A website is a great symbolic statement for a company. It has become a necessary component of any company out there. As such, it's only natural that a reputable company provides its clients with a site that caters to their needs and makes all of its services available in a few clicks from the comfort of their house. So what makes a great website? Let me outline a few key components.

Function:

In the early days of the World Wide Web, the design elements were very limited in terms of tools and technologies. The web pages back in the day were very static, which meant, you could only read them and not interact. There were very few things that you could do on a visited web page, but get some information that may already be fairly common knowledge. The advent of the second generation Web technologies (Web 2.0) has drastically changed all of this. Now, people who surf the net are getting much more than just static information. Pages are generally more colourful and aesthetically attractive as well as user-friendly, making it informative and fun at the same time.

A website is technically functional when it services its initial purpose. For example, a news site becomes functional when viewers, besides reading the news information, can interact with the site by placing comments, searching, printing and sending email within the page. Your average surfer wants to be able to find their way around any given page easily without having to click on more that which is necessary, or being re-directed every second. Nothing is more annoying than a site that keeps on re-directing you, taking so much of your precious time.

You can find more information and resource links on the functionality of web design by visiting: http://www.insightempire.com/Movingwebdesign/

Interactive:

The World Wide Web has changed over the years and those who make their sites interactive find that their viewers keep coming back. An interactive site is one that allows the viewer to make comments, rate, and tag or forward the content. How is this done? The webmaster will usually place an icon or piece of text somewhere at the beginning or the end of an article that allows quick access to interaction options such as social bookmarking.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO):

In every subject topic, there are only a handful of websites that make it to the top ten of any of the search engines. The rest of the sites, despite their quality, informative content, are positioned way down the bottom of the search engines result positioning, to far for the average viewer to care about. Most viewers are drawn to the sites that make the top 10 listings found in any search engine.

Search engine optimisation means that your website is optimised in such a way that all the search engines are able to easily find your site amongst the billions of pages on the web. Today, most of the big organisations invest in SEO, so that their site will achieve the highest ranking in the search engines, meaning they become more visible to their target audience.

Aesthetics:

If we're all honest with ourselves, we'd all agree that we like beautiful things. Websites are made, initially to be viewed. Colours, images, fonts, all contribute to the overall design and beauty of any website. It effectively says something about the company it represents. Aesthetics can also be used to target markets that are related to your line of business, which as a result gives you an edge over your competitors. With this noted, it's always best to choose a site design that best represents your company's interest and range of products and or services.