Have you ever visited a website that made you click the back button the moment you see the interface or try to open a link? If yes, you would know just how frustrating it is for the visitors to encounter such a website. But the website owner might still be expecting to get customers, expand his business, or receive new job applications. What he or she needs is a website redesign primarily to improve its performance.
Why do you have a website?
The first and foremost question you need an answer to is what does your website do and why you have it. This means you need to define a few clear objectives that you want your website to achieve. If you haven’t already done this step, it’s time you did. Here are examples of a few website goals;
- Improve customer satisfaction
- Provide more security than your competitors
- Expand your email subscription list
- Improve search engine visibility
- Enhance interface for better connection
Usually business websites exist to provide not just information on services and products but also contact details so that potential clients may reach your team to avail the services you offer. If you’re striving to improve your visibility, which is a goal all types of websites have, you should first jot down a list of keywords for which you want to show up in search engine results. Once you know these terms, you can easily optimize your site to get more visitors through search engines.
Is your website delivering?
It’s easy and straight forward to set up a website, publish a few articles, upload some images, and make it live. But how would you know if your site is actually delivering? This can be achieved by gauging its performance using some really helpful tools. Here are a few examples;
Google Analytics is one of the most widely-used analytics tool with a friendly and easy-to-understand interface telling you things like which of your campaigns is bringing the most traffic as well as conversions, user demographics, the links people click on most of the time, and many other useful data. You can use this information to improve your site and make it more user-friendly.
Hotjar is another popular tool that allows you to measure behavior of different users on your website and fetch real-time data on what users are currently doing on your website. This is helpful for identifying most-visited pages and most-clicked links. Moreover, you can recognize areas that need improvement if a certain user is finding it difficult to take an action.
Areas of improvement
Now that you know how users interact with your website, you can identify some areas of improvement. If your website is not performing well, there might be some issues with the development. Here are a few reasons why most websites fail to deliver;
Not designed for mobile devices
Most people nowadays check a website on their mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Is your site mobile-friendly? There are many platforms that you may use to create a mobile website, which is easy to navigate, provides a clear menu selection, gives categories to choose from, and provides contact information and other details in the footer area. It has been found that around 65% of the website traffic comes from smartphones.
Difficult contact forms
Whether you have an ecommerce site or a niche blog, contact forms are required to interact with your visitors. But if these forms are too long and require a lot of time to fill out, chances of users hitting the back button are high. Make it short and simple; asking only the important things and keep your visitors happy.
Slow loading
People usually arrive at websites through search engines and they check out the first ten results before clicking on one of the links. If they find your website to be too slow, they will eventually hit the back button and click on one of your competitors’ URL. Ouch, it hurts! One of the major reasons for this slow loading is cheap web hosting. Many new website owners might not be aware of this but getting inexpensive hosting plan may cost you a lot of money in the long run.
How are the best websites delivering?
Websites are designed to achieve different purposes. Some need more content and less images to achieve their goal, whereas others work better if they have a clear-cut menu and a list of products and services clearly laid-out. Here are some of the points that make websites stand out from the rest;
- A great first impression – Although meeting the objectives is one of the most important things, an impressive look captures the user attention before offering anything else. So, make sure your website looks good among other things.
- Mobile-friendly – If your users are unable to use the “call to action” feature on a mobile device, you’re losing a great deal of money even if the percentage of mobile visitors is less than 50%. Mobile sites are easy to navigate and the user doesn’t have to zoom in to read the content of the website. If your website is not designed for mobile devices, it’s time you made some changes.
- Easy contact forms – Many people might overlook this feature but having a simple and easy contact form is one of the major reasons most websites deliver.
Using professional help – Whether you like it or not, at some point you are going to need professional help either for search engine optimization or for using analytic tools professionally. Not everyone can understand the metrics these tools provide in order to take intelligent decisions for your business. So, the sooner you hire professional help the better.
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