Outdated Website? Here are 5 Tips to Test
The web changes everyday. New technologies and devices are always introduced that challenge even the most up to date websites. This is not to say you need to pay for a complete makeover, however it is good to know where your site stands in this changing landscape. Below are our top 5 tips to help test and identify improvements you can do easily in just a few minutes.
Best of all, having basic mastery of knowing how your website works under the hood can save you time and money when troubleshooting issues with your developer!
Now let’s get into it!
#1. Use Google’s Pagespeed insights to see overall page performance and improvements.
If you want to rank well you will need to make sure your website is in top shape. A good way to check is with Google’s Pagespeed Insights tool:
This tool allows you to measure the overall performance of your website as well as other important features such as SEO, Accessibility, and Best Practices.
#2. Adopt a ‘Mobile First’ Website Mentality.
Since we now live in a world on the go, the number of mobile device users is increasing significantly.
A positive mobile experience has become a non-negotiable when it comes to a high-ranking website.
This means making sure your website responds well to different screen sizes and user touch events such as filling out forms and page navigation.
#3. Get to know S.E.O. (Search Engine Optimization).
SEO is simply how well search engines can read and understand what your website is all about. This is how they rank web pages in their search results.
The one thing to remember is it is an organic process; what may work for some may not work for others. There is good SEO and bad SEO , here’s what we mean:
Good SEO
• Website is well structured and has optimized content.
• Content is helpful to the user and demonstrates expertise.
• Contains optimized media such as photos and videos.
Bad SEO
• Poor loading times and structure for users to navigate through.
• Oversaturated, spammy copy stuffed with keywords to “game the algorithm”.
• Not updating and refreshing pages with new content.
#4. Make your image files nice and lean.
One of the biggest culprits of slow web pages are the images. Large file sizes can severely impact how fast a page loads, especially for e-commerce stores!
Websites like TinyPNG can help offset some of that bloat your image files may have while retaining the overall quality!
#5. Use your web browser’s developer tools for advanced troubleshooting.
As technical as it may sound, viewing your web browser’s (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc.) does not require in-depth knowledge or skills to use. These tools can save you time and money when communicating to your web developer about specific issues.
Note – These tools can be toggled on most devices by pressing the F12 button on the top of a keyboard or going in your browser settings and selecting ‘More Tools > Developer Tools’.
We will cover the two most common features:
Load time (Under the ‘Network’ tab)
Google has a preference towards sites that load in 3 seconds or less. With this in mind it is important to make sure your website abides by these standards. Non-optimizable photos, videos, and other content can impact traffic.
With the ‘Network’ tab open, right click the refresh tab and select ‘Hard Reload’. This will reload the website as if you had visited for the first time. Results will be on the bottom of the screen.
Console
The Console tool will provide a log of any errors, issues, or notices the browser is detecting from the current page. The big thing to look out for here are errors on the page. Good rule of thumb is if you see red – call your developer.