If your website has been around for any length of time, you’ve probably gone through a redesign or at least a round of significant updates. Hopefully, each time has been a great success and you’ve never looked back. But for the rest of us there’s likely been at least one time when we thought...OMG, what have we done?

Today, creating a successful website is a skill in its own right. Not only do you need a great graphic design, you also have to consider usability, speed, mobile-friendliness, optimization, analytics, functionality...the list goes on and on. But at its core, a website serves a purpose for an audience. The purpose may vary, as will the audience, but the ultimate goal remains the same. Provide that audience with a successful online experience. And sometimes it’s easy to overlook some of the most basic requirements needed to do that.

For more than 20 years WRIS Web Services has been building websites and web-based applications. We do a lot of other things, too, but the heart of our work is in the creation of beautiful, hard-working websites that make clients and their customers happy.

Up until 1992, the world had to wait 4 years to experience the Olympics. Both the Summer and Winter Games were held in the same calendar year. Then the decision was made to begin alternating the games so that we only had to wait 2 years between games. So in 1992, both games were held, then in ‘94 just the Winter, ‘96 just the Summer, ‘98 the Winter, ‘00 the Summer, and etc.

When is the last time you changed the look of your website? Or made some serious content updates? If you can’t remember, it’s been too long.

Whether you’ve had your website for decades or you are starting from scratch, there are a few elements or features that every website really needs to have.