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Performance drops from time to time on websites operating over the Internet. Technical reasons and misuse patterns that slow down the site speed cause visitors to have a bad experience on the website. No matter what field you operate on the Internet, you should always monitor the performance of your website. On the one hand, ways to improve your website are good for poor performance. On the one hand, you will provide a better user experience to your visitors with every additional feature you will add to your site.
The majority of website owners tend to think that they are done with the site setup. They believe that their work is completed with the site’s theme selection, the installation of the theme, and the preparation of other plugins. However, as long as your site remains live, you need to think about ways to improve it. Because for technical and other reasons, the performance of all websites actually decreases over time. This situation can cause traffic loss to the site after a while. Moreover, due to the increasing competition conditions on the internet, you need to add new features to your site and stand out against your competitors. The sooner you realize and realize the improvements you need to make, the more advantage you will have over the competition. In this article, we will share useful information about ways to improve your website.
You Should Increase Page Loading Speed
The speed of the website has become one of the most important issues in the internet world today. As a matter of fact, one of the most important reasons for internet users to leave the web page is the late loading of the page. Therefore, those who wonder how a good website should be should pay attention to speed first. This is especially true on mobile. Today, mobile internet usage is increasing rapidly. And this situation forces websites to take action to increase their mobile speed. For the majority of users, the page load of the site in the first few seconds is an important indicator of the quality of the site. The longer the time, the more the users want to leave the site.
Among the ways to improve your website, the speed issue affects e-commerce sites much more. Today, while the interest in e-commerce is increasing, the standards in the shopping experiences offered by online shopping sites are rising. If your site is running slow, pages and images are opened late, visitors’ desire to shop from your site will decrease. In e-commerce sites, page speed is an issue that has the power to directly affect both traffic and turnover. For this reason, site administrators should regularly check the speed. It is important to provide solutions to the problems that slow down the speed as soon as possible.
You can easily use the Google PageSpeed Insights platform to learn what you need to do to increase the speed of your website. On this platform, when you enter the domain name of your site in the relevant section, you can do the speed test for your site free of charge. After the speed test, you can see your site’s score separately on desktop and mobile. You can easily learn what you need to do to increase the speed from the same screens. You should definitely solve the issues that you can solve in these. If you have a WordPress-based site, you can click the link for useful information on WordPress acceleration .
You Must Use Cache
Another effective way to improve your website is to use a cache. The cache application known as cache in the internet world is very useful especially for site acceleration. A cache of minified forms of all pages and files on your site saves visitors unnecessary time. With cache activation, the number of queries in your database is significantly reduced. If you have a WordPress-based site, you can easily add speed plugins to your site. Some of these plugins are free and offer an easy-to-use experience. For more advanced solutions, you can use paid add-ons or features. If you are wondering what a cache is , you can click the link for more information.
You Must Ensure Mobile Compatibility
A significant portion of internet users access the internet via mobile devices. The mobile compatibility of your website is an important advantage in terms of user experiences. Moreover, mobile compatibility has become an important ranking criterion in SEO since 2021. Sites that do not have this feature have a very low chance of success in SEO and organic traffic. If you are wondering how effective website design should be, you should definitely consider mobile compatibility. Moreover, the mobile speed score is an important criterion that affects the position of the site on the search query pages. In this regard, you can use the Google mobile-friendly test to evaluate the status of your site.
Ready-made sites provide advantages in many ways in terms of the features that a good website should have. However, when buying a ready-made site, you should make sure that it has a responsive design, that is, mobile compatibility. In this way, you will not have any major problems in the future. You should also complete the necessary tests before uploading the site to the internet. As a matter of fact, having a responsive design of the site is not enough in terms of speed. If there are too many unnecessary details in the theme you choose, it is possible that even the responsive design will be insufficient in terms of speed. If your theme does not allow to interfere with CSS and JavaScript codes on mobile, you may encounter some problems in the future.
