How to Improve Your Website’s Effectivity & Performance

If you run a business, or even just operate as a freelancer, your website will play a big part in your success, or lack of it. Our entire lives have shifted online to some extent. We buy online, sell online, socialise online, bank online, and browse online. So, if your website is lagging behind, your business will be lagging behind too.

There’s no excuse for having a poor website nowadays. It’s quite simple to design a slick, navigable site that shows off your business. You can use pre-designed templates available online. Or if you want to push the boat out, you can hire a professional developer to give you something even better and more unique. You need to improve website performance.

Your website may not need a complete overhaul, though. So don’t be put off by the task at hand. It might be a lot simpler than you think. There are some quick and simple ways as well as more complex ones, that will improve your site exponentially. This guide will introduce you to a few of them.

Responsive Web Design

Were you and your business just getting used to the internet on computers? Well, I’ve got bad news for you. Computers are out of fashion; people browse the internet on their phones and tablet devices! Keep up.

This is a problem for your website if you’re not using a responsive web design. The way web pages are presented on a phone or tablet is different to how they’re presented on a regular computer. Responsive web design allows people to access your mobile site in the same form as your regular site. This is vital because if your website isn’t recognisable or too difficult to operate, people will just stop visiting.

Use Social Media Effectively

Social media usage doesn’t just end when you log off Twitter and Facebook. You should add icons that link to your various social media profiles at the top of your homepage. This is a great start. You can also have a box that provides a feed of what you’ve been posting on Twitter and Facebook. Hopefully, this will then spur people on to follow you.

It works both ways, though. Make sure you’re also using social media to link back to your website. Make it a full circle. Another great idea is to use an app for your company that links back to both your social media feeds and your main website. If you don’t know how to create an app, there are lots of companies that offer mobile app development in London that can help you out.

Focus on Your Shop Front

Think about it, the first thing visitors to your website will see is your home page. So make it appealing to them! There’s no use in having great pages, products, and info elsewhere on the website if people are turning away at the sight of your landing page.

Your landing page should make it simple and straightforward for visitors to take action and to do what you want them to do. Offer your product or service up front, tell people what you can give them. Being elusive won’t serve any purpose at all.

To improve website performance, use a CDN

A CDN is a content delivery network. It’s a collection of web servers that are distributed so that content is given, in a more efficient way, to the website visitor. Basically, it means that your website will be much quicker and more efficient. Depending on where the user is located they will receive the content differently. What a CDN does is make sure they receive it in the best way possible.

This is important because if your website users are made to wait or get frustrated, then they might just regard your company as poor and unprofessional. And then they won’t buy from you.

Monitor Your Site Results and Figures

These days, web analytics are huge. If you’re sitting there wondering what web analytics is, then we need to change that. Luckily for you, web analytics software such as Google Analytics is free to use. So take advantage of them!

Web analytics is the process of monitoring who is visiting your site. As well as how often, where your traffic is coming from, what your conversion rate is, and how long it takes before they decide it’s time to leave. Once you have all this valuable data in your possession, you can start using it to improve your website.

Add an ‘About Us’ Page

Do visitors to your website have any idea who you are and what you do? If the answer to that question is ‘no’, your website is failing badly. An ‘About Us’ page is a way to rectify this mistake. You must have seen them on other people’s websites; all the good ones have them.

It can be pretty simple, just let them know who you are and what services you’re offering to them. Also, include a contact box so customers can email you with enquiries. Adding a business address is a good idea too.

Fulfill Your Aims

To fulfill the aims of your website, you have to set them first! Ask yourself a few questions. Why do I have a website? What do I want my website to bring to my business? Once you’ve got a clear idea of what you want from your website, go about making it happen.

If you want your website to increase your sales, make it clear that your products can be purchased on the website. Also, make sure your website is secure enough to handle cash transactions, or just use a PayPal business account for this. Whatever you want your website to do, only you can make it happen.

Hopefully, these ideas will get you thinking! It’s impossible to overestimate the role the internet plays in making businesses a success or a failure. Make sure yours is the former and not the latter!