Your answer to this question will say more about what you do, what you value, and what you believe than the reality of how well the website in question will perform. For example, the Webby awards focus on innovative websites with jaw-dropping graphics and effects...a graphic designer's view of greatness.
Other websites are the equivalent of a Swiss army knife - less beautiful perhaps, but built on a solid CMS framework with lots of function, boat-loads of content, potential for expansion, and the security of Fort Knox...this is a web developer's view of greatness.
So what about the view of the person visiting your website? Who is that person and what was he hoping to find when he landed on this particular landing page? Most likely, the visitor's purpose was quite specific. While he may appreciate the attributes of great design and development, your visitor's view of greatness is probably to obtain what is sought with minimum time and hassle.
As Entrepreneurs, Executives and Product Managers, our top concern is to insure the website serves a primary purpose for our businesses. Whether that purpose is to inform, engage, retain, support or drive revenue, we must get crystal clear about the purpose of the website and what it takes to move our visitor to a desired action...what interactive marketers call "conversion". Without conversion, our websites become a liability rather than an asset. To achieve greatness, we must design our websites with a clear purpose, then track conversion and use the information to hone the website on an ongoing basis.
We measure conversion though use of web analytics and tracking offline follow-through. For example, measure clicks to contact a sales person and then record how many of these resulted in a sale. Web analytics tools like Google Analytics lets us simultaneously test how multiple pages perform. You'd be surprised how small changes like rearranging elements on a page, shortening text or using color can radically alter conversion results. Experts who have tested thousands of pages warn us that the most beautiful, innovative and feature-rich websites may not be the best performers in generating high conversion rates. Think about it...when you last went online to buy something, were you interested in sitting through a flash intro about the company or were you focused on finding and item and making a quick purchase?
For more information on this topic, I suggest:
- Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
- Call to Action by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg
- Landing Page Optimization by Tim Ash
- Jakob Nielsen's Web Usability Website (sign up for his bimonthly newsletter)
- Be crystal clear about the purpose of the website
- Identify the intended audience and motivations for visiting the site; turn these into stories
- Map the stories most common to your business into a sequence of pages (the beginnings of a wireframe)
- Provide relevant information in a glance: phrases replace sentences; all "above the fold"
- Provide a clear path from landing pages to the Visitor's goal
- Remove all obstacles in the path to conversion (long forms, distractions, poor navigation, distrust,...)
- Give the Visitor a reason to trust you (trust symbols, familiar brands, guarantees, testimonials, samples and case studies)
- Utilize web analytics to test alternate page designs, analyze traffic and click-paths
- Utilize social media and other channels to learn how to better engage (don't just use these to hype your products)
- Analyze keywords and search engine traffic to provide relevant landing pages for your intended audience
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