Considering making website changes that will have a lasting affect on your engagement can be daunting. However, there are a number of small web errors that you can fix in no time that will have a big impact on your conversions. These small things can go a long way in bringing in users and sales, so what are you waiting for? Fix these small web errors today with help from SEM Consultants.
Images
Large images will contribute to slow page speeds on your website. Slow page speeds make for a really big website error. However, by optimising your images, you can help your page speeds as well as usability.
Image file types include:
- JPEG is best for photographs and images with many colours or complexity, and they are popular for web images
- PNGs can handle transparent backgrounds where JPEGs can’t; good for logos, graphics or text-based images; they’re also popular for web, but are restricted to 256 colours
- GIFs are small, animated images restricted to 256 colours
Knowing these file types will help you to decide what you should save your files as. You are probably better off with JPEGs for your website, but you need to alter the size of your images. This can be done easily on things like Photoshop, where you can view the exact size before saving. The image quality is also important. Set image to High Quality only (a middle level) to keep the size correct. Product photos should aim to be a maximum of 80-150KB and homepage images to be a maximum of 250-350KB.
Heading structures
Start with Heading 1(H1s), then H2s, H3s and so on. This gives a structure to your titles. The first, most important umbrella title should be the H1. The subtitles that come next should be H2s, then so on and so forth. This will tell Google and your readers what each point is about.
Names of headings
Incorporating the right names for your headings will go a long way. You need to include keywords here in order to let Google know what the page will be about (as well as your users). Keywords need to be implemented appropriately throughout the website, too. Name your headings aptly, not with witty, confusing names. Instead, describe what the page is actually about in a descriptive but concise way.
Metas
Your meta titles and meta descriptions are a simple thing for you to fix that will go a long way to optimising your website. Meta titles should be 50-60 characters long, and the meta description should be between 135-160 characters long in order to fit well on Google snippets. The meta title and meta descriptions are a way of communicating directly with search engines, saying “this is what this page entails, so make it appear on the search results page for these phrases.” This is exactly what you want, to be appearing in front of the right people for the right reasons.
URLs
Your URL is how search engines get an idea of what is in your site. This means that your URL needs to be optimised for SEO purposes. Your URLs should make sense to the user and Google, with an accurate description of the page topic; e.g. “…/how-to-groom-your-dog/” which is an accurate, human-friendly URL that says exactly what you’ll find when you click the link. You should also try to make the URL unique, where possible, and easily memorable so that people will share and link to your URLs. You should also have a good, logical URL structure (domain name-category-subcategory).
Landing Page Redirects
If you have any old webpages, you will need to implement landing page redirects in order to avoid bounce rates from users leaving the site when they can’t find what they were looking for. You should aim to have no broken links or old pages left unattended – instead, add in redirects so that you don’t lose users. This will make for a better user experience, and take them back to where they intended to be.
Rich Snippets
Rich snippets are what is highlighted in your code as important information on your page. This then communicates to Google that the piece of information is key to the page’s content. This rich snippet will then appear on the search results page (SERP), adding more information alongside the meta title and meta description. This information is things like ratings, addresses, phone numbers, or anything at all of key importance. They will improve upon the SERP.
Call-to-actions
Not including call to actions throughout your website is a big mistake. How are you going to expect visitors to interact with you if there are no call to actions? They are really easy to add and will increase the likelihood of user engagement.
Call to actions include the following:
- Social media buttons
- Phone numbers
- Email address
- Contact forms
- Addresses
These are not something you can skip on, and they are a really small error that can make really big improvements when added.
Enable Compression
You will need to enable compression in your code in order to optimise your website. By doing this, you will improve page speeds, be on Google’s good-side as well as optimise the site for mobile users. All win-wins. When you enable compression, you are simplifying your code (getting rid of unnecessary text and blank spaces etc). If you are using a CMS like WordPress, it should do this for you. For more on page speeds, check out this article on Website Page Speeds.
File Names
If your files are named incorrectly, this can damage your Google visibility. Images should be saved under accurate and perhaps keyword-based names. This will help Google to know what it is, and it may even rank on Google Images. Let’s not forget ALT tags, either, which is the text companion to an image; it should be aptly named. Other files like PDFs on your site should also be named and saved correctly, for optimum results.
If you want to know more about what professional web design can do for you business, don’t hesitate to contact us, and you can find out more here on our web design page.