You Should Simplify Your Website As Much As Possible
Hundreds of thousands of new websites are launched every day in the internet world. Due to this increase, competition between sites is getting harder. Sites that offer an easy and simple web experience to their users naturally gain an advantage in this competition. This issue is much more important especially for e-commerce sites. As a matter of fact, if you are going to sell products or services over the internet, you must provide an easy shopping experience to your users. Because users do not want their minds to be confused while shopping online. They want to find the products they want to buy easily and make the payment process easily. Confusing pages, redirects, buttons cause them to abandon their buying behavior. Therefore, web improvement methods for e-commerce sites directly affect the traffic and turnover of the site.
In this respect, the category tree of your site should not be too crowded. The number of categories should be as few as possible, and the category names should be as unifying as possible. It is difficult to give exact numbers on these matters. However, we still see that there are 7-8 categories on average in e-commerce sites and this is sufficient. In refractions, it is useful not to exceed a maximum of 10 titles. Your site should also be as simple as possible with the interface, static pages, FAQ section and other tabs. If you pay attention to these ways to improve your website, an 18-year-old and a 50-year-old user can easily use your site.
From a technical point of view, having too many theme features on your website poses a serious problem with CSS codes and JavaScript. Images used in different parts of the theme increase http requests. This is why CSS and JavaScript codes take a long time to load. However, if you use a simple theme on your site, you will not experience many of these problems at all. In the context of ways to improve your website, you should not neglect to simplify your site as much as possible. In some cases, the speed issue may be caused by the theme selection. And you may not have a chance to interfere with the theme. In such a case, a better solution is to change the theme in the context of ways to improve your website.
You Should Give Importance to Visual Communication
Websites do not only communicate with visitors in written form. Of course, written communication has an important place in websites. However, visual communication is often more important than written communication. In order for visitors to want to read a page, the first message must be given with visual communication. For example, if you have organized a campaign on your site, we can say that the image of the campaign is more important than the text. Even if the content you prepare is strong in terms of language, it should first be remarkable in terms of visual communication. Therefore, you should not neglect the importance of visual communication in the context of ways to improve your website.
If you use interesting visuals on your site, you will benefit from visual communication opportunities effectively. Thus, your visitors click on more pages and spend more time on your site. To optimize the performance of your online store while building it as effectively as possible, you should ensure that all images are of high quality. However, you should also pay attention to the size and loading of images in the context of ways to improve your website. As a matter of fact, you should not upload any images without compression. In the form of recording, you should choose the appropriate formats for the web. Negligence in these matters will cause speed problems on your site in the future.
You should not use large images
Of course, one of the best ways to improve the visitor’s experience on the website and increase the time they spend is to use interesting visuals. But while doing this, you should pay special attention to the file size. Because large-size images are one of the most important reasons that cause speed and performance problems on websites. Sometimes due to ignorance and sometimes wrong choices, the number of high-dimensional visual files on websites is increasing. However, ways to improve your website are not effective when the image size is excessively high.
Smaller files always have higher download speeds on websites. If you use compression programs before uploading images to your site, you will gain a significant advantage in this context. In this regard, for example, sites such as Optimizilla and TinyPNG and plugins such as WP Smush are very useful. Ways and features to improve your website contain many opportunities for visual optimization. As a matter of fact, you can also use Gzip compression for visual optimization on your site. Similar to Zip files on your computer, Gzip compression shrinks your files. This will increase the speed of your site even more.
You Should Try To Reduce 404 Pages
404 redirects are used for pages that are no longer available on websites for some reason. That’s why you need to have a special 404 page on your site. This is important for both internet users and search engines. As web sites continue their publications, for various reasons, some pages cease to be published. When you have a custom 404 page on your site, users find out that the page they’re looking for is no longer available. However, when the number of 404 pages on your site starts to increase, search engines consider this situation negatively. Among the ways to improve your website, you should definitely find and examine the pages that give 404 errors on your site. If you clear these pages from your sitemap, your success rate will increase in the context of web optimization.
