Check up your website: 10 things you need to evaluate

When was the last time you updated your website? It is the first point of contact for a majority of your clients and it's important to keep it in good shape. Here are ten points of concern and best practices to follow. Take care of these and your website's performance and ranking will be top-notch.

Mobile version

The iPhone has been around since 2007, yet a lot of websites still appear broken when viewed with a mobile browser. More than 50% of web searches are made with a mobile device, so make it your top priority. Make sure it loads fast, has user-friendly navigation and the text blocks could be read without zooming in.

Speed

No one has extra time to wait for bloated, slow websites. It is a fact that a user won’t hesitate to close the tab if it is stuck loading. Different studies show different bounce rate statistics, but a good rule of thumb is to keep loading time below 5 seconds. There are tools available that will highlight bottlenecks and give you insight into the performance of your website across devices.

Relevant and correctly sized images

Large image size is one of the main loading speed bottlenecks. Make sure your images are compressed and that there are no extra images that are adding unnecessary strain.

Titles and headings

Every page on your website should have an original and descriptive title and at least one heading. It is beneficial for both your visitors and search engines.

Metadata

Metadata is simply data about data. On a website titles, descriptions, tags, and preview images are the most important bits of metadata. When someone shares a link on social media like Twitter or Facebook, social metadata is used to create informative preview cards. It is also important for search ranking. Learn where these fields are in your CMS and take an extra minute to fill them in when publishing a new article.

Content

Your copy should be original, straightforward, and rid of errors. Proofread it carefully, edit and shorten if necessary. Do not put in too many keywords. Fluent, concise text is the best bet for improving conversion. Did you know that Google can check the originality of the text on a webpage to discern clones? You don’t want your website to come off as another clone, do you?

Social media

Your business will look more trustworthy both to customers and search engines if there are links to social media accounts. Make sure that links are up to date and could be located easily. Then just wait a little bit and you can start counting your new followers!

Accessibility

Roughly 3% of users rely on a screen reader to browse the web. It is important to make your website accessible. The text on your website should have enough contrast against the background to be readable for visitors with impaired vision. Make sure to add ‘alt’ descriptions to all images and make your CTAs are formulated well. Imagine browsing a web page with a screen-reader and “hovering” over a button, only to hear a confusing “More” instead of something like “Learn more about our product”. 

Broken links

Found what you were looking for, only to click the link and stare at a 404 page. Disappointing. It is really easy to rename an article, but forget to update internal or external links pointing to it.

There are tools available that could check links on your website. It’s fast and would save you from losing customers.

Secure connection

Have you ever noticed a lock icon to the left of the address in your browser? This is a sign that a website has an SSL (Standard Sockets Layer) certificate which enables a secure connection. Don’t be frightened – SSL is just the name of the technology. When enabled – third parties won’t be able to intercept anything a visitor submits to the website: order forms, personal data, email address. If you don’t have an SSL certificate, contact your hosting provider and ask them to issue one.

Now you know what pitfalls to look out for and how to make your website shine. A checkup doesn’t take a lot of time, but could drastically improve your conversion. Evaluate your website – stay ahead of the game.