Do you know how to improve a website? Did you know that there are 1.8 billion websites online? If you run a website, you need to work hard to make yours stand out from the crowd.
There are many facets to running a site and if you want to increase website traffic, you’ll need to focus your attention on several different aspects.
How to Improve a Website Performance?
So, how do you go about improving a website?
In this article, we’ll be talking about how to improve a website.
Use Attractive Calls to Action
Your visitors are used to following visual prompts to determine the content that is relevant to them. Using clearly marked calls to action (CTAs) with an action that needs to be completed lets users navigate the site easily.
When you create CTA buttons for your site, think about what color you’re making them. Psychology dictates that certain colors make users think a particular thing about your site.
The next thing to think of is the wording of your CTA. Include a verb that excites the user into completing an action. Using the right wording is important. Use time-sensitive language such as “sign up now” or action-oriented wording such as “get started.”
Test Your Website
Your website needs to run at its best, and you need to be confident that it’s going to do that. One way that you can do this is by regularly carrying out tests on your site.
There are many different tests you can use, including A/B testing, when you make a major change.
You may also want to consider using heat maps or session replay to learn how users are interacting with your site. On this site, you can watch back any important sessions to help uncover user intent and inform changes on your site.
Optimize Your Page Speed
Users expect websites to load instantly. If your site doesn’t load within a few seconds, your visitors may start to grow impatient and click on a rival site instead. You should do everything possible to make sure that your site loads quickly.
Run Google’s PageSpeed Insights to find recommendations based on things that may be slowing your site down.
Some of the actions that you may need to take include turning on caching, using a lazy load plugin, uninstalling unused plugins and themes, and compressing your images.
Use Images
To make your website appealing, you should use images wherever possible. There is a caveat, however. You should avoid using images that look like stock photos. Internet users are savvy and they can spot a stock photo from a mile off.
Using stock images can erode trust and take away from the uniqueness of your proposition.
Instead, you should look to fill your site with original images that add value to your text.
Make Sure Your Website Is Easy to Navigate
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to the layout of your site; there are no prizes for being too innovative. Users expect to find things like menus in certain places, and a site should be laid out in a logical manner.
There’s nothing worse than a site that is confusingly arranged. Make sure you don’t overfill your navigation menus, use confusing or vague language in your navigation text, or lay your menus out in a confusing way.
If users are not able to find what they need, they’ll probably not stick around. Instead, they’ll head straight to your nearest competitor’s site.
Find Your 404s
Nobody likes dead ends. If your site is littered with “404 page not found” errors, then you’ll end up losing your visitors.
While a search engine might not penalize you for having 404 errors, visitors to your site might.
Run regular checks on your website to make sure all of your pages are visible on a crawl.
Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly
These days, more people are using smartphones to access the internet, and mobile devices have surpassed desktop use. For this reason, you should ensure your site is completely mobile-friendly.
Follow these simple website design tips to ensure your pages open on a mobile device:
- Make sure your text is clearly visible on mobile devices
- Make sure images are neither too big nor too small
- All links and buttons can be easily pressed from a phone
The last thing users want is to have to pinch or zoom in to access content on your site.
Focus On Your Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is vital if you want to attract visitors to your site. SEO is the practice of making sure your site is optimized so that it ranks higher in the search engine results pages.
Although there are many types of websites, SEO is applicable to them all.
SEO includes optimizing your keywords to ensure you’re ranking for the things that matter most to your business. It also includes practices such as link-building.
Keep Your Pages Consistent
To improve the navigation experience of your site, you should ensure that you keep your site consistent. This means making sure that all of your headers, fonts, and color schemes match throughout your site.
Inconsistent pages not only look messy, but they can also be confusing to visitors. In turn, these drastic changes from one page to the next might cause users to lose trust in your site.
Conclusion
To improve your site, carry out regular tests, work on the look and feel, and optimize it for speed and mobile use.
By following the tips in this guide, you will hopefully know how to improve a website so that the experience of your users is as good as it can possibly be.
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