The Basics of a Successful Website
Home Page
The home page is the page where people first enter your website. Your homepage needs to be quick and easy to load. You have only 1-3 seconds to grab your public's attention before they decide to move on. If you have a lot of graphics on the home page, bells and whistles, the public might have to sit there for 1 or 2 minutes waiting for your home page to download. I can almost guarantee that most people won't wait that long. Would You?
About Page
The about page is a page that explains to the public who you are, what your company does, how long your company has been in business and where you are located including address and phone numbers. This is essential to your website as most people want to know about the company they are doing business with.
Info About Products/Services Being Sold
This page explains what the products/services are. From sizes, to colors, to prices, to categories, etc. What you are selling and for how much? Just like in a store, the products are displayed with price tags.
Testimonials
This page is a list of your clients and what they say about your products/services. The more well known the client the better. For example if one of your clients is Coca Cola, you can get a testimonial from the CEO which would state what your product or service did for him. If you are new and don't have any clients, leave this page out until you have some clients.
Update Section
You can make this section anything you want, whether it be a newsletter, product updates, new products, specials, new services being offered etc. But you need to have this page as you will have clients and potential clients coming back to your site to check this information. This is one of the reasons people will come back to your site.
Interactivity
This page lets the consumer interact with your website whether it be a guestbook they fill out, order form they fill out, bulletin board they post to or shopping cart program they use to buy products/services from you, etc.
Navigation
Make sure your site is easy to navigate. Most consumers hate having to go through dozens of web pages to get to the information they are looking for. Not all browsers have front and back buttons and the only way a user can get from one page to another is by using the website. The easier it is to get to the information, the better.
And there you have it. These are the basic qualities of a successful website. Include these things and you won't go wrong.