When was the last time you updated your website? Websites need regular attention and that may seem daunting – but your site and your business deserve it. Pay attention to your site’s performance so your visitors have a great experience with your site. If not, they may go elsewhere. Here are five areas of your site that you want to check and make necessary improvements to your site’s performance. These are website improvements that you can do this week on your own or contact Blue Anchor Digital to help you.
#1 Mobile-Friendliness
Does your site function on mobile devices?
Your site must work on mobile devices!
In 2015, Google stated, “We’re boosting the ranking of mobile-friendly pages on mobile search results.” Plus, mobile searches passed desktop searches in 2015 and mobile use continues to grow.
Google provides a free tool to check your site’s mobile responsiveness – Mobile-Friendly Test
If your site is already responsive (resizes properly for mobile devices) then look through each page and see how it looks to mobile users, is it easy to navigate? An easy fix is to make your phone number and email address clickable so someone can contact you directly from your site while on their phone.
#2 Website Upload Speed
According to Google’s latest research, the time it takes to load the average mobile landing page is 22 seconds. However, research also indicates 53% of people will leave a mobile page if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
How quickly is your site loading? Check your site with one of these tests. If your site is not loading quickly the tools offer suggestions to optimize your site’s speed. See #3 for an area that can improve your site speed.
Test your website’s speed
#3 Image Optimization
The smaller the image file the faster the upload. Uses images that are only as large as you need.
Images should be sized correctly for the area of your site where they will be located. Before you upload an image, compress it so it is as small as possible. A nice image compression tool is TinyPNG.
#4 Update Old Content
Google prefers to deliver up-to-date content in search results. Go through your past posts and make updates.
- Check the readability, does the content make sense to visitors?
- Update information – if there are changes in your industry or products this is a good time to update your content.
- Check external links, if you have linked to other sites or resources make sure the links still work.
- Optimize your content for keywords or phrases that your customers use when searching online.
- Check your About page – is everything still current?
#5 Fix Broken Page Links
Users don’t want to land on a page that doesn’t deliver what they were expecting. The dreaded 404 page not found error code is frustrating for site visitors so make sure your site is delivering as promised. This usually happens when someone changes a page name but this can be easily remedied with what is called a 301 Redirect.
Not sure how to fix those broken links? Contact us and we can redirect those pages so no one ever receives an error code when visiting your site.
To find missing pages on your site, check your Google Search Console (Crawl > Crawl Errors) or use an online tool like Broken Link Checker.
After running these tests you will see areas on your website that you can update to improve its performance. You want your site to appeal to new and current visitors, make sure your site loads quickly, has good content and works correctly on phones and tablets. If you would like help improving your site contact us today!
Want more tips you can use to improve your website & SEO?