If online sales and website traffic matters to you, then, following questions will surely interest you;
Google algorithm is smarter than ever. It can tell you how many additional calories your sausage has over hot dog. You don’t need to open a link to know Barack Obama’s birthday.
In such a scenario, if you think that black hat link building tricks can maintain your SERPs, then, you are destined to disaster. If your website sucks, Google will surely bring down your search engine rankings sooner or later.
Now, the first question is how to confirm whether you website sucks or not. The answer is right here;
A website is great in Google’s opinion if people like, revisit, recommend and share it. Now, you must be wondering how Google tells a good website from a bad one.
Factors like bounce rate, revisits, likes/shares, amount of direct traffic, and visit duration comes together to create good and bad signals for Google. Based on these signals, Google algorithm determines the suitability of the website for search phrases, target audience and then ranks it on the quality scale.
Here are some tools and the variables that will help you in discovering the real value of your website;
This Google service generates statistics that can be used to analyze the performance of a website, can tell you if your website sucks. By using the service, you can keep a check on following elements:
Another free service from Google, it helps website owners in tracking site’s health. It will help you keep a check on following aspects:
Analyzing website’s current traffic and visitor behavior needs a lot of expertise and experience
Above tools will help you come across website glitches and improvement areas. However, you need to make statistic observations to reach solid conclusions. For people who are not yet familiar with above mentioned tools, we have made things easy.
In case you can associate following points with your website, it definitely sucks;
Check your website loading speed at http://tools.pingdom.com
This full page test tool helps in analyzing loading speed of websites. The easy-to-use tool lets users identify what is fast, slow or too big in a web page.
Use Google Page Speed to see how your website conforms to best performance practices. It is very similar to Yahoo’s Yslow. You can also pick some great tips on speeding up your website.
Test from multiple locations to see how fast your website loads in different countries. Signup for free to receive alerts when your website is down and for regular performance tracking.
You are losing traffic if your website gets distorted. You need a mobile optimized website for all the features to work properly on mobile devices. Not having one leads to bad user experience, high bounce rate and loss in business opportunities.
Test your website on different devices and browsers with the help of these 19 tools. Choose the one that suits you best.
Visit: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3883-19-Tools-to-Test-your-Site-for-Mobile-Devices
Your website should work effortlessly and give similar experience on maximum web browsers and their most versions. It should also be updated regularly for newer web browser versions.
Use Google Analytics to check bounce rate of your website for various mobile devices and browsers.
Thousands of websites lost ranking and business after Google’s Panda and Penguin updates. If you think that it is possible to trick Google’s ranking Algorithm and generating business for a long time, you are bound to fall flat on your face. Keep Google Webmaster and SEO guidelines in mind and work accordingly.
Concentrate more on user experience so that link building happens naturally. If you are new with SEO, then, refer to the ultimate search engine optimization starter guide to get you started.
If a visitor is not able to find what he came looking for, the whole purpose of your website is defeated. Navigation ought to be intuitive and crafted in such a way that just one glance would guide the visitor in the right direction.
Use Google Analytics and CrazyEgg Heatmaps to discover navigation elements and links that are not getting any attention from visitors.
If a visitor cannot understand your product or service within 5 seconds of landing, you seriously need to rethink the information architecture. Labeling, categorization and overall flow needs to be redone to make it more striking and communicative.
ClickTale and CrazyEgg can be used to gather data for IA related improvements.
Web users don’t usually like to be surprised with sounds and videos that start on their own. If you have a great explainer video, then, generate buzz around it and make sure they are located at a prominent place in the homepage.
If you don’t have the technical expertise to create a unique and creative explainer video on your own, hiring professional experts would be the first thing to do.
Need expert help to make improvements in your website? FATbit has 12+ years of experience
If you have started a website with the goal of making money, then, it cannot afford to look and rank bad. Give attention to following website improvement points for more website sales and revenue generation;
Use Pingdom to take website speed test. It will not just tell you how long your website takes to load but also highlight the cause of the delay. You can then ask your website design team to make improvements.
