Improving your website SEO

Written by Chloe Healion

 

Have you ever had a friend send you a link via text or email and when you try to open it on your phone, the website is slow, unorganised and/or requires the dreaded horizontal scrolling? We’ve all been there before, and we’ve all made the decision to bounce off, disregarding what that company could be offering.

 As more and more people use the internet primarily from their mobile phones, we need to be making sure our websites cater to the popular device.

 Did you know? Google’s algorithm is now becoming more focussed on the user experience and ranks websites that cater to mobile usability much higher in search results! So not only does a mobile friendly website avoid user frustration and high bounce rates, but also enhances SEO and avoids competitor organisations being favoured by Google.

 So what are the important steps you should be taking? 

1. Improve site speed

A good user experience often depends on how quickly people can interact with your website. If your website has only been designed for a desktop user, it will take even longer to load on a mobile.  

“By the time a page has taken 4 seconds to load, 25% of users will have bounced… with that figure being even higher for mobile traffic” - Steve Palmer, Showtime Digital.  

An instant gratification world I know! 

But you can improve speed by:

  • reducing image sizes;

  • using a platform such as Squarespace or WordPress that develops websites with good mobile responsiveness from the start; and

  • keeping pages under 5 MB.  

2. Streamline pages with clear call to actions 

Web navigation is all fine and dandy until someone leaves because they can’t find what they're looking for. There isn’t a set-in-stone layout that makes your website efficient and easy to navigate - but having your call to actions prominent and clear is a good starting point. Your visitors want to know how to do business with you - so make it obvious! 

You can also consider including:

  • a clear menu and search button; and/or

  • a task-based design: where your site is optimised in such a way that the key tasks (those that your customer’s most likely use your website to do) are the most easily accessible

 The main idea - for users to find what they want in as few clicks as possible.

 3. Optimise styles for mobile usability

Your web page layout and spacing of fonts and paragraphs can be translated poorly into mobile websites.

 You need to make sure that:

  • your layout allows for vertical scrolling in different screen sizes rather than the user needing to pinch and zoom; and

  • your letter spacing is 0px or higher to ensure letters don’t overlap

 To check these issues, view your website from a user’s perspective on both a desktop and a mobile phone. OVER and OVER!

 Now, you’ve done your Google test my site and you’re worried that you are not tech-savvy enough to build a mobile-friendly site for your company - don’t stress! We can do it for you. At Rebel Nation we design, build and maintain high performing websites for businesses. Email us today and improve your website’s SEO!!

Business, Digital marketingRebel Nation