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Is your website mobile friendly? Do you follow ADA compliance to accommodate a wider audience? How is your site speed and bounce rate? Making sure all of these things are up to date can improve your SEO and bring in more traffic to your site.
A great website goes beyond eye candy. If your site is lacking strong organic search results, mobile responsiveness, or a high-quality user experience, it is time to redesign. Unlike your physical store front, your website is open 24/7. Leverage that non-stop visibility! It is paramount to keeping people on your site, clicking from one page to the next, and then acting on a website goal – making a purchase, signing up for gated content, requesting a quote.
What are signs that it is time to redesign?
Mobile Friendly
Your site must be able to translate from the desktop to mobile devices, including tablets. Responsive design happens when the content automatically scales to match the screen size. The average person uses their phone nearly 3 hours per day. On top of that, nearly 60 percent of Google searches are done on mobile devices, according to Search Engine Land. 85% of adults want the mobile version to function as smoothly or better than the desktop version.
Since 2015, Google has used ‘mobile friendliness’ as a ranking factor. Sites that do not deliver a coherent mobile experience lose ground on organic search engine results, leading to businesses not being found on the web.
Test your site’s responsiveness with a quick check: grab a corner of your browser window and manually resize the window. Notice how the page reorganizes itself. Be sure to try a few pages and pay attention to the menus. Is the content still readable? Do the menus still function? If your site does not pass this simple test, your site needs a rebuild.
Some companies often maintain two sites, one for the desktop and one for mobile. Today’s responsive design options eliminate the time and cost of maintaining two sites.
Is Your Site ADA Compliant?
Nearly 50 million people in the US have disabilities, that is nearly 19% of the population. Since websites are a form of customer communication, businesses are required to “take the steps necessary to communicate effectively with customers with vision, hearing, and speech disabilities.” The guidelines that outline digital accessibility are called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. Businesses can be penalized under the law without ADA compliant websites. Do not open yourself up to the possibility of a lawsuit.
If your site does not provide ease of navigation, that part of the population will move on to another site – your competitor. For example, your site uses a demonstration video as a key method to sell your product. Without captions, however, you have alienated a sizeable portion of web users.
ADA compliance is also a factor in your SEO. If your website meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, it will likely appeal to users, search engines, and screen readers, ultimately improving your SEO score.
Underperforming Analytics
How do the results of a site audit look? You should be watching your analytics monthly, or at least quarterly, measuring some basic stats. Two particular areas include site speed and bounce rate.
Site Speed
We are an impatient society! If a site is loading too slowly, users are no longer engaged with the site and what it offers. Statistics show that 40% of users will leave if a site takes more than 3 seconds to load.
Common issues that cause slow page loading include technical issues in the site build such as redirects, the quality of the host, non-optimized images, and this is just naming a few. While these may not precipitate the need for a total rebuild, your site may need a technical tune-up.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate measures the number of users who leave your site without interacting with a single page element. An average bounce rate is 40-55%. Monitor your bounce rate sitewide but take a deep dive into individual page performance to garner valuable information on the quality of the page content. A high bounce rate is not always negative. For example, your contact details may be on a page with a high bounce rate; this is because the user found the information they needed and understandably left.
You will also want to consider how long users stay on a page or their dwell time. Google cares about the length of time people hang around on a page. Tools like Hotjar, PageSense, and CrazyEgg can provide insight as to where and why users are leaving a page and your site.
Easy to Navigate
First impressions are everything, even in website design. Users form an opinion about your sight in .05 seconds. If your site looks as outdated as that station wagon on your neighbor’s driveway, start budgeting for a redesign. Due to rapid innovations in technology, the average lifespan of a website is three to four years if maintaining a modern presence.
As mentioned above, heat-mapping software like Hotjar or PageSense provides great insight into how people use your site. The software tracks user behavior on specific pages so you can track their exact interactions. Some tools even offer recording ability, so you can watch a user's mouse movements to find trouble spots on specific pages. If your site is experiencing a high level of abandoned carts, heat mapping the checkout page for sticking points that lead to frustration and site exit can be enlightening.
User interviewers are another method of measuring navigation success. Create focus groups that resemble users and prospect demographics and watch their experience. There are also online options such as usertesting.com to assist in that discovery.
Your sight might reflect a previous business model or outdated goals. Have you taken your business national or global? You will need to consider national versus local SEO tactics or even having a multilingual site.
Updates Can Be Fun!
Do not think of redesigning your site as a frightening task. Select a web company that will help you think strategically, align your website with your business goals, and create a site that is built for search optimization. It is an opportunity to power your business growth, improve customer experience, and even simplify your business operations. Contact our web team at Twin State Technical Services to get a free evaluation on your site.
