Your Answer to "What Makes a Good Website" from an Internet Marketing Consultant 

This really is a great question because it shows wisdom and insight and demonstrates a person’s awareness that there might be a better way to create a website. If you’re in business and you are the type of person that wants to better understand what makes something better or worse - like websites in this case - and you want to become more successful, there are several factors to consider. The first is the most important. 

What’s your purpose and main goal for your website?

Most people don’t even realize that there are multiple reasons to have a website.  If you don’t stop to answer this question then all the other work you do will just lead to frustration. You will either waste your time and end up with a website that doesn’t do what you need or you will just be confused at all the options out there and how to make sense of them. So let’s take a quick look at what some of those goals might be.

 You could have a website because:

• Everyone else has one and it’s cool. Not very clear and not a focused enough answer unless you are doing it for your own pleasure.
• You want to share your opinion. This kind of site is created to share your hobbies, opinions or whatever else interests you. It is also for your own personal amusement and satisfaction. Some people are just natural communicators and love to share their knowledge.
• You want to be famous. You see this with all of the crazy videos and extreme stunts or reporting. People seek fame for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it helps business and sometimes it just improves your social life.
• You are in business and you see a Website as a tool for growing your business. People with this perspective may or may not understand the power of this or exactly how it works but they know it is important at some level.

Take a moment to think about business goals from an offline perspective, they can "provide focus, increase motivation, improve group cohesion, increase employee worth, and offer measurability for your company. (Why Is Goal Setting Important in Organizations?)" These same benefits often integrate with your website and internet marketing efforts. Here is a video that emphasizes the importance of business goals and how they relate to your website:

If your purpose is wrapped around business and your desire to find out what makes a good website is driven by your desire to use it as a tool in your arsenal to grow your business, then you’re in the right place. 

Here at Half a Bubble Out we are Traditional and Internet Marketing Consultants. We build a lot of websites and all of them have some business purpose. The reason I’m making such a big deal out of being clear on your focus is because there are a lot of ways this can go wrong.

For instance, a friend of mine told me about an upscale fitness center in a wealthy neighborhood the other day. This fitness center hired a company like ours to “Do” Internet Marketing. Seems simple enough, right? Well because they didn’t define the goals and purposes clearly up front the relationship spiraled into a hot mess. The fitness center fired the other marketing firm and walked away from the project. 

Based on this story I was told the client didn’t have a clear picture of how marketing on the web worked. They also didn’t have an understanding of what makes a good website. If they had done their homework like you are doing right now they would have saved themselves a tremendous amount of hassle, time and money.

To be fair I also know from this story that the marketing firm never clarified the purpose of the campaign either. Since a website is a key component to a good internet marketing strategy, this all could have been avoided by starting with the question, “what makes a good website for business and what are my business goals for the website and internet marketing campaign?”

Here is a list of purposes you will want to consider when evaluating the need to have a good website for your business.

Do you want your website to:

• Give you and your business credibility? Just having a site can do this but if you want to stand out your website needs to look and read at the professional level you want to be perceived as.
• Generate traffic so more people come to your site? Your website can be turned into a traffic magnet if it has the right parts on it and is created correctly. A blog will also help.
• Generate leads for your company while you’re doing other things? Lead generation is a great way to use a website and it also requires specific ingredients to be successful.
• Grow awareness of you and your company so more people know who you are and what you do? If they don’t know about you then they won’t buy from you.
• Be a tool that allows you to show your character so you attract people that like working with a company like yours? In this day and age people want to work with people they relate to.
• Be a tool that shows your competence? If created correctly a good website will demonstrate to people that you know your stuff and they would be crazy to not choose you.

That’s it! When you ask what makes a good website the answer can be all over the map. Even when it’s for your business there are multiple ways to answer the question based on what your goals are. Take the list above and give it some thought so your next question is as genius as the one that brought you here.

If you want some help talking through the question you can contact us here at the Bubble and we can walk you through it. Helping people make wise decisions for their business is what we do every day. 

I hope this helps you discover what will make a good website for what you want to accomplish.

Read our related articles: 

Answering the Question: What Makes A Good Website Suck?!

4 Simple Thoughts About What Makes a Good Website