Time to Level Up Your Site?
Does your website have a high bounce rate? That could mean that you need to take another look at your design, content or usability. Sometimes the smallest changes can make the biggest impact, such as adding a call-to-action button at the right place or changing the wording of a headline. Follow our checklist below to level up your site.
1. Update your Headings
There are a couple of reasons you should put extra effort into writing good headings - first of all, it guides the user through your page. Having clear yet engaging headings as a part of your website design equals a better user experience. Second, search engines usually care more about headings than the other content. Therefore a good heading should include your target keywords and be intriguing - it should make the user interested enough to keep reading.
How-To:
Rewrite your most important headings with the user intent in mind. In other words - what is your ideal website visitor looking for on your site? What answers are they looking for, or what problems are they trying to solve? Use these intentions when writing your headings. If you want some punchy headings you can contact a copywriter - this is their expertise!
2. Remove 404 Pages
When a user clicks on a link and expects to get to a specific page of your website but ends up at a broken 404 page, they will not have a good user experience. You need to correct or remove these pages to rule out a potential disappointment for your user.
How-To:
You can use the free tool Broken Link Check to identify any broken links on your website, and the free tool Screaming Frog to find 404 pages. You can also head to your Google Search Console dashboard and click 'Coverage' to check for 404 pages.
3. Add Call-to-Actions
This may sound too easy, but adding CTAs (call-to-action) buttons on your website is an excellent way of guiding the user to move forward. It will enable the user to navigate quickly, and it will take them to the page on your site where they get what they want. It is all about optimising the website design to guide the user to act.
Do this:
Have you already got CTAs on your site? Sometimes just changing the button text or colour will be enough to increase the click rate. The phrase 'Get Free Quote' may get more clicks than 'Contact Us', and a colourful button may stick out more than a black or white one.
Drive more leads with CTAs
Offer something of value. In exchange for a users contact information you should offer them something that would be of true value to them - a free template, a checklist, a demo, an ebook or similar.
Use action-oriented language. Words like 'download' or 'get free copy' would typically drive more action than more vague offers.
4. Optimise your Page Speed
No one wants to wait for a website to load, in fact, most users will give up on your site if the page load time is more than three (!) seconds. A low-loading web page is bad for the user experience and it will increase the bounce rate (the percentage of visitors who leave your website after visiting only the landing page). By making your site load faster both Google and your website visitors will be more pleased.
Do this:
You can easily check your website speed on GTmetrix. All you need to do is enter your website URL and press enter. You'll find your speed test result within seconds.
5. Consistent Design
When you create or improve your website design, make sure to choose a specific theme and stick to it! This includes the font, text sizes, images and button style etc. Use the same style on all pages to have a consistent web design that will become familiar to the user. They need to know that they are still on your site as they navigate from one page to another.
Benefits of consistent web design:
Strengthen your brand recognition
Improve the user experience
Search engines prefer well designed websites
6. Highlight Key Information with Bullet Points
Breaking up a text using bullet points will make it quicker, easier and more fun to read. I recommend that you use bullet points to highlight important information and benefits of your services or products to the user.
Benefits of using bullet points:
They can highlight key features
It improves the readability
It helps to structure your content
You can use it to increase keyword visibility
Remember that you can be creative when choosing your bullet points - it does not have to be dots or dashes, it can be images or icons that go hand in hand with your branding or the theme of the specific text.
7. Double Check your Mobile Version
Having a website design optimised for mobile devices is a given these days. You are likely to get more traffic from mobile phones than from desktops, but it is still very common to build websites that are optimised for desktops first-hand.
Did you know that Google can actually penalise sites that are not mobile-friendly? This is yet another reason why you should pay extra attention to the mobile usability of your site.
How-To:
One way to check if your site is mobile-friendly is to ask someone to use your site and give them your honest opinion about it. You can also log in to Google Search Console (or set it up,. if you have not done so yet). Click on 'Mobile Usability' under 'Experience' and you'll see if there are any errors detected, such as too small text or clickable elements being placed too close to each other.
