Whether you are creating a new website or you are part of a web development company, it’s essential for your success to get familiar with what the most requested features in any website are, you don’t need to include all of them of course! Because your new website or your client’s website might need some of these features to serve a purpose. In this article we will discuss the 23 key features to include in your new website.

Website Components

There are many user friendly CMS’s you can use to help you get started with your site like Drupal, WordPress and Joomla as these are the most reputable content management systems out there, the below features can be added or configured for all.

Multi-lingual Website

A website can be built in any language as all CMS’s support multilingual websites. Content should be displayed LTR on the English version site and RTL on the Arabic, Hebrew and Persian site, you can include a language switcher in your website homepage and the alignment of content should change position (including menus, side bars, company logo, etc.) based on the language.

Client Login

Client login or Client portal is an electronic gateway for services and information that is accessible over the Internet. It lets the clients log in to an area so they can view, download and upload information. Client login is mostly used for the securest exchange financial information. It also allow users to increase the communication.

Search Box

A highly requested feature for all the websites, it allows visitors to search the website for what they are interested in, for example E-commerce sites must have search button for the visitors can navigate the site and search for what they want and interested so they can find the right items.

Background Videos

Background videos are one of the most important elements that should be included in a website, people nowadays don’t like the theoretical aspects and parts especially when the amount of the words used is large. 

Videos can be used to describe the content or tell a story in a way which can reduce the amount of the written content. Besides the fact that it will allow the visitors to understand the key points much faster because our brain processes videos 60,000 faster compared to a text. Videos appear more helpful and effortless and people enjoy them more than the theoretical content.

Hamburger Menu

Menus are the way to navigate websites, and on desktop you can find menus in the header or on the sides, however if you want to have a mobile friendly website you should definitely create a responsive menu which is known to be the hamburger menu.

Logo

It is a design to recognize the businesses or groups. The identity of the organization (the brand). A logo is a symbol to convey messages and should be original and memorable. There are millions of logos in this competitive world, yours or let’s say if you want to do one, it must be unique and attractive so you can attract your audience.

Fonts

When making your website, you should make a decision about the fonts that you will be using one or two unique fonts across the website. They help customers identify your company as well as what is your company about.

Events and Calendar

School sites for example should have a calendar or events section on their website and this can be implemented by configuring events module on your CMS. Many modules and examples are out there for you to evaluate and choose from.

Blog

Having a blog should be all about valuable content for your audience, when creating a blog it’s like sharing thoughts, ideas and information that help the community in a way or another. When creating a blog it indicates of who you are on a web, the content of a blog includes text, pictures, videos and sharing information with a group of people or to public, and the owner of the blog can set his blog if he wants it to be on public or private.

Forms

Forms are frequently used to get information from possible clients and to develop a relation with them, there are many different types of forms some of them being customer complaints and customer questions, and etc.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

It is the section that shows the most Frequently Asked Questions in a website, and therefore diminish the need of asking and answering the same questions from every new web visitor.

Location map

Map on a website shows the roads with their names and different locations. Putting a map on your website will make it easier for your customers to locate your company. Google offers an API to help you integrate their maps system into your website.

Header and Footer

Header that comes on the top of the website and which includes the company name, logo and the menu which allows the visitor to navigate the content of the website. The Footer is located at the bottom of the website and is used to display content but doesn’t often change it might include links for easy access, like social media icons, contact us, privacy policy etc..

Testimonials

It is the section where written recommendation about your business from satisfied clients are displayed. It is technically a feedback from a customer, most of the times they are good reviews and recommendations, extremely powerful marketing tool for your business.

Home Page & Inner Pages.

Every website has a home page and inner pages, but you got to be smart on how you want to display your website, a home page must be introducing to the company with some videos and images that can attract your customers and other users to keep navigating to your site.

On the other hand inner pages are pages that give details more about the business that you are doing and has links to get you reach to the content and more detailed information.

Call to Action

A call to action is designed to get an immediate response from the visitors reading or hearing from your website, it’s used in business as part of a marketing to get your target market to respond through action.

Social Media Widgets

This features helps connect your website with social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+. It provides a way of managing profiles information such as follow and share buttons.

Friendly URLS

When saying friendly URLS this means that the web address includes words that describe the content of the same webpage that the user is in. URLs can be friendly in two ways:

(1) Be remembered.

(2) Get described easily on search engines.

Carousel

It is as a box that includes information that changes, it is as photos that continually changes every few seconds, and people can go left and right to see the photos. They are used in E-commerce and business websites which they are placed in the header of the website.

Cookie

A cookie is a small file that will be saved in your computer for all the websites that you have visited and navigated. Those cookies that are saved in your device can collect information about how you navigate and interact with the webpages and also it gets to remember you. When opening a website a cookie pop up displays and it can be accepted and declined from the user’s device.

Payment Gateway for E-commerce Website

A payment gateway is mainly merchant services that is being powered and provided by an E-commerce application that processes credit cards or direct payments, and this goes for E-business, online retailers or any type of a business that accepts this service.

Newsletter

Newsletter marketing is the way that companies contact their subscriptions in order to send them updated and recent information and product info about the company via email, and this goes to the potential and existing customers

Parallax

Parallax is new feature in the design world that is cool and can be added to a website, it encourages people to scroll down to the webpage and which makes the visitor to spend more time on your website, it adds a unique design in the website it is as creating the illusion of depth and immersion, and which is a 3D field. It is a very cool static that can be added to a website, it is a scrolling technique that has a background picture and content inside.

Conclusion

In sum, many CMS’s like Drupal, WordPress and Joomla use plugins that serve the above mentioned features and you just need to be picky on which one to choose, you don’t have to include all of course, it depends as mentioned in the introduction about the purpose the website serves.  We at Complete Chain has implemented many complex successful projects that are active on the web and being maintained and used many of the features mentioned in this blog. Need help on your next project? Get a quote here and subscribe to our newsletter for fresh content about the world of web development.

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