the next step.

So, what actually makes a good business website?

It needs to be found

Before your website can convince a potential customer, they need to find it.

That doesn’t mean every business needs to rank first on Google for everything it does. But your website should give search engines a clear understanding of your business, the services you provide and, where relevant, the areas you serve.

Good foundations include a sensible page structure, descriptive page titles, useful content and dedicated pages for important services rather than trying to cram everything onto the homepage.

Your title tags and meta descriptions also play a part. They help search engines understand individual pages and can influence how your website appears within search results. I’ve covered this in more detail in Title Tags & Meta Descriptions Explained.

For businesses serving a particular geographical area, local SEO can be equally important. Your website and Google Business Profile should reinforce one another and make it clear where you are and who you serve.

A beautiful website nobody can find is rather like having a beautifully designed shop at the end of an unmarked country lane. Lovely when you eventually get there.

It needs to be immediately understandable

Once somebody arrives, don’t make them work out what your business does.

Within a few seconds, a visitor should be able to answer some basic questions:

What does this business do? Is it relevant to me? Why should I consider it? Where should I go next?

Clear communication doesn’t necessarily mean covering the top of the homepage with enormous text and a brightly coloured button. It means creating a sensible hierarchy that leads the visitor through the information.

Good graphic and web design plays an important role here. Typography, spacing, colour, imagery and layout aren’t simply decoration. They help establish what is important, separate different types of information and make content easier to absorb.

Navigation matters too. A clever menu isn’t necessarily a good menu. Familiar labels such as Services, About, Work and Contact might not win awards for originality, but people understand what they mean.

Visitors shouldn’t need instructions to use your website.

It needs to build trust

People make judgements about businesses remarkably quickly, and your website is often responsible for that first impression.

Professional branding and consistent presentation can immediately make a business feel more established and credible. Poor typography, inconsistent colours, low-quality imagery or a website that looks neglected can have the opposite effect.

But looking professional is only part of building trust. You also need to provide evidence.

Depending on the type of business, that might include:

• genuine customer reviews and testimonials
• examples of previous work
• case studies
• recognised clients or organisations you’ve worked with
• qualifications or accreditations
• an informative About page
• clear business and contact information
• genuine photographs of your people, premises or work

A portfolio is particularly valuable for businesses selling a visual or professional service. Rather than simply telling visitors you’re capable, you can show them.

Your website doesn’t really need to tell people that you’re professional. It should give them enough evidence to reach that conclusion themselves.

It needs to be easy to use

A website can look fantastic on a designer’s enormous desktop monitor and be thoroughly unpleasant to use on somebody else’s phone.

A good business website needs to work across different screen sizes and devices. Text should remain readable, buttons need to be easy to use and important information shouldn’t disappear simply because the available screen has become smaller.

Speed matters too. Large images, unnecessary scripts, poorly configured plugins and cheap hosting can all slow a website down. Visitors aren’t renowned for their patience.

Accessibility should also be considered as part of good website design rather than treated as an optional extra. Clear typography, sufficient contrast, sensible heading structures, descriptive links and usable forms make websites better for everyone.

And then there are the small frustrations.

Forms with twenty mandatory fields. Pop-ups appearing before you’ve read the first sentence. Menus that disappear when you try to use them. Buttons that don’t look like buttons.

Every time you make a user stop and think about how to use your website, you give them another reason to leave.

A beautifully designed contact form that refuses to submit isn’t a beautifully designed contact form. It’s a reason for a potential customer to question how reliable your business is.

It needs to give people somewhere to go next

Every important page on a business website should have a purpose.

That doesn’t mean plastering BUY NOW or CONTACT US buttons across every available patch of screen. It means considering what somebody reading that particular page is most likely to want to do next.

That could be:

Request a quote.
Book an appointment.
View previous work.
Explore a related service.
Visit your showroom.
Call you.
Send an enquiry.

The appropriate action depends on the business and the page.

A potential customer reading a detailed service page may be ready to make an enquiry. Someone reading an introductory guide might benefit more from being directed towards another useful article or relevant service.

Calls to action work best when they feel like the natural next step rather than an interruption.

It needs useful content

Good website content answers the questions potential customers are actually asking.

That begins with the main pages of your website. Individual services deserve enough information for somebody to understand what you offer, who it’s for and what makes your approach different.

Thin pages containing a paragraph or two and a stock photograph rarely achieve very much for visitors or search engines.

Useful content can go considerably further.

FAQs can answer common questions. Case studies can explain how you’ve solved real problems. Guides can explore subjects in more depth. Blog articles can answer specific searches that wouldn’t justify an entire service page.

A well-maintained business blog can therefore become a valuable extension of the main website rather than somewhere to post company news twice a year. I’ve looked at this in more detail in Do Blog Articles Help SEO?.

The important thing is not to create content simply because somebody said Google likes lots of words.

Write because you have something useful to say.

It needs to work properly behind the scenes

Some of the most important parts of a website are the things visitors hopefully never notice.

Good business websites need reliable hosting, security, backups and ongoing software updates. Forms need to deliver enquiries properly. Links need to work. SSL certificates need to remain valid and the website should continue functioning as browsers, WordPress and other technologies change.

For a WordPress website in particular, maintenance isn’t really optional.

WordPress itself, themes and plugins are regularly updated to add features, maintain compatibility and address security issues. Ignoring those updates indefinitely increases the chances of something eventually going wrong.

Good hosting and ongoing website care aren’t particularly glamorous parts of web design, but neither are foundations, wiring and plumbing when you build a house. You’d still notice fairly quickly if somebody left them out.

It needs to evolve with the business

Perhaps the biggest misconception about websites is that they’re finished when they go live.

They’re not.

Businesses change. Services change. Teams grow. Prices change. New questions arise from customers. Search behaviour changes. Technology moves on.

Your website should be able to change with them.

That might mean adding new services, improving existing pages, publishing useful articles, replacing old photography, adding recent projects or simply reviewing whether the information still accurately reflects the business.

Analytics and search data can also reveal opportunities. You might discover that a particular service attracts considerably more interest than expected, that visitors regularly abandon a certain page or that people are finding you through searches you hadn’t originally considered.

A good website provides a solid foundation, but it should never become a museum piece.

So, what makes a good business website?

There’s no single feature, plugin or design trend that suddenly turns a website into a good one.

The best business websites bring several things together.

They can be found. They’re clear about what the business does. They’re easy to navigate and use. They look professional and provide evidence that the business can be trusted. They contain useful content and make the next step obvious. Behind the scenes, they’re secure, maintained and able to grow.

Most importantly, all those elements work together.

Fantastic design can’t rescue confusing content. Brilliant copy is little use if nobody can find it. Plenty of website traffic doesn’t mean much if visitors don’t trust the business when they arrive.

A good business website isn’t simply there to prove that your business has a website.

It should be working for the business behind it.

If you’re planning a new website — or your existing one is no longer doing its job — my website design & development service covers everything from initial structure and design through to WordPress development, launch and ongoing support.