Organize Navigation
If visitors don’t have a quick, easy way to find what they’re looking for when they come to your site, they’re not going to stick around. Make sure they can navigate with a minimum of hassle.
Fix Your Links
Good navigation is useless if the links don’t lead where they’re supposed to. Every time you update or add a link, test it to make sure it behaves the way it should.
Fix or Add Page Titles
Website pages have content, so make sure the heading in the browser title bar reflects that. Don’t leave your homepage titled simply “Hompage;” put your site or business name there instead.
Clean Up the Header
A cluttered or jumbled header can turn visitors off before they even glance at the rest of the site. Streamline your header text and images in order to make the best first impression possible.
Cut Down on Graphics
The days of using animated GIFs to catch people’s attention are over. Simplify your site by removing unnecessary graphics and images. This will give the site a cleaner look and allow for faster loading on slower connections.
Consolidate Information
People who browse the Internet tend to skim rather than read. Organizing your site’s information into shorter paragraphs and bulleted lists under bold headers assures that visitors won’t miss something important.
Consider Columns
Many sites now use column layouts to divide site content and navigation links. These layouts look cleaner and are easier to browse than straight pages of text.
Switch to Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) offer much more in the way of style customization than HTML. With CSS you can make small tweaks or site-wide style changes from one place rather than having to individually update each page.
Add a Bio
First-time visitors may not know who you are or what your site is about, especially if they navigated in from a search engine. Having a prominent “About Us” page gives them a quick way to find out if your site has what they’re looking for.
Add a Contact Form
Providing only your e-mail address is an invitation for spam. A formal contact form gives visitors an easy way to get in touch with you. Your web hosting service may offer a form building tool to make this easier.
Add an FAQ
To make sure visitors don’t inundate your e-mail with common questions, add a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section to address the most likely concerns that may pop up while browsing your site.
Update Your Blog
New blog posts are the fastest way to add dynamic content to your site, which in turn can signal search engine robots to crawl it. This works to improve visibility and draw new people to your site.
Assure Security
When selling merchandise or offering any kind of members-only services, make sure that your security certificate is up-to-date. An expired certificate can turn away potential customers.
Check Your Work
After making any changes, it’s important to do a test view of your site in common browsers and at common screen resolutions, since these can affect how your site displays to visitors. Free web developer tools are available to help with this step.
Assure Hosting Reliability
In order for people to see your site, it needs to be up and running as much as possible. Make sure you have reliable web hosting with enough bandwidth to support maximum uptime for the size and type of site that you run. Check out some web hosting comparison to be sure that you are getting quality service.
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