Is Your Website Up To Par? Here’s a 5 Point Checklist
Your website is something to be proud of. It establishes your online identity, gives you a place to call home on the internet, and helps people find you when they need you. It’s the most basic, and most essential form of online presence (aside from social media) that you’ll ever need.
But, how do you actually know that your website is awesome?
There are many determining factors between a winning deal, and a sad sloth website. Don’t worry, below are a few tips, links, and trends that can help you determine the health of your site.
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1. Your Content Is Relevant and Clear
Your website should always show off what you do. That means your copy, and images should be straight to the point. Your viewer should grasp what you’re all about in just a few seconds.
Consistently theming your images, applying the same color scheme, and a using the same writing style can do wonders. (hint: these are brand building blocks!)
Next, test how well people can read your site. Watch and see what they click on first, and how they interact with your page (BEFORE you even say anything). These organic interactions will reveal valuable insights into your user experience. Ask them if they know what your website is about. Can they find a specific page right away (like the Contact page) ?
Lastly, keep your page headings and navigation titles simple, clear, and consistent. There is nothing worse than changing up pages and user flows on a viewer. That’s like going from driving on a highway, to 4-wheeling a dirt road. It’s confusing and users shouldn’t have to feel disoriented.
2. You’ve Got a CTA (A Call-To-Action)
People come to your website to do something. Users are on a mission, even if it’s a small one. A CTA is a great way to merge your mission for conversions, with their quest for information! So, you have to tell them what to do. Create the funnel.
For example, a great CTA for an Urgent Care facility, would be a “Call Now” button at the top of the page. Not only is that button helpful, it’s also convenient. A lot of software companies even have a “Try it for Free” button at the top, because ‘free’ means exposure and (eventually) customers. You get the picture.
Tell your users what to do, and make it easy for them to do it.
3. Your Website is Easy to Navigate
…so easy that your grandparents could navigate it, and not get frustrated. Can they get to what they want in less than 2 clicks? Better yet, can they get to it in just one? It’s a good idea to limit the number of links in your top navigation bar, so it doesn’t feel congested.
Take a look at large brands and companies to see how they do it. Nike for example, has 4 other sub brands, but still manages to keep a clean header, with only 6 main navigation options. That’s impressive.
Wendy’s is another good example. The CTA is ‘Order Online’ with 4 other main navigation links. Nice and simple once again.
For all of your extra links, feel free to put it in the footer. No one wants to see a terms and conditions link right next to an ‘About Us’ link. If you’ve got specific operating hours, users can appreciate seeing those in the footer as well.
4. Looks Great On Mobile and Desktop (It’s Responsive)
More than half of your users will most likely be visiting your site from a tablet or a phone. The number of desktop visits are going down by about 10% every year. According to The Stone Temple, out of 2 Trillion website visits, over 60% of them were on a mobile device. That’s up about 6% from the previous year.
This would be a good time to compare your website on a tablet, phone, and a desktop. Some services like Squarespace automatically account for responsiveness in each website. Among many reasons, that is one reason I prefer to develop my websites using Squarespace.
5. Everything On Your Website Loads Quickly
When I say quickly, I mean in-less-than-3-seconds ‘quickly.’ Hubspot actually created a great tool to check your website load times. It’s called The Website Grader.
I highly recommend taking a look at this beauty. It will tell you how fast your website loads, if your CSS is compressed, and even how your website looks on mobile.
All in all, it will give you a score out of 100 points with some improvement pointers at the end. Fancy.
With all of that said, how do you feel about your website? Do you have work to do? Or did you Ace this? Let me know!