Irrelevant traffic is one of the prime reasons for high bounce rate. Optimize your website for appropriate keywords and generate relevant business traffic. Targeting search phrases relevant to your industry will also give you an edge over competitors.
Use “http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/” to analyze the density of keywords on and also see how search engines read your website. Check the referral sources of traffic from Google Analytics.
Recommended for SEO – https://www.fatbit.com/
Check what fraction of your website’s traffic comes from mobile devices. You can get this information through Google Analytics. This will help you decide whether it is worth investing in a mobile optimized website or not.
Use Heatmaps to see where visitors are clicking and what parts of the page are getting scanned & scrolled. Google Analytics can tell you a lot about visitor behavior and where you need to focus for website improvements.
If your website has suddenly lost ranking, there is a high possibility that you have been penalized for using unethical SEO techniques. Google now notifies you if your website or certain web pages have been penalized due to over-optimization.
Make sure you have Google Webmaster Tools set up on your site. Once in Webmaster Tools, click on “Search Traffic” and then “Manual Actions”.
If any action has been taken against your site, details will be listed within. Here is a sample screenshot of what a manual penalty for a webpage will look like in Google Webmaster Tool.
It is best to contact an SEO expert. A SEO professional can help you figure out the reasons for penalty, loss of organic ranking and traffic.
If your website lacks in the field of user experience, consult a UX expert. Here is a blog post that will help you figure out where you are going wrong with user experience:
Recommended Read: https://www.fatbit.com/fab/101-actionable-points-to-make-your-website-sell/
Ask your design and development team to make the required changes.
When visitors are browsing your website but conversions are not happening, it means there is something wrong with your checkout process. Consult a conversion optimization expert if the bounce rate is high at the bottom of your conversion funnel.
You can get detailed information through Google Analytics account (Conversions>> Goals>> Funnel Visualization)
A blog post for in-depth understanding of Google Analytics conversion funnel.
Visit: http://blog.kissmetrics.com/conversion-funnel-survival-guide/
Request FREE conversion & UX report
FATbit has been helping online brands improve sales and entrepreneurs launch new brands for almost a decade now. We have worked on more than 2000 web projects and promised success to all our clients.
In case you are not sure what is wrong with your website, we can find the problem for you. Get in touch for friendly website consultation and we will manage the rest.
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Comments (6)
Erin Greenawald
FATbit Chef Post author
FATbit Chef Post author
Leonard
FATbit Chef Post author
FATbit Chef Post author
Great list and very helpful suggested readings. Looking forward to more helpful posts in future as well. I was interested in getting my website’s conversion analysis done. You say that your team can do it for free. Please tell me what are the details I will be provided about my website through this report.
Hello Erin,
Wishing you a very Happy New Year! Thank you for reading the article. Hope you get some benefit from it and share it with your network.
To answer your query regarding the Conversion and User Experience Analysis report, it is totally free of cost. If you are interested in getting one, all you need to do is contact our team. We will ask you for your website URL and proof that you are the owner of the domain. Through this report we will highlight what parts of your website need improvement to enhance conversions and visitor engagement. Our team of conversion experts will be analyzing your website design, information architecture, usability, navigation, and leakages in conversion funnel. If you are comfortable, you can also share the login details of your Google Analytics account so that we can substantiate our suggestions with concrete numbers. Hope your queries are sorted out. If you still have some issues, consult us anytime.
FATbit Chef
Hi
No, we are not using Drupal for our blog 🙂
Does your website have a contact page? I’m having trouble locating
it but, I’d like to send you an e-mail. I’ve got some creative ideas for your blog you might be interested in hearing.
Either way, great website and I look forward to seeing
it improve over time.
Hi,
You can contact us through this link https://www.fatbit.com/website-design-company/enquiry.html
We will love to hear your creative suggestions for improving our blog.
FATbit Chef
Hi,
Thanks for appreciating our blog layout. We give full credit to our designers and developers for this blog layout. We are also thankful to our content writers and researchers who are responsible for bringing fresh and information content on our blog.
FATbit Chef