Making improvements to your small business website can be as simple as regularly updating, connecting to social media, and investing in a good hosting service. With major Google search engine updates rolling out regularly and changing user expectations, you have to frequently improve your website to get discovered in search engine results.
If you are not sure where to begin or even what needs to change, keep reading for an easy guide on the ways to improve a website.
Whether you need to improve your website on the technical end, produce more engaging content, or are simply looking for website improvement ideas in general, you will stumble on what you are searching for.
Let us begin with the more technical website improvement ideas, then move on to the creative ones.
Make Your Website Mobile-Responsive
As per Statista, 69% of Google searches are performed on smartphones now. In addition, Google’s search engine prioritizes discovering and cataloging mobile versions of websites over desktop versions.
These two facts alone tell you why you need a mobile-responsive website.
“Mobile-responsive” signifies that your web pages load well on both desktop and mobile devices. Your page display will change depending on the device a viewer is using to search. Make use of the mobile-friendliness test of Google to get a general idea of how mobile-friendly your web pages are.
A good mobile-responsive website displays well on every screen size, has easily digestible information, and is stable on mobile devices. In order to make a website more mobile responsive:
- Select a mobile-responsive web builder and template
- Make text large and hyperlinks simple to click on
- Get rid of long block text in favour of shorter paragraphs, bullet points, and visuals
- Make buttons large enough that a user can click on them
- Minimize animation usage
- Make images (infographics, in particular) large and straightforward to scan
Your mobile website should not be a scaled-down version of your desktop website. It should be a stripped-down version that is way simpler to navigate.
Reduce Page Loading Times
Google search engines and users prefer quick-loading webpages over slow ones. If your pages load slowly, Google will not rank them highly. More importantly, users will get impatient and leave your website.
Slow loading pages are defined as pages that take over two seconds to load. Use Google PageSpeed Insights to check the loading time of any webpage. Consider doing the following to improve page speed:
- Invest in good web hosting – Web hosting is a service that allows you to post your website online via special computers called servers. When anybody clicks on a webpage, the computers “serve” them your page. It is worth it to invest in the best web hosting providers with the fastest server load times.
- Register with a CDN (Content Delivery Network) – A CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a set of data centers worldwide where your web pages can live temporarily. All you have to do is register your website on the CDN nearest to the majority of your website’s viewers so they can access content faster.
- Optimize images – Large, high-resolution images take a long time to load. Compress your photos with a plugin or website to reduce load times. Better yet, convert all your jpeg or png images to WebP format. WebP produces the most petite image sizes, yet the compressed images are visually indistinguishable from the originals.
- Get rid of unnecessary add-ons – Periodically audit your website to eliminate any plugins, apps, and files that you do not use. Ensure that you do not have two add-ons that do similar or similar things.
- Select fonts intentionally – Use a free Google font or “web-safe” font such as Times New Roman. Such sorts of fonts load quickly and are easy on the eyes. Include one or two fonts to the max on your website.
- Place fast-loading content first – Web pages load top-to-bottom, meaning that the content at the top of the page loads first. Place “heavier” elements such as maps, image galleries, and related posts lower on the page.
- Incorporate asynchronous loading – Asynchronous loading, also known as “lazy loading” is a technique where different elements load at different times, so users can still interact with a page even when other “heavier” features are still loading. Web builders such as BigCommerce and WordPress have add-ons that enable lazy loading.
- Reduce redirects – When you send a user from one URL to another, this is a redirect. Sending users from one URL to another can slow the loading speed. You might redirect users when you change your business name or send them to a page with updated content. Use a free tool such as Screaming Frog SEO Spider to identify redirects you do not need, then remove them.
Keep in mind that a few web builders do not develop simple solutions for decreasing page speed. Optimize what you can, but do not go too deep into the code of your website unless you feel comfortable doing so.
Keep Your Website Secure
Every website should have an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate. SSL certificates are a sign of website security for people, browsers, and Google search engine bots. You can get one from your web hosting provider. However, there may be more cost-effective and feature-rich SSL options elsewhere. Shop around prior to committing to anything. Ensure to renew your SSL prior to it expires, or your website may have a lapse in security.
Improve User Experience & Navigation of Your Website
The way websites get cataloged is this:
- Search engine robots of Google will look through pages of your website and try to make sense of them.
- If the bots understand the content and value of your web pages well, they will make your pages discoverable in organic search results. The better your website is, the higher it will rank, and the more visitors your website will have.
Google cares about providing users with the best browsing experience possible. Offer that high-quality experience, and you will rank higher in search results. The following are a few simple tools that you can consider adding to your website in order to improve navigation and user experience:
- Search Bar – Include a search bar throughout your website, ideally as part of your top menu bar.
- Categories – Add categories and subcategories to your website to help users stumble on precisely what they are in search of.
- Breadcrumbs – A “breadcrumb” is navigation that shows where a user is within a website.
- Internal Linking – Link different pages of your website together so users can quickly move through your website. Do not include too many links on any one page.
In conclusion
If you take anything away from this blog, let it be that your website represents your brand. A new visitor to your website should get a feel for exactly how you do business by the style and content on the webpage.
Dwarika Web Solutions is Milton’s best web design agency to approach to get a lead-generating website. At Dwarika Web Solutions, we celebrate 15 years of our company’s existence in the industry. Do not hesitate to ask about our free website promotions! If you are all set to start building your dream website in 2022, contact us at +1 (855) 561-4557 to speak with a strategist.