Great website performance doesn’t have to break the bank
It’s not easy keeping your potential customers on your website – in fact, studies have shown that you have less than 5 seconds to get their attention and keep them on your site. That, by all accounts, is not a very long time, so if your website performance is poor in terms of load speeds and confusing navigation you’re sure to lose a potential customer or sale.
So, how can you improve your website performance and keep the attention of the user? A lot of businesses might think the solution would be a total rebuild, this would, of course, work and speed up your website as well as ironing out any bad user experience issues, however, this is a costly and very time-consuming task, both of which smaller business might struggle to deal with.
What’s the alternative solution? Well, there are many ways to improve your website without blowing your life savings. We’ve compiled a list of top tips to get your website performing like it should do giving you peace of mind that your visitors are fully engaged with your website.
1. Keep it simple
Confusing navigation on a website is a classic way to lose potential visitors, after all, if the user can’t find what they’re looking for within two clicks they will leave the site and most probably head straight to a competitors website. It’s vital that you keep your navigation simple and clear. There should never be more than 6 – 7 items at most, any more and it becomes distracting. If someone was to throw ten balls at you how many would you catch? Most people would only catch 2 to 3 balls, this same kind of logic applies to your navigation, too much content is bad. Having a ‘sticky’ navbar helps too as it allows the user to navigate around your website with ease without returning to the top of the page each time.
2. Speed is the name of the game
Having quick load times is essential for a successful e-commerce website. Research has shown that just a two-second delay in a transaction could potentially lose you a sale as it gives the user the option to ditch their cart and leave your site. Google has tools that can help you find out how your site is performing in terms of load speeds.
3. Does it look interesting/engaging?
A website needs to look good as well as have great content. We all like to look at pictures and illustrations as well as watching videos. Adding this kind of content to your site will have a positive effect. Great images will draw the users attention more than a line of text and video content is 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of search results than a traditional web page.
Video also increases the amount of time a user spends on a page. According to recent research, people spent on average 2.6 times more time on pages with video than without. Adding video content to your site is well worth considering.
4. Is your site responsive?
It’s well known that all websites including your own should be responsive and work on all manner of devices big and small. If it’s not, you may be losing out on leads and sales. It’s estimated that up to
40% of users have gone to a competitor’s website after a poor mobile experience so making sure your site works well on a smartphone is vital to the success of your business.
It’s estimated that there are 5 billion smartphone users globally and more and more of these users prefer to use their phone while on the web.
5. Be more visible
Making sure your website is ‘search engine optimised’ is critical in making sure your users get the best experience. Also, users trust search engines and having a presence in the top positions for the keywords they are searching for increases the website’s trust.
SEO is relatively cost-effective too and the rewards are plain to see. Making a small investment in improving your websites SEO will improve your website performance.
6. Be more sociable
We live in a word that is becoming more and more connected in terms of social networks.
Today over 2.4 billion people use Facebook and Instagram has an estimated 1 billion active users, so it makes sense that your website needs social buttons for your visitors. If they see something they like on your website there’s a chance that they will share their thoughts on their profiles and elevate your presence even further. The stats say that 83% of users on Instagram say they discover new services and products on this platform.
7. A clear call to action
Rather than using text links on your website that could be missed by the user, it is much more effective to have well defined CTA buttons. Having clear CTA buttons on your website is a great way of increasing your conversion rates thus making your website a lot more successful.
Colour makes a difference too. Research has found that using orange coloured buttons increased conversions rates by over 30% while using red CTA buttons boosted conversion rates by up to 20%.
Finally, using actionable words within the buttons helps, use words like ‘start’ ‘learn’ etc.
There are many other ways to improve your website performance without breaking the bank, these are just a few examples to help you improve your website and make it more successful.
We at Fifteen can help with each of these steps with our complete digital marketing solutions. From design and development to SEO, PPC, content management and social media marketing, we can help take your brand on to bigger and better things. Contact us now and find out how we can plan a marketing strategy to take the world by storm.