What makes a good website? A practical guide for businesses on the Costa Blanca
What makes a good website?
Many businesses on the Costa Blanca have a website. But if you look honestly at many local websites, you quickly notice the same problem. The site exists, but it does not really work.
Visitors arrive and leave again.
Contact forms are rarely used.
And sometimes the website simply feels confusing or unfinished.
That is usually not a coincidence.
Research shows that about 75% of people judge the credibility of a business based on the design of its website. [source]
In other words, long before someone knows your company, they have already formed an opinion about it. And that opinion is often based entirely on your website.
For many businesses on the Costa Blanca, the website is the first real contact a potential client has with the company.
A good website is not just beautiful
Many entrepreneurs think a website mainly needs to look good.
But a good website actually has a very simple job. It must help visitors quickly understand what the company does and what they should do next.
When someone lands on a website, they rarely read every word. People scan pages visually and decide within seconds whether they want to continue.
If visitors cannot quickly understand:
- what your company does
- who your service is for
- how they can contact you
they will simply move on to another website.
And on the Costa Blanca there are usually plenty of alternatives.
Small details determine whether a website feels professional
A website does not need to be big or complicated to work well. But it does need to feel professional.
On websites that were quickly built or created by hobby designers you often see small things that immediately reduce trust.
For example:
- text that is poorly aligned
- buttons that do not look clickable
- menus that are confusing
- placeholder text such as
“Slide title”
or
“Write your caption here”
These may seem like small details. Visitors notice them immediately.
When a website feels unfinished, the business behind it often feels less professional as well.
When design becomes difficult to read
Another problem many business owners do not recognise is colour contrast.
Some websites use colour combinations that look attractive in a design mock-up but become difficult to read on an actual screen.
For example:
- light grey text on a white background
- purple text on a purple background
- buttons that barely stand out
On a laptop it may still look acceptable. On a phone or in bright sunlight it suddenly becomes much harder to read.
You can check this very easily using a tool like:
https://coolors.co/contrast-checker
You simply enter the colour of the text and the colour of the background. The tool then shows whether the contrast is strong enough.
International accessibility guidelines recommend that normal text should have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 to remain readable on different screens and for users with reduced vision.
When the contrast is far below that level, reading becomes harder and visitors leave more quickly.
Mobile matters more than many businesses realise
Many websites are still designed as if visitors mainly view them on a laptop.
In reality, a large part of website traffic now comes from mobile phones.
That is where you immediately see whether a website has been built properly.
Typical problems on poorly designed websites include:
- buttons that are too small
- menus that do not open properly
- text overlapping images
- forms that are difficult to fill in
When a website does not work smoothly on mobile, visitors often leave within seconds.
The invisible quality of a good website
A good website is not only about design. You also notice it in the way the website feels.
A fast website feels light.
You click somewhere and the page responds immediately.
A poorly built website feels heavy.
Pages load slowly. Elements move around. Buttons react late.
For visitors this small difference often determines whether they stay or leave.
Why this matters even more for businesses on the Costa Blanca
For many businesses on the Costa Blanca the first contact with a customer happens online.
- Tourists search for activities.
- New residents search for services.
- Property buyers search for agents.
And almost always that journey starts with a website.
If the first impression is not convincing, visitors simply move to another site. There are always alternatives.
Learn more about websites and SEO
If you want to learn more about websites, design mistakes and search visibility, you can also read these articles:
Common website design mistakes
What SEO means for businesses on the Costa Blanca
