Have you checked the performance of your website lately? Have you put much thought into whether you’ve set your website up for success and have all the right tools in place to make it happen?
If not, it is something that you should consider doing. Let me give you a head start by providing you with some simple known ways to improve your business website.
Redesign
How old is your website? If it’s more than a few years old it’s most likely time for a redesign. Technology advances so quickly and your website may need a complete technology overhaul. Also if your website looks outdated compared to current design trends, remember first impressions are everything when people visit your website.
In addition, the cyber world is moving to a minimalistic and simplistic design. So elements that clutter, complicate or make your website confusing should be removed. One of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes is, “Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” Many people fail to realize that less is more, even with web design.
Page Load Times
Google prefers sites to load in under 2 seconds. In order to comply with Google’s standards you are going to have to have a great hosting service. Additionally, you have to be careful with extensions and plugins because they can hurt your website. The loading time of your site plays a part in how well you rank in the search engines.
Content Analysis
Your site’s content always needs to be of the highest quality. Not to mention, awesome content is taking over the digital world. Savvy website owners use their blog to brand themselves as a subject matter expert by sharing their industry knowledge. Also Google likes frequently updated websites with content that engages users. So keep the blogging going, the more crawlable content for search engines the better. Websites should no longer be glorified business cards with static content that never changes.
Social Media Connecting & Sharing
When visitors come to your site, you want them to connect with you and share your content across their social media networks. Once they arrive on your site, it should be easy for them to follow you and share your content. If you’re blogging regularly you can share this content on your social networks to get your target audience back on your website to hopefully convert them into a lead or paying customer. Ensure you have a strong clear messaging for visitors.
Messaging and Calls to Action
If you’ve been paying attention to changes in design trends you’ll notice that most homepages of many websites consist of a short simple message with a call to action. Even though the message is short, it’s designed to be powerful to display their value in the marketplace. You have to use clear and compelling offers for your visitors if you want them to move on to the next step. This is what will increase your conversation rate, converting visitors into leads or paying customers. This goes along with the simplistic design. Your messaging needs to be simplistic but highly effective.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
While you’re busy blogging, proper on-page SEO techniques should be used. You still need to write for your visitors but you also have to make sure that the search engines can crawl your website too. Google is consistently changing its guidelines; however, there are great plugins you can install to help you with your on-page SEO. One of the most important performance goals for your website is to be found in popular search engines.
Mobile Responsive
If your website is not mobile responsive you need to get to work on making it mobile friendly right away. Your site should look great on desktops, smart phone, and tablets. If you’re checked your website statistics the majority of your website traffic is likely coming from mobile devices.
If you work on the elements that have been listed, you will improve your sites performance making it a powerful strategic tool in your business. Which of these things do you need to do to improve your website performance?