You Should Lower Your Bounce Rate
Also known as bounce rate in the internet world, this rate is not only an important indicator in the field of SEO and ADS. It also shows whether your website offers a good user experience. As a matter of fact, a long stay on the page on a website indicates that the user has a good experience with that page. In addition, how many pages users visit in each session is also an important data. A high number of pages visited indicates that the user experience provided by the site is good. In recent years, Google has begun to pay more attention to values such as bounce rate and the number of pages visited per session. It analyzes these values and sees whether the site is useful for users. It also takes these values into account when ranking sites in search engine queries.
To reduce the bounce rate on your site, you need to make your pages more attractive. Ways to improve your website will also be useful in this context. If you fulfill the requirements of the on-page regulations that we will discuss in the rest of our article, you will definitely gain an advantage in SEO. For example, topics such as font and size, short sentence and paragraph structure are useful methods for reducing bounce rate. Your success in bounce rate will also positively affect other important metrics of your site.
You Should Pay Attention To Font And Sizes
If your site has a high bounce rate, one reason may be difficulty reading the content. Fonts used on web pages sometimes reduce legibility. For example, overlapping letters, handwriting and similar fonts create difficulties in perception. Letter sizes of 10 points and below are difficult to read without enlarging the screen. This results in the visitor giving up reading the article and leaving the page. Among the ways to improve your website, you should also pay special attention to font and size. Using appropriate style and size subheadings in your article also makes it easier to read.
You Should Use Short Sentence and Paragraph Structure
If you use very long sentence and paragraph structures on your website, this will negatively affect visitor behavior. You may find long structures normal on the desktop. However, do not forget that mobile internet usage is increasing rapidly in our country and around the world. Long sentences and paragraph structures on your web page look much longer on mobile. This can cause mobile users to find your content boring before they even read it. From an SEO point of view, the maximum number of words in a paragraph should not exceed 150. However, be sure to create as short paragraphs as possible. Paragraphs with a maximum of 80-90 words are much easier to read than others.
You Should Give Importance to the SEO Compatibility of Your Content
SEO compatibility on websites is critical for organic traffic. It has a lower reach when the product, brand, category and blog pages on your site are not SEO compatible. You can use different methods to make your page content compatible with SEO. If you have a WordPress -based site, the Yoast plugin you will add to your site will be very useful in this regard. If you do not have the opportunity to benefit from Yoast in this way, you can create yourself a WordPress-based demo site and use Yoast. Or you can take advantage of professional services for SEO-compatible content production. As the number of SEO compatible pages on your site increases, your level of success in ways to improve your website will definitely increase.
Drops in Landing Pages Predict Content Optimization
You can see which pages the visitors to your website come from the most in the Landing Pages section via Google Analytics. When you follow this part regularly, your opportunity to evaluate the changes in traffic increases. Among the ways to improve your website, this follow-up gives you an idea of content optimization. There are many reasons why a landing page’s traffic may drop gradually. For example, every algorithm update that Google makes affects SERPs more or less. Or, competing sites may have left you behind with better content. If you follow the drop in landing pages, you will have the opportunity to optimize the pages in a timely manner. Every improvement you make will stop the decline and contribute to the high traffic of the page again.
You Should Identify Pages With Low Conversion Rate On Your Site
As the activities of the website continue, the page numbers naturally increase. However, increasing the number of pages does not always increase traffic. Some pages on websites have a very low conversion rate. You should not neglect to follow and analyze this situation. As a matter of fact, Google Analytics helps you optimize your website for different devices, site navigation and search. If you identify the pages with low conversion rates on your site with Google Analytics, you will have the opportunity to brainstorm about it. Every improvement you make on these pages will positively affect your entire website.
