Businesses looking to make an influence online should have a website designed well and easy to navigate. Your website should be updated on a regular basis so that it performs optimally, for your business to make a great first impression.
Your website needs changes or an update in the following areas:
- Design
- Development
- Content
- Hosting
- Perception
Your website performance is affected by the above factors. Website performance means how well your website is doing to make you and your business money. As with most things in life, there are usually warning signs, which are sometimes only obvious once you know what the signs actually are.
So we’ve put together seven of the common warnings signs that you need to make changes in your website to perform well.
Here they are:
Long Website Load Time
Users are frustrated when a website loads slow. People expect things to be quick, so they are getting access to faster Internet connections. If a website loads slow, people will move on to other websites as they will lose interest. Your visitors will move on to other sites if there is a delay of a few seconds, as website speeds are improving constantly. Your website is in competition with everyone and everything as you can do many things online.
Click to know how much traffic is your website losing due to slow speed
You need to get to work to make your website quick loading if you notice that your site is loading slowly. Your website could be slow due to a number of reasons. For preventing further loss of customers, your website may need an update. Few things including your design, coding framework, and hosting can cause your website to load slow. For making your website load faster, you might sometimes have to eliminate some elements. Making your website simple makes it load faster, which is better for the visitors and hence for your business.
Related Article: Seven Ways to Improve Your Website Load Time/Speed
Low Update Frequency
When you notice that your website traffic is low, think of introducing new information/features. Google values fresh content, therefore without fresh content there is fewer chance people will discover your website, so you need to update your content off and on. Even if you have great content, you probably won’t rank well in search engines without frequent website updates taking place. You will start to see your website traffic increase over time when you update your site regularly with content such as blog posts, videos, and guides.
Low Conversion
Maybe you’re getting some good site traffic, but those visitors are not getting converted into customers. Most people who visit your site will move on if they get confused. People will not call you and ask any questions. When people are confused and frustrated on your website, it results in low conversion.
Start by preparing your sales cycle. Create a website design and structure that takes visitors from the point of discovery to the point of purchase according to your sales cycle. Make an informed purchase by giving them everything they need. There will be an increase in your conversion and your long-term customer satisfaction as well.
Must Read: Is your SEO generating Business? Take a re-look at your keywords!
Poor Mobile Experience
Your website needs to be optimized for mobile and tablet devices, even if it may look excellent on a computer. Many users are still there who cannot accept that mobile devices are preferred for viewing websites.
In ten countries including U.S. and Japan as stated by Google, mobile devices are used for more searches than desktops. Visitors will move on to other sites (most likely your competitor’s websites) if your site is not accessible, while they are waiting in line for coffee or sitting on the couch during a commercial break.
The Internet is immensely more accessible and Google searches are more convenient by use of mobile devices. Your website should be mobile-friendly if not, you could miss out on a large chunk of traffic as there are many visitors who make use of mobile devices instead of desktop computers for accessing websites.
Your Website is not Optimized for Search Engines
Fresh web content should be used to update your website regularly. The content should be closely connected to your user’s search query. For generating the best search results, search engines are updated on a regular basis eg. Google, Bing, etc. If your website ranks lower in search results, your SEO planning may be outdated.
Your website is found by search engines with the help of SEO (search engine optimization). When you carry out best practices of SEO and stay up to date with algorithms of search engines, Google will rank your website higher which will result in organic traffic.
Off-page optimizing for search engines requires work outside your website which includes things like blog posting/commenting, social media marketing, directory submission, social bookmarking, article submission, image/video submission, PPT/PDF submission, forum submission, backlinks (incoming hyperlinks), etc.
Broken Links
When users click on a broken link, it sends them to web pages that do not exist. Seeing the “404-Page Not Found” error is annoying when you are browsing a website. Broken links affect your website’s ease of use, reputation, and Search Engine Optimization badly. Search engine crawlers stop indexing your site and crawl to the next site when broken links are found. So pages won’t get indexed as they may not get crawled.
Little Social Sharing
For building your reputation as a great business, social sharing must be done.
For a social media strategy, you need content as a starting point. People need something to share excluding your homepage. Give people something useful to share like links, quotes, retweets, questions and comments, blog posts, images, videos, etc. To encourage discussion, you can share your own questions and comments.
Your website traffic will increase which is one of the biggest benefits of social sharing. People will be directed to your website with the help of social sharing. Your search ranking will increase when you receive more social media shares.
It also helps to have a great design that gives people a good experience.