With the rising importance of digital presence, a well-optimized website plays a crucial role in driving business growth. You want to rank higher in organic search. You want a higher conversion rate. But how can you, a beginner, determine if it’s time to start looking for website optimization services?
We can answer those questions.
What do website optimization services do?
Website optimization is the process of using tools, advanced strategies, and experiments to improve a website’s performance. It increases visibility on search engines, encourages visitors to become customers, and provides a smooth user experience. There are many different flavors of optimization, but here are some common forms.
(Hint: they all involve nerdy things – but nerdy things also make money for companies)
Search engine optimization (or “SEO“)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps improve a website’s visibility and ranking on search engine results pages. The idea of SEO