“Argh! What’s wrong with my website?”
Is there a single person who has a website — personal, business or nonprofit — who hasn’t asked this question a time or two (generally accompanied by moaning and wailing and gnashing of teeth)?
For people who rely on their website to gain members, sales or exposure to the global market, low or non-existent traffic can be discouraging and sometimes downright crazy-making.
So what is the problem?
There can be many issues involved, ranging from technical to appearance to content and figuring it out can be even more crazy-making. These issues can often involve web hosting, however reliable hosting providers such as hostiserver always strive to ensure that there are never any issues with hosting on one of their sites. It might be more convenient for those in canada to use web hosting canada because the servers will be closer, improving performance.
There are lots of things you can do to improve your website, but we’ll just take a quick overview here.
Technical
- Links: Do they work? Some search engines will penalize you if your links are broken. Not only that, but it will tick off your website visitors. Take a few minutes to check your links every so often just to make sure. Sometimes the gremlins get in there and mess things up! If you’ve got a ton of links, use BrokenLinkCheck (free) to check them all at once.
- Alt tags: Search engines cannot see photos, but they can read what those photos are if you give each one an “alt tag.” Using the appropriate keywords, label your photos using the alt tag field in your website’s back office. Alt tags will also help those people who have turned off the “view image” function in their browsers to see a description of the image. So make it count!
- Load time: Is there anything more annoying in the world than a website that takes forever to load? And by “forever,” I mean more than 10 seconds. People just don’t have the patience for that anymore; keep that in mind if you’re in love with flash. Here’s another free tool that will look at up to 20 pages and give you the load time on each.
Appearance
- Responsive design: Maybe the most important of all appearance issues is having a site that will display well on mobile devices. That is known as a responsive design. Google gives “extra credit” to mobile-friendly websites, so consider that when you’re contacting that Web Design Company in Toronto to renew your page’s looks. Plus, you want to make browsing your website easier anyway. Right?
- Colors: Not all colors are created equal when it comes to websites. What looks great on one monitor or device can be downright sickly on another. Find a list of web-safe colors here.
- Professionalism: Does your website look like it belongs to a serious, professional person or business or does it look like something that was thrown together by a third-grader? This is where your prospective members or clients will get their first look at you. Be sure you make a good first impression. Maybe if you’ve created the website yourself but now think it’s time to use the help of a professional, maybe someone like king kong seo agency could lead you on the right patch when it comes to finally having a professional looking website.
- Navigation: Is your menu logical and easy to use? Does it make sense? People will want to know these things about you: Who you are, what you do and what’s in it for them. Be sure to have a contact page as well.
- Images: Do you have attractive, appropriate images on your website? Do they accurately portray what you’re about? Be careful about using generic stock images and certainly don’t use copyrighted material without paying for it and/or getting permission. Pixabay has gorgeous images that are free to use, but their business images aren’t all that fabulous. Otherwise, research other sources of images that charge a nominal fee. C
Content
- New stuff: Search engines love new content, and the best way to provide that is through a blog. If you’ve already got a blog on a separate site, move it over to your website. Blog once a week.
- Keywords: Boy, can these be a pain the rear! Some people don’t have any keywords and others stuff their sites with them. Either way is a losing proposition. Your keywords should focus on what your prospects are looking for. Need some help? Check out ubersuggest.
- Social media: This is a great tool to send people to your website. Pick one or more social media sites (if you don’t have them already) and create content on them that will send people to your website to learn more. Be consistent on social media and for heaven’s sake, be social! It’s not about the sale; it’s about becoming a trusted source of information — more of which can be found on your website.
Do you need ideas for creating content for your website? Click on the button below.
