10 Website Tips

Tip #1 – Test your Contact Form

It’s important to test your contact form to ensure you are receiving emails from your website. From time to time, contact forms can stop working. Some reasons for website forms not working could be: contact plugin is out of date, your server isn’t sending emails from the website, wrong email addresses added, your email provider is blocking emails from your website. Simply test each contact form on the website and check you get the replies in your inbox.

Tip #2 – Do you have a backup of your website?

It’s important to protect your website with backups. If your website ever crashes or completely breaks, it’s much easier to fix with a backup. Check with your hosting company if they are doing automatic daily backups. If you are with WordPress you can use a plugin called “Updraft Plus” for your regular backups.

Tip #3 – check your website speed

As technology advances, people expect to get instant access. It’s a very frustrating experience waiting for a page to load. Websites that load faster tend to rank and convert better than others. Ideally, you would like to get your website loading in under 3 seconds.

Test your website speed today using these 2 tools:

1. GTMetrix – https://gtmetrix.com/
2. Google Page Speed Insights – https://pagespeed.web.dev/

Tip #4 – Remove home page sliders

There was a trend a while ago to have home page sliders. This is no longer popular. Visitors won’t wait for sliders to move and they are considered a distraction and conversion killers. A study found that 1% of users clicked through to the next slide. Instead of sliders, replace the slider with a hero section that shows users what you do and how you can help them with a simple clear call to action.

Tip #5 – Add a contact number at the top

If you have a phone number for customers, place it prominently on the top right-hand side of your website. This gives visitors a quick call to action for quick answers. People don’t want to hunt around your site trying to find out how to contact you.

Tip #6 – Simplify your navigation

To many navigation options distract from your goal of maximising your conversions. Take some time to review your navigation structure to see if it’s easy for visitors to get where they want to go in less than 3 clicks. Also consider simplifying your titles for example change ‘About Us’ to ‘About’, ‘Contact Us’ to ‘Contact’, ‘Our Services’ to ‘Services’. You also don’t need “Home” in the navigation as visitors are able to return to the home page by clicking on your logo.

Tip #7 – Saving images the right way

When uploading images to your website, make sure you give your images an appropriate name and try to include your keywords. For example, don’t of load files with these file names: ‘image_012.jpg’, ‘screenshot-121212-403.jpg’. Instead, try using file names that explain the image or your services, for example, ‘accountant-sydney.jpg’, ‘copywriter-melbourne.jpg’. Try to keep images under 150kb in size where ever possible.

Tip #8 – Check text is readable

Have you been to a website where it’s hard to read the text? Try to avoid light text that is hard to read. Instead of using light grey for text, try using dark grey or black. It’s easier on the eyes to read clear text.

Tip #9 – Check your website on mobile

Mobile views are more and more important these days. It’s important to have a responsive website that can be viewed on multiple devices. Check your website on your phone to ensure you can read all the copy, call to action, forms etc.

Tip #10 – Keep your website software up to date

Websites are like your car, phone, and computer, they all need to be serviced and kept up to date so that they last longer and are more reliable/secure. For example, with WordPress you should be keeping your website up to date each month which includes updating your plugins, themes, and WordPress version. Keeping your site up to date will help with fixing technical bugs, optimisation, performance, reducing the chances of being hacked, avoiding conflicts with new technology and much more.

If you would like help with your website maintenance, we can help.