Understanding how your website is performing is one of the most important things to do when you are running a business. You need to be able to tell when your website is underperforming so that you can address issues and continue to improve your bottom line.
If you notice that your website traffic has plateaued or begun to decrease, you can work on why it’s underperforming and address the issues. Here are a few reasons your website may be underperforming and how to correct them:
Search engines can’t find you.
If search engines can’t correctly crawl your site, your site won’t rank well on search engine results pages. Google bots use both on and off-page optimization and if your website isn’t detectable on the search engine results pages, you are going to have a problem with traffic. The best way to solve this one is by adding a sitemap to your site. It used to be that sitemaps were a tool for website visitors, but now, their main function is making it easier for crawlers to index your whole site accurately.
You can’t be found – but you’re indexed.
If your website is indexed correctly, but still can’t be found in the search engine results, what can you do? Learning SEO techniques will help you here, and one of these is building backlinks from high authority websites.
The website is loading too slowly.
No one likes to wait for a website to load — in fact, you only have about 2 seconds to capture the attention of your customers before 50% of them click the back button. If your site is slow, it will be underperforming and Google won’t allow your website to rank properly. Use the Google PageSpeed Insights tool to help identify some of the issues that might be slowing your website down. If you’ve solved these and your site is still slow, you may want to consider switching to a better hosting plan to get improved performance.
Your site isn’t responsive.
If your website isn’t compatible with smartphones, you’re going to be limited in the amount of traffic you get. Most website pages these days are mobile-friendly and have fully responsive design that seamlessly reflows from computer screen, to tablet, to mobile..
The navigation is too difficult.
With so many websites to choose from these days, users don’t have the patience for websites that are poorly constructed or difficult to navigate. Use Google Analytics to explore how visitors use your site. Does it seem like they are finding what they’re looking for, or do they click through multiple pages, only to exit. You can use your findings to streamline your site, and you should see your conversion numbers improve as a result.
Keep in mind that optimizing your site is an ongoing process. No website is ever done improving, and by looking into the issues above, you’re giving your business the best possible chance for success. If you have any questions about site performance and how to improve yours, reach out to us!