You Must Produce Content Related to the Field You Serve
Creating new content is an important method among ways to improve your website in terms of traffic. Every piece of content you create creates an opportunity to reach new audiences. But you need to choose the subject of the content and the target keywords well. Search engine algorithms are skeptical of content unrelated to the field you serve. Your content related to your field and supported by in-site links attracts more attention of algorithms. This helps your content reach more users. In addition, you should not produce more than one content on the same topic. Algorithms do not evaluate this situation positively. When you encounter such a situation, you should combine the relevant content into a single content and 301 redirect to the others.
You Should Not Neglect Content Updates
Content updates in ways to improve your website add vitality and dynamism to the process. As a matter of fact, it is very important to publish content related to the service area on the website. However, up-to-date content is as important as content quality. In particular, the data you share in your content should always be up to date. Among the ways to improve your website, such updates positively affect the way search engine algorithms view your site. Remember that the most valuable information for Google is the most up-to-date information compatible with SEO. When the information in your content is out of date, algorithms can recognize it and assign a low index value to your page.
Updating old content also creates new opportunities to optimize your site’s other metrics. But you shouldn’t update too often. Because algorithms consider this update form as a negative situation. What’s more, according to Google, if you want to improve your company’s digital visibility internationally, your digital content should be translated and also tailored to the local audience. If you are going to serve abroad, you should also pay attention to this issue in your content. If you are selling abroad through your site, you should never forget to optimize your content for the local audience.
You Should Keep Your About Us Page Up-to-Date
The About Us page is one of the first pages that internet users and search engine bots look at to recognize and evaluate your site. The easiest way for visitors to a website to learn about the business is to click on the About Us page. This page is usually prepared during the setup phase of the site. And then it hardly comes to mind. However, the operations of websites also differ over time. Sites may start selling new products or services, for example. They can also terminate their previous product or service sales. In such cases, you should update the About Us page and communicate effectively with both visitors and search engines. If your site has entered a new area that it did not serve before, if you indicate this on your About Us page, you will gain advantages in many respects.
You Should Program To Improve Your Website
According to Google, the biggest challenge faced by most businesses preparing to be online is creating a plan. It is possible for you to experience this difficulty in terms of ways to improve your website. The performance of websites degrades over time due to technical reasons, bad content or incorrect interventions. Website improvements are actually works that require a certain continuity and integrity. Those who wonder how a good website should be tend to think that these jobs are usually one-off. However, website improvements are only successful when you use all the methods regularly. In this way, your site is always up to date and useful. As your conversion rates increase, your turnover starts to increase.
This is where it helps a lot to have some routines and a schedule for ways to improve your website. For example, site speed testing and improvement is one of the most important of these routines. You should also have certain routines for cleaning the cache, checking the database, and examining the library files. If you prepare a certain program on these issues, all processes will proceed more healthily. For example, you can create a schedule for what checks and improvements you will make in your monthly business plan. In this way, both the work progresses smoothly and you can more easily identify the points where you fall behind. After your improvements, don’t forget to test your site for free or with other SEO tools. In this way, you will have the opportunity to measure the efficiency of your work.
Hosting Choice Directly Affects Website Improvements
Finally, in this article on ways to improve your website, we would like to briefly point out the importance of hosting selection. As a matter of fact, one of the issues that affect the speed of websites is the choice of hosting. However, a significant part of the companies that provide services under the title of “cheap hosting” cannot produce effective solutions to site speed problems. In addition, the connection between the server and your site should never be broken. In the event of a possible disconnection, the hosting company must immediately produce a solution to the problem. Working with hosting companies that are not experts in their field makes it difficult to reach the technical support you want in such cases. Therefore, when choosing a hosting company, you should definitely pay attention to the technical expertise of the company.
In some cases, ways to improve your website are not successful enough. If the hosting service you receive and the server you use are insufficient, you need to find a different solution. You can take advantage of more.net privileges for your hosting selection and all your server-related technical support requests. Daha.net, which has been serving in the field of hosting since 2010, has qualified solutions in technical support. Our 24/7 technical support team will provide you with the solutions you need on the hosting and server side on ways to improve your website.
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