Three Things to Prioritize When Doing Website Health Checks
Having a website is an essential part of managing an online business. It is the online equivalent of an on-site storefront, where you welcome visitors who want to check out your product or services. It should be well-designed and responsive enough to build brand awareness and ensure a worthwhile customer experience. When running a digital marketing campaign, the website ties all of your marketing efforts together to establish a strong online presence. Some even hire a web development agency to experience a stunning and functional website for their businesses.
But having a website isn’t enough to reinforce your brand’s presence in the market; you have to ensure its regular upkeep to keep it functioning. Website maintenance is one of the most overlooked areas because most people don’t know how it works. The truth is, a website health check is a digital equivalent of going to a general physician for routine check-ups.
Your website may look perfectly fine on the surface, but it doesn’t mean that everything works the way you expect it to. Website experiences differ not only among websites but also between devices as well, making it a disjointed customer experience. So, if you haven’t checked your website’s health for a while, it’s about time to step back and do some website health checks. With that in mind, we’ll talk about the top areas to prioritize when checking your site’s health.
Page speed
The loading speed of a website directly affects its search engine rankings. In this case, the faster the loading time, the higher they rank on search results. In this age where people expect instant results, no person wants to waste on a slow-loading website. They expect immediate access once they set foot on your page.
A quick website check will determine whether a website works at the best possible speed. It also allows you to assess areas that require optimizing. Speed test tools are available to determine how fast a website loads. These include GTmetrix Website Performance Testing, Google PageSpeed Insights, and Pingdom Website Speed Test. Enter your website address in any of these tools, and they will tell you the speed level of your website. They will also provide suggestions on how to enhance loading time.
There are plenty of factors that affect website speed. The common culprits include large images, unoptimized pages, and a slow web host.
Although it’s fairly easy to detect problems concerning website speed, fixing them isn’t simple at all. The best way to start is to consult a reliable web hosting service. For example, installing a plugin for your WordPress site helps improve page performance and fix unoptimized pages and large images.
Website SEO
When it comes to website health, SEO refers to the degree to how you optimize your site for search engines. This should be one of your priorities, as it plays a huge role in the success of your website.
Start by checking the page title and URL. They should be clear and unique enough to help search engines know what your site is about. Also, check for any crawlable pages or the part of your website that allows search engines to index its pages. Then, look for duplicate pages and broken pages since they can cause technical issues. Lastly, make sure the meta description is helpful and easy to read to make your website stand out.
There are other ways to check the status of your website SEO. Look for tools that provide SEO reporting and auditing and detect SEO issues.
Mobile responsiveness
A website should run across different devices, including desktops, smartphones, laptops, and tablets. You can’t expect visitors to access your website by just using the same device. A study reveals that people are spending more time on their smartphones than other devices. In this case, you have to ensure your website works on mobile phones without any issue.
To test the mobile responsiveness of a website, use a variety of mobile devices when browsing your website. This will give you an idea of how your website performs across devices. You can also use tools to test the mobile-friendliness of your website. Some popular examples are Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test or HubSpot Website Grader.
Like human beings, website health declines over time. Don’t just focus on how your website looks, but also on its performance. Remember, search engines such as Google don’t rank websites according to their design. They prioritize fully optimized websites with great security, accessibility, and user experience. In the end, maintaining the health of your website can ultimately boost your company’s bottom line.
