User experience is key to keeping good traffic flow and to make sure the users spend more than just a minute on your website. Websites should be a place for users to feel welcomed, comfortable and find valuable information about your business and services. Four questions that you should ask yourself are as follows:
- Does my website load quickly?
- Do I have good responsive design?
- Do I have redirects or redirect loops?
- Is my site aesthetically pleasing?
How Quickly Does Your Website Load?
Having a website that loads quickly from the point the link to your website is clicked to the point at which it loads, is a very important factor to keeping positive user experience. Studies have shown that if a websites loads slower than 3 seconds, you could have up to 40% of the users abandon your website.
Search engines will actually penalize your organic search result rankings if users are bouncing from your website to others will more valuable and relevant information.
There are many reasons you may have a slow load time. One of those reasons would be that your website could have un-optimized images. It is important to optimize any image to get rid of the extra data that might be contained within the image file; be sure you’re using the right image-type (JPG, PNG, GIF, etc.). Additionally, a slow loading speed could be because of excessive JavaScript and CSS files that can be condensed. Some of our favorite recommended plugins to install on the content management system, WordPress, are Scripts to Footer, Minify JS and Super Cache. Read our post discussing the Do’s and Don’ts of Images.
Do You Have Good Responsive Design?
Responsive design is defined as having a website design that will automatically fit the screen of any device that the user is using, whether it is a laptop, iPad, Smart Phone, etc. According to some studies, 2.87 billion people are currently using a smart phone. Many users enjoy having the freedom to view websites on their phone. If a website is not mobile friendly, the user then has to zoom in to read information about the services your business provides. Without a responsive website, you may find your bounce rate has increased and your organic rankings have decreased. Overall, it is important to have a website that will be user-friendly on any device and not just on a computer screen or smart phone screen.
Do You Have Redirects?
Redirects can have a negative impact on websites but they could also have a positive impact. When a user clicks on a link, they expect to be on the same website that the link displayed and not redirected elsewhere. Redirects could be positive as well if it is an updated version of the previously existing page. If you’re redirecting to another website, adding a notice to explain the reason for the redirect could help the user.
Is Your Site Appealing To The Eye?
Having a site that is visually appealing will enhance user experience. You want the user to remember how it looks and trust your business. The majority of users tend to choose a more appealing design over any bland, neutral or outdated design. An appealing website could also convey emotions. As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” With images on your website, you can trigger many different emotions such happiness or even sadness. Memories could also be triggered and the user would remember the website that awoke those memories that were pleasing. Read our post about color psychology.
The users of your website should feel comfortable and be able to trust your business’ website. A responsive, appealing and quickly loading website with any required redirects will provide your users with a great user experience.
Our FREE social media calendar for March is here!
Have you struggled with finding the right theme or topic for your social media platforms? Or needed something posted at the last-minute due to meetings, deadlines, or something else? Our social media calendar for March will help you with this! We’ve included topics for every business day of the month and have included hashtags, videos, photos and much more.
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By using Facebook’s scheduled postings and programs such as TweetDeck, your month of brand new content should take a load off of your plate. Follow us on socials (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) and let us know how you like this calendar![/emaillocker]
Moz, first created in 2004, is a vital tool to many search engine optimization companies much like ours. By 2009, Moz exceeded over 5,000 monthly subscribers and worked their way to hitting the Inc. 500 list in 2010. For over 10 years, Moz has become one of the leading SEO tools, although the analytics part of this tool did not become available to subscribers until 2013. Moz provides analysts with many tools from analytics tracking, keyword ranking monitoring, on-page grader and more. Our team finds Moz to be an integral part of our team’s daily optimization process.
What’s First?
Each Moz campaign is linked to a Analytics profile, we are able to begin ranking, link tracking and watch search traffic. Additionally, adding a competitor also gives us an insight on rankings and search visibility.
One of the main tools we use is “Site Crawl”, which allows us to find and solve website issues, including duplicate content, page titles and pages resulting in not found errors. Based off these reports you can shorten title tags, fix duplicate content and descriptions and find those pesky 404 errors you may not of even realized were there. All of which can assist in improving your ranking if taken care of.
Join the Community
A supportive community is a positive aspect of Moz. Complete with Mozinars (webinars, which can also be watched at a later date) and a Q&A section where other Moz and industry members can assist in answering any questions you may have about search engine optimization.
By utilizing Moz, our team is able to monitor, update and report our client’s website stats on a weekly and monthly basis. This month’s blog series will focus on this resource and all the tools it offers. Moz is a staple for our team and we are sure by the end of this blog series, it will be for you as well. Subscribe to our blog and follow us on social media to keep up with our future posts!
Do you have a favorite Moz tool? Let us know in the comments below!
Our team frequently creates blog series, ranging from First Impressions, Back to Basics (the basics of web design or search engine optimization), to our current series, 12 Days of Christmas.
In our First Impressions series, we discussed content, usability and visual presentation. Take a look back on these posts and keep an eye out on our blog in 2017 for more series!
First Impressions Introduction
First Impressions Visual Presentationa> The visual presentation of your website can convert potential customers or send them looking for your services elsewhere. Our team offers tips to help the presentation of your website to users.
First Impressions Usability Accessibility, loading time and errors are all important factors in the usability of your website.
First Impressions Content We’ve all heard the phrase, “Content is king,” but what does your content say about your company? Content should be professionally written, proof-read and have a voice. We offer a few tips that will help with search engine optimization as well.
As we’re nearing the end of our 12 Days of Christmas series, we look forward to creating more series in 2017 and offering additional information to the web design and search engine optimization industries. Stay tuned to our blog, follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to keep up to date on all of the latest posts and fun things our team takes part in.
