It’s undeniable that the Internet is always expanding. From companies to bloggers, from celebrities to anonymous, people feel the need to create their own websites, whether it is really necessary or not. But what does a successful website contain? Here are some guidelines:

The colors composing the design of the website should reflect its content and the vision of the owner of the site. If the target audience is mainly children, then the site can contain colorful backgrounds and buttons, and playful fonts. If the website is for a business company, the site should look formal. Use colors that reflect the intention of the company. You can apply shades of the colors from the company’s logo if applicable, and the font should be standardized and readable. Default fonts such as Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana, and etc. are recommended.

Images, whether they’re static or animated, can help add more appeal to the website. If it is a website for children, the creator of the website can play around and add whatever image that he thinks appeals to the kids. If it is serious business, place only images that are related to the company, such as company products, services, etc. Do not attach images irrelevant to the content of the website.

The interface should be user-friendly. Don’t overuse buttons and textboxes. If you think it’s enough, stop there. It is important to new visitors that they can browse around the site easily.

Post contents on a regular basis. Make it a habit to post at least one content everyday so the possibility of losing regular visitors will be lessened, and they may even help promote the site by telling their friends about it. It is also important that search engines can find your site so take advantage of the use of tags or keywords. Most importantly, post only contents that you own or you have permission to post. Plagiarism is a crime.

Put some information on what the website is all about. A little information will do as long as the visitors will have an idea about what you are posting on the site and why you created the site in the first place. Never forget to place contact details because it is important to connect to your audience.

A Search service and posting Frequently Asked Questions or a Help function won’t kill your site. In fact, it will save your website if its user interface is not quite user-friendly. With these, new and regular visitors will be able to play around and not be annoyed that they can’t find what they are looking for on your site.

Use website tracking services, such as Google Analytics. Through this, you can keep track of how your site is doing. You can monitor how many visitors your website has attracted and what locations they come from. Therefore, you can observe how many visitors you get or lose every single day. This service can also show you if a search engine included your site as one of the results of a search and what keywords that were used that caused it.

Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook can be a very big help on promoting your site. Don’t be afraid to reach out to other people to promote your content. They’re your audience so it is important you reach them.

These aren’t all the guidelines on how a website can be successful. In fact, there are a lot but the stated instructions here are vital and the key to bringing a website to success.