To kick it off, we have created an easy to use tool; The Website Health Check Tool, you can use to check your own website using our base procedure for website auditing. All you need to do is enter your website address and let the tool check your website!

Often, even the simplest of features can be overlooked when trying to achieve a great design. Our approach is to start with the end in mind and structure content and features accordingly. Structured properly, your content is read easier and responded to better.

Using these basic principals here is a list of 8 essential factors your website needs to succeed online today.

1. Responsiveness
2. Search engine optimisation
3. Well structured content
4. Conversion factors
5. Customer retention mechanism
6. Social engagement tools
7. Website speed
8. Google Analytics

Responsiveness

Responsive website design allows your website’s layout to change and adapt to fit correctly to the device it is being viewed on.

Today more than 60% of website visitors access your website from a mobile or touch screen device. Ensuring your website fits these devices and works properly on them creates a good experience for your visitor and increases conversions.

Search engine optimisation

Having a search engine friendly website allows search engines like Google, Bing and others to index your website correctly so your customers can find you.

Over 70% of customers today search online before they use conventional methods of finding your business. If your website is not coming up on search engines you will battle to attract customers online.

Well structured content

In the last decade websites and online content have exploded into what you see today online. You can pretty much find anything, a dozen times over. But not all of it is useful or relative is it? One really needs to click on a couple of links to find a good balance of useful information.

There is nothing worse than clicking on a link in a search result only to find the content poor or not relevent at all. Designing your content so its easy to read, useful to the user and providing your user with a worthwhile experience is vital. Search engine algorithms penalise websites that plagiarize and copy information, including showing duplicate content on ones own web pages. You may be scoring in some areas but are getting left behind in others. You want to make sure your content is fresh, new and relevant.

Conversion factors

If you have a product service or even your own blog, you will understand the importance of converting your website visitors into loyal readers and customers. Conversion factors encompass the pay off for visitors and ensure they visit again.

When you have gone to the trouble of building your website, generating fresh and relevant content, the reward is in the traffic. If you rely on your website for sales, you will want to provide visitors with ways to engage with you so you can ultimately help them with your product, service or information.

Customer retention mechanism

Customer retention is a process used to avoid customers going somewhere else. Successful customer retention will create a lifelong relationship with your customer.

It takes a lot of work to get visitors to your site, and most of them are potential customers. Your reputation in the marketplace relies on new customers, but more importantly existing customers that continue to recommend your brand and use your product or service. Keeping in touch with your customers is vital for retention.

Social engagement tools

If you haven’t been on Facebook, Instagram, Google Plus, Pinterest or many others recently you are probably missing out on what everyone else is doing! Engaging with customers on social networks provides credibility and easy access to your sales funnel.

Understanding the online social networking phenomenon is your first step to understanding your customer. Tons of information is readily available to him or her so making your product or service stand out is crucial.

Website speed

Website speed is how long it takes for your page to load and can boil down to a few factors: Your website hosting company, the way your website is built, website traffic limits and the type of content your website delivers.

Customers searching the internet usually want information fast and will give up if your page doesnt load. You want a fast website to offer them your product before they close and click somewhere else. The effects of this can be devastating as visitors that close a website due to speed, usually never return creating a downward spiral of negative effects from lower traffic, increased bounce rates and no customers.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is really the only tool worth using for website statistic and diagnostic information. It provides you with a history and real time data to help you understand your website traffic.

Perhaps you have a great product and are getting traffic but no sales. Analytics will help us understand why and also help you to target your website visitors search criteria better. Often, a lot of traffic is high bounce and unrelated to your keywords due to misplaced terms and negatively over populated pages.

Wrapping it up…

These 8 essentials will set your website on a clearer course and create a basic sales funnel you can identify and improve on for your customers benefit and your own. Use the Health Check Report to diagnose and isolate areas on your site that need work.

Click here to check your Website