Top 10 Website/UX Essentials

I’ve spent nearly 20 years developing websites for large non-profits and small businesses. I can’t believe that there are professionals who aren’t doing some extremely basic things for their website clients. Because I ended up explaining this repeatedly, I wrote this post of essential things every website must have. Please know these are non-negotiable.

#1 SSL Certificate and secure HTTPS domain

This has been a requirement by the almighty Google since 2018. If you have an HTTP website it will be labeled as Not Secure and scare away visitors, especially if you do any e-commerce transactions. SSL means Secure Sockets Layer and is an encryption tool for your website. It protects your website and sensitive user information. If you don’t have this, get it today. See what Wired says about HTTP https://www.wired.com/story/google-chrome-https-not-secure-label/

#2 Privacy Policy

This is an important legal document that lets users understand how you are collecting and using their data and information. If you have any forms, data, advertising, or social media tracking on your website and don’t have a Privacy Policy you might be violating the laws in different states and countries. Your business lawyer can review and advise on a policy or there are several web resources for Privacy Policies. If you do business in California or the EU there is additional language that needs to be included in your Privacy Policy. Wikipedia Privacy Policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy

#3 Business Owners Have Admin Login Access to Everything

I’m always amazed that some business owners have absolutely no login access to their own website, advertising, social media, or data. I’ve had my data and websites held hostage by various agencies who refused to transfer admin login access and even once lost two years of Google Ads Pay-Per-Click data (ouch). Here’s a shortlist of the login access every business owner must have:

• Your Domain Name Server (DNS) like GoDaddy- this is whom you pay to own your URL address
  Web content management system (WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, etc.)
• Google Ads Account, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Tag Manager, Google My Business
• Social Media (Facebook, YouTube, TripAdvisor, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Yelp, etc.)
• Email form collector and Emal Service Provider

#4 Google Analytics & Search Console

Squarespace, GoDaddy, Wix, and some other web management systems have their own analytics that you can see with pretty charts and graphs in your dashboard. I’m not entirely confident in how each site gathers or parses the data. I recommend installing Google Analytics because this has become the industry gold standard for analytics. This also gives you insight into how the world’s first and second (YouTube) largest search engines are seeing your website. You can use this data to compare yourself to your industry website benchmarks.

#5 Thoughtful User Experience Design (UX)

Once you attract traffic to your website, the design of the experience needs to be easy and functional to convert those visits into sales or actions. Strive for a good simple navigation structure and information architecture. General best practices are:

• Try to keep your main top navigation links to 6 or fewer – this is the optimal amount for quick scanning – use simple information architecture hierarchies for your pages
• Avoid using “Home” as a link at the top— everyone knows to click the logo to get back to the home page, and this takes up unnecessary real estate.
• Avoid cutesy navigation that only confuses i.e. don’t say “Friendly People;” use “Our Team.”
• Don’t use links that say “click here” call the link what it is: Learn more about our products click here vs. Learn more about Our Products.
• Ensure links are clearly defined by color, font variations, and/or underlines for accessibility.

#6 Accessibility

This is becoming more important as many companies with websites are facing lawsuits for sites not following accessibility guidelines for those with different abilities. Recently the Supreme Court said they wouldn’t hear a case against Dominos, who is being sued by a blind man over the accessibility of their website and app.

• Does your website work on a reader for those with visual disabilities, such as images having Alt Tag descriptions?
• Are the colors on your website in high enough contrast for those with color blindness?
• Do your multimedia video elements have captions or text descriptions?
  Learn More Here https://www.boia.org/

#7 Responsive & Mobile First

If you are an old web designer like me, you remember when you had to develop a completely separate mobile website. These ugly text-only websites were clunky and required you to maintain both your desktop and mobile website separately. Today, more people search the web on their mobile devices than on desktops (since 2016). With mobile-first design and Google switching to mobile-first indexing for most websites, you must have a fully responsive website that re-sizes based on screen size and utilizes mobile navigational elements like hamburger navigation and easily scanned content. https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2019/03/05/mobile-first-design-for-2019/

#8 SEO Baked into the Design

Search Engine Optimization works best when it is baked into the design. It also corresponds with the rules of having good-quality content. Many accessibility features are also helpful for SEO, like photo file names and alt tags. Elements that make a site have good experience design (UX) also help SEO. Clear information architecture hierarchy, page names, and good quality content with 300 words per page minimum also help. Don’t forget about the importance of structured snippets, proper tagging H1 H2, XML sitemap, 301s, etc. It’s best to have this developed into your site from the ground up as it can be costly and not as effective to incorporate later.

#9 Update and Backup Regularly

Websites are not static like a brochure. They require regular maintenance to keep up with security and technology protocols. Nothing shows you aren’t paying attention to your consumers like an outdated or poorly designed website. It’s well worth it to pay a third party an ongoing hosting/maintenance contract to do this for your website. Also, update your copyright info to the current year. Nothing dates a website more than seeing a year in the footer that is far in the past.

#10 Check Vendor References

It’s super easy to fake it these days. A slick website with enticing marketing language can be created by almost anyone clever. Before you hire someone to redo your website or manage your digital marketing, be sure to do your homework. Examine their background and portfolio and check up on their references. Were people happy with what they got or are they riddled with problems? Use the above checklist as a litmus test. Will they agree to do everything on this list? I worked with many firms that wouldn’t. I’ve had my content, ads accounts, and domains held hostage. This was always a costly mistake. I don’t want this to ever happen to anyone else because it is bad business and bad for your business.

In Conclusion:

I am fortunate to finally have the time, space, and permission to create my side gig. I am blessed that I had people who took a chance on me and mentored me over the years. After 20+ years in the trenches, I’m ready to share what I’ve learned, so others don’t have to learn the hard way.

With gratitude to the American Marketing Association of New Mexico for allowing me to give the October 2019 Luncheon Presentation that accompanies this post.

Originally Published on LinkedIn October 24, 2019