In today’s world, almost everyone has a website; it can be used as a portfolio, a resume, to build a shop or a store, and to even just write about whatever you feel like. If you have a business or some sort of project, then a website is a great way to garner attention and give some information or items that may not be available elsewhere.

While that doesn’t mean making a website will put it at the top of the most visited list, it will get you started and get you going online, but one of the most important things for a website is its features! So whether you are designing your site in-house or using a web design firm, consider adding these features to your website to appeal to more users. 

Search

If you’re making a new website or updating an old one, then you probably have many ideas for where to take your project and how to make it better. In the hopes of having tons of information in one place, it also would make it very nice for the user to have the ability to search for what they’re looking for.

While a website can go without one, it is better to practice to have some sort of functionality that lets the user go from a large number of directories, subpages and pieces of information to just one subpage of the information they are looking for.

Newsletter

Focusing on traffic is a great way to heighten the success of your website and a great way to do this is to give the user a reason to come back. Whether you have a blog or a shop there are many implications of this.

For a blog having a newsletter, allows the user to receive an update on the state of the blog, and alerts them whenever a new or interesting article has been posted.

For a shop, this allows coupons, promotions, and updates on new items to be sent to everyone who happened to sign up for the newsletter.

It may not apply to absolutely every website, but it is still a good method of receiving returning customers or users.

Animations

One of the most important aspects of having a website is the visual portion of it. As there are millions of websites online, there has to be a reason someone will continue to look at yours.

A great way to achieve the attention of your users is to add pleasing animations when someone changes subpages or transitions to a new article. This makes the website feel more fun and fluid and doesn’t become an eye-sore after 10 minutes of staring at a boring screen.

Contact Form

Being able to interact with your users is a great way to keep them coming back. Having that customer, or user connection is important when the user questions whether they should come back to that website.

This also allows you to get updates on how your site is, what should be changed, and what is going right with the content or the products.

Pictures 

Going back to the visual aspect of a website, adding images is a great way to keep the user’s attention, especially if there are great bodies of text or products that a user is questioning if they should purchase or not.

It’s quite tedious and almost painful to stare at either one solid color on a website or just a long section of the text, so having an image gives the user a break and can help form an aesthetic for the entire website.

Videos

Like pictures, videos will give the user a break from looking at a text or something inherently boring, but this can also provide what you may have been trying to say in text or with a picture but in an entire video. 

Say you had a product that you only had an image for—the image doesn’t necessarily give the customer all the information they need to make their decision. They may need to know how it works, or what it looks like when it’s working or something of this nature, and a video can provide that.

Another implication would be for something being explained via text from the real world, like something from a science journal; the concept being explained or written about might fit much better in an informative video rather than text.

Social Media Stream

With social media being one of the biggest forms of communication and garnering information, adding a section of the website that shows updated social media pages is a great way to advertise your social media and get people looking in the right places for information.

This can also be implemented in many ways, with certain pages being for certain social media or just one collection of every social media. This addition offers wonderful possibilities and even more promotion to your entire brand.

Showing the Team

Adding a section that highlights who is a part of the team or who made the website is a great way for the site to feel more personal and more comfortable for the user. It also allows for a wide variety of implications with each member possibly having their own style or subpage altogether.

Sharing the team is also a great way to give credit to those who put all their hard work in for either making the website or making the production or store possible.

FAQ List

A list of frequently asked questions is a good way to answer any popular questions that the user may have about the site, or the brand itself.

It also allows ways for forums or questions to get asked in the future by the users knowing that their voices are heard.

The Fun of Website Features

There are definitely many implications of fun and cool features into your website and adding them all depends on what your website is for. A blog would work great with pictures and maybe even videos, and a shop would be almost the same. A wiki website would do great with gifs or images with example explanations that could be in the form of video.

The world is getting more creative with what is being added to websites, so start simple and grow your website with some awesome features as it can always improve and be altered in the future.