Newspaper articles need to explain who, what, when, where, why, how. Anything less than those elements doesn’t tell the whole story. Websites also need to tell a story. Someone visiting for the first time should be able to know what you’re about and what you do without thinking too hard. Thinking too hard, in Web terms, means clicking off your page.
Here are the questions you should be able to answer easily if your website is well built:
1. What is the site all about? What’s its identity and reason for being?
2. Where do site visitors begin?
3. What’s the site structure? Does it have a clear hierarchy?
4. How do visitors search for things?
Pose those questions to your site, and if you can answer quickly and concretely, you know it has good bones.