The definition of what makes a good website depends partly on its purpose. A personal page, a company's website, and a school site all need to meet very different characteristics to be considered of quality. There is, however, some basic agreement on what constitutes a good website.
Domain Name
A good website is usually one that people can remember off the top of their head. A complicated domain name or one that is clearly hosted on a free server does not convey the image of professionalism.
Credible and Original Content
No matter what the purpose of the site is, the information contained in it should be useful to the visitors. If the material is outdated, poorly edited, or incomplete, readers will feel cheated and will most likely look for an alternative source of information next time they are reading about the topic. Citing sources when appropriate is another thing that differentiates a good website from a bad one. While anybody is entitled to their own opinion, giving credit where credit is due is a great way to augment the respectability of a site. Original content is the most important trait of a great Web site. Sites that provide only links to other sites are essentially meta-lists (although Yahoo seems to be doing well :), while sites that have some information that's useful to the user stand out and will be revisited. A recent check of webreference.com's statistics confirms this, our content providers account for 62% of WebReference.com's total impressions. Content is King.
Provide valuable, timely information to the user, not lots of data.
Web sites should be updated regularly. Stale Web sites say "been there, done that." For the information to be valuable it should be well-edited. For external links include only the best sites with concise descriptions. For internal content be like a magazine editor, don't rush to publish mediocre or incomplete articles. Typos are unacceptible
Accessibility and Usability
It does not matter how useful the information on a website is if the readers have trouble locating it. Disorganized pages, too many links, articles that go nowhere, and many other details can complicate the use of a website and turn the reader off.
Design
Simplicity is key in a good website. Lots of graphics can frustrate a reader with a slow internet connection. Music, animation, and color can be powerful tools if used appropriately, but they can also be a sign of an amateur website. Moving cursors and cute cartoon characters are out of place on a business page, for example. Use graphics sparingly to convey information. Each graphic takes another trip to the server. Consolidate neighboring graphics or use CSS'd text or table cells with background colors to speed display. WebMonkey has a policy "use graphics for graphics and text for text, not graphic text." Size graphics to fit in a typical user's window (a maximum of 465 to 532 pixels wide [i.e., the default Netscape screen to a printed page], or for max screen space viewable on all platforms use a max of 580 pixel wide tables to fit on Mac screens). It's easy to see if a site's been designed on only a PC, the page is too wide on a Mac, typically 620-640 pixel wide tables fit a PC's monitor but are too wide to display on a 14-15" Mac monitor.
Optimize graphic file size for Web display (a maximum of 20 KB per graphic). Utilize page display speedups such as the WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes for images. Use JPEGs where possible and appropriate (continuous-toned images) and minimize the color palette of GIFs to optimize file size. Provide text alternatives to graphics for low-bandwidth users, the blind, and for speed. ALTernate text tags for images should be functional, not descriptive. If the graphic has no function, use ALT="" (i.e., <IMG SRC="pics/splash.jpg" ALT="">).
Optimize your HTML by removing excess spaces, comments, tags and commentary, especially on your home page, to minimize file size and download time. Products like Antimony Software's Mizer and VSE's HTML Turbo automate this process by removing excess characters and HTML to optimize your HTML and JavaScript. I manually tune our home page for minimize file size (typically 14-15K for the HTML page), but these products can help even file-size obsessed webmasters like myself. These products are drag and drop, and should be used as the last step before you upload your page (the files are harder to read after many of the returns are removed). After optimization your pages will appear to snap onto the screen.
Be easy to read.
Make your pages as easy to read as possible. Black text on a white background (as this page is set up) is the easiest to read. I've seen some nearly impossible to read pages that use backgrounds the same shade as the text (dark text on a dark background and vice versa). If you use a background, stick with the lighter shades and let the text stay black. Use a wide and short (we use 700 X 16 pixels) background graphic that's non-interlaced and under 1K or <BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff">. HTML 4.0 now includes style sheets that can control page, link, and text color attributes site-wide, and make maintenance easy.
Aims for the website
Whatever the purpose of a site is, a good website meets it. If an owner knows what he wants his or her website to achieve, half of the purpose is already met. Unfortunately, many websites are too broad and lack a specific focus. This can confuse readers and often leads to a disorganized look that does not inspire confidence.
A good website does not have to be expensive to build or too eccentric. In fact, it is the simplest of pages that sometimes get the message across quickly and effectively.
Be interactive; good interactivity engages the user and makes your site memorable.
After original content, the second most important trait a Web site should have is interactivity. The Web is an interactive hypermedia communications medium that your Web site should reflect. Sites that involve the user and have a sense of fun or adventure will get more hits, and can charge more for ad space.
Another advantage of interactivity is self-generating content. By allowing your visitors to interact with your site they actually create content for you. Script-driven user surveys and forums allow visitors to share information with others and can help shape your site to better serve their needs. Forum or chat software is a great way to do this. A great example of a user-driven site is Slashdot, a news site for nerds which posts short stories submitted by users, and allows users to easily append comments to each story.
Fill a niche.
Dominate a subject area; become the site for that subject.
Don't duplicate a list when you can point to it. Leverage other people's work to reduce your workload. Let others who specialize in a particular topic keep their list up to date for you. On the other hand, don't make lists that point to lists ad infinitum, seek out the meat of the site and point directly to the article or resource. Many sites on the Web are just lists that someone else has already done.
Build it, and they will come?
A common misconception companies new to the Web have is that if they put up a page, people will visit it. In order to have a popular site, you've got to offer something to the user: information, interactivity, fun, freebies, something more than an 800 number.
Original content is important. Users may come to your site once, but to keep them coming back you've got to have fresh original content.
Sites that offer freebees get noticed. Free software, services, databases or electronic newsletters will attract users like a magnet. SGI has a FREE LUNCH area where you can download free software, computer games, graphics, and video.
Conclusions
The Web is an interactive, dynamic, and rapidly changing new communications medium that your Web site should reflect. Well-organized, edited, and timely original content set in an attractive, interactive, and consistent format are some traits of great Web sites.
