Web design may seem complicated, but it doesn’t have to be! There are simple things you can do to your website to generate more traffic. We understand that our clients aren’t design pros, so here are 5 tips to help maintain and grow your website’s success.
1. Make sure your web designs are responsive
“Responsive design” is far more than a trend. It’s the primary suggested technique for designing and developing websites. It provides a cohesive user experience across all devices – no matter the size of the screen (mobile, tablet, phablet, desktop, etc). This is especially important because the number of searches that happen from a mobile device just continues to increase. Statista reported: 52.2% of all website traffic worldwide was generated from mobile phones. The research also showed that each year the percentage is increasing. This means if you’re not mobile-friendly, you are likely to be left behind.
2. Remember your website is for your customers, not for you
When you are designing your website, it is easy to want it to look and function the way you like. But, it’s important to research and design a website that is visually attractive and easy to use for your target audience. Review your analytics and see where your users are getting stuck or falling off and how they are flowing through your website. Do keyword research and figure out what questions you need to answer for them. They want an authority to rely on. Your website is the perfect tool to make you their resource – if you remember to design and organize your website for your customers.
3. Check all page links to ensure they function properly
Nothing is more frustrating to a website user than clicking on a link that leads you nowhere or to a page you weren’t trying to access. Make sure to regularly test your website’s links! If you haven’t read through each of your website pages in a while, do so. Click the links and check the accuracy. This is also a good opportunity to add internal links to pages with related content on your site that may be useful to your visitors.
4. Pay attention to page speed
With mobile usage increasing, fast loading time on pages has become crucial. Pages with a longer load time usually have a higher bounce rate (visit and leave your site without interacting with anything). This means that customers will likely spend less time on your page. Earlier this year, Google uploaded research that showed: 53% of mobile site visitors leave a page that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Essentially – the faster your page loads, the more likely website visitors will stay on your page. Check your page speed with Google’s online free tool.
5. Make it secure
A majority of people recognize HTTPS as the beginning of a URL, but don’t know that it ensures the data sent between your website and a visitor is encrypted. HTTPS stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure and appears in a URL when a website is secured by an SSL certificate. In addition to security, SSL protection can help improve your SEO ranking and build trust with your website visitors. In July 2018, Google Chrome started warning users that a website is not using HTTPS and isn’t secure.
Other web browsers are starting to send similar messages too. If people see this on your website, they will more than likely leave your page.
There are many things you can add to your site to make it successful. at McMillen Marketing we understand that websites can be challenging and time consuming. But the good news is we are always available to help. Contact our team to set up an appointment and discuss improvements to your site.
