There are a variety of key factors that contribute to the success or failure of a website. These factors are vital to any website and disregarding or paying less attention to them can prove fatal in the long run. As the web continues to mature and evolve, visitors have increasingly high expectations of a website. If these expectations are not met in a satisfactory manner, the website risks losing existing visitors and decreasing in attractiveness to prospective visitors. Just as certain aspects of a website help in attracting visitors, other factors help in retaining existing visitors and keep them coming back.
The most important aspect of any website is quality content. The content of a website is the main element that draws users to a website and also has a direct influence on the search engine rankings of the website. An otherwise well-built website with poorly constructed content will turn users away and may result in the website not being discovered by new users due to the resulting low search engine rankings. Website content should be curated with sharp attention to detail and focus on relevance to the message being conveyed.
Two primary factors that determine the success of a website are usability and responsiveness. A website should be designed in such a manner that users are able to accomplish their tasks with ease and are not bothered with having to figure out how to manoeuvre through the website. Users should not face with convoluted navigation mechanisms and intricate menu systems. Navigation should be intuitive and should aim to provide users with an easy way to find what they are looking for and help should be provided on how users can navigate through the site if this is not immediately apparent. Although navigation can help in increasing the visual appeal of a website, attractiveness should not come at the expense of usability, accessibility and responsiveness.
A non-responsive site may look like this:
Browser View of the site Mobile View of the site

A website should be widely accessible in order to be effective. Constraints such as incompatibility with one or more browsers, absence of a mobile version and non-responsiveness at lower speeds will hinder the ability to garner a high number of visitors and in turn impede the growth of the website. When faced with such constraints, a website should still display in a presentable manner, rather than being inaccessible. While most of the factors that impact accessibility are outside control, steps should be taken to ensure that the website is not entirely inaccessible. It is possible to have a website that is widely accessible and still performs reasonably well across the spectrum of devices and speeds that are used to access the website.
A responsive site – looks much cleaner and well organized on your mobile
Browser View of the site Mobile View of the site

Every website needs to have a clearly-defined purpose, the absence of which will result in a lack of direction and inefficient decision making. The purpose of the website should resonate with the actual goals and needs of a business. This helps set an overtone for all the elements of the website and aids the design and development process. A website instantly needs to communicate to the user the purpose of the website and what it offers visitors in the way of helping them accomplish their tasks and what they get out of the website.
The appearance of the website is the first attribute that is immediately noticeable by the user and has a bearing on the overall appeal of the website.
The design of the website should relate to the purpose of the website and the goals of the business. The look and feel of the website should pertain to the type of business to which it provides a window, while not having an overbearing effect on the content.









