From a client’s point of view, a good website is one that loads fast and looks good. From a development company’s point of view there is more to it: the layout has to fit how people actually use a site, the content has to be worth reading, the domain has to carry weight. So how do you judge a site once it is built? Four angles.
1. Does it load fast enough
This is the most important part of the user experience and the easiest to measure. A good site opens in three seconds. Where it does not, the fixes are usually the same three: optimise the code, cut the Flash and the oversized images, or move to better hosting.
2. Positioning, structure and layout
Clear positioning converts. The overall frame should be obvious at a glance, the layout should follow how a visitor looks for things, and the navigation should let them find a piece of information quickly. Pages should relate to each other, each should carry its own title with the keyword in it, and the layout should combine text and images — but no more than about three images per page, all with alt text. Serve static or pseudo-static pages, because that is what search engines crawl most reliably.
3. The quality of the content
Content quality is the main driver of bounce rate. A visitor who stays reads top to bottom, and what they read is the content — which makes the layout and the finish of the page matter enormously, because the first impression is the layout. If it is poor, the visitor cannot find what they came for and leaves. Content quality is also a fair proxy for how much care went into the build: a site that matters to its owner has content that is rich and readable rather than assembled from fragments.
4. Whether the functions are proportionate
More powerful is not better. The right scope is what the business actually needs at a cost it can justify. What any corporate site must have: sections that can be added or removed at will, every piece of content editable from the back end, and the main images or banners replaceable without a developer.
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