5 Questions Every Website Owner Should Ask
Not all websites are created equal. The design, functionality, usability, layout and flow of your website will all have an impact on the amount of traffic your website receives and how much of that traffic you are able to convert into sales for your business.
Here are five questions you can ask yourself to help improve the performance of your website:
1. WHAT DO I WANT WEBSITE VISITORS TO DO WHEN THEY VISIT MY SITE?
List the 3 most important actions you want website visitors to perform when they land on your website. Examples include subscribing to your mailing list, calling you, buying a product, booking an appointment or viewing your previous work. Think about why you created your website in the first place and make sure these actions are inline. Once you've determined the top 3 actions it's important to ensure these actions can be performed by a website visitor with minimal effort. Place easy to find buttons in the main navigation, footer or sidebar of your site.
2. CAN I GET TO EVERY PAGE WITHIN 3 CLICKS FROM THE HOME PAGE?
No one likes a busy website. Keep it simple and easy to navigate with a menu that contains under 10 links. Every minute spent finding the right information on your website is a minute your customers would rather spend doing something else. You don't want to risk a potential customer exiting your site because it was taking too long. Respect their time and give them what they're looking for quickly.
3. HAS YOUR WEBSITE BEEN SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISED (SEO)?
It's no good having a website if no one can find it. SEO (search engine optimisation) is needed if you want your website to show up in search results. What are the major keywords people will use to find you? Ensure these are used throughout your website. But that's just one small part of SEO. You'll also need to ensure your website has heading tags, meta descriptions, compressed images, alt text, a sitemap and a bunch of other mumbo jumbo words that sound complicated. There is too much to SEO to list it all here, so read up about it and check that your website is searchable. Try searching your keywords and see where your website shows up. Keep working at it and you'll move higher up the search results.
4. IS MY WEBSITE SECURE?
Security is something most website owners have never thought about. However, if you collect any information at all, even if it's just an email address, you MUST have a secure website. You will know if your website is secure because it will begin with HTTPS instead of HTTP and your browser will display a secure lock symbol at the start of the address bar. Google is now punishing any website without a security certificate so not having one is only hurting you.
5. DO I GET COMPLIMENTS ON MY WEBSITE?
Compliments let you know your website is worth visiting. Your friends, family and staff will probably tell you it looks good, but what about people who don't know you? People who have no bias. If you are getting compliments from these people, in particular your customers, your website is probably amazing and so are you. If not, maybe it's time for a refresh.