How to optimize your website
What does website optimization mean? Here’s how to know, Can your visitors determine what you do within the first few seconds they land on your page? How easy is it for them to navigate through the various sections of your website? Is the layout of your website user-friendly and easy to understand?
If the answer to these questions is a recurring no, then you might need to take a serious look at how well you’ve been optimizing your website. One of the points of having a website is to create a platform for your users to better understand what you do, how you operate, and get genuine feedback from them. If, however, the users experience difficulties in doing any of these things, then you need to check the overall design of your website and find ways to improve performance, website optimization is the answer to this.
Use a simple and straightforward design- put yourself in your audiences’ shoes for a second, and visualize how you can easily navigate through the website and find what you are looking for. This will help you map out a design that is not confusing or complicated for your visitors. If the users have a difficult time finding what they are looking for, they are not going to want to stay on your site. Website optimization will ensure the user interface is stress-free, easy to navigate, and organized.
Invest in good graphics- “a picture is worth a thousand words”, this old English adage simply emphasizes the importance of pictures and how a single image can convey the message and essence of multiple ideas more effectively than a verbal description. Helping your audience understand what you do can be done faster using the right images. Not every image is going to fit into the description of what you do or portray your content is about and jamming up your website with a lot of pictures is not going to give that genuine feel to it. What you can do is use real pictures of actual people working for your company or employ certain techniques to help pick out the right type of photos. You can read more about these techniques here.
Create unique content and Include social media share and follow buttons- with so many competitors online with undoubtedly great content, a good way to stand out is to always keep your content relevant, unique, and informative. This will keep your visitors interested and coming back and over time convert them. Another important thing is while giving your users awesome content, you also should allow them to share it. You see those small icons at the top or bottom of your blog page, those are your power buttons and you’ll be missing out on a lot if you don’t use them. These icons will let you share directly to any social media platform of your choice. Awesome right?
Fix your 404s- constantly evaluate your site and fix broken links and pages that are no longer functional. This will keep your website fully optimized and your users won’t have to encounter errors and pages that won’t load. you can help your visitors navigate better on your website when they don’t keep encountering non-functional pages
Remove what’s not needed- in a bid to give your users an amazing experience and ensure they find all they are looking for on your site, you may find yourself putting all sorts on your website and this can remove the value and not convey your message the right way. You need to create the first impression that easily gets the main points across to your users. Certain words and phrases that sound vague or ambiguous should be avoided. Also, complex animations, long and boring content, images that don’t match, wordy texts, should all be avoided. Pass your messages across interestingly and refreshingly using simple, easy to understand English. Basically, don’t over-do.
Ensuring a great user experience boils down to the functionality of your website and this depends on factors such as communication (content), navigation(interface), and design(images). These are the fundamental aspects of your website that deserves attention and will improve website optimization
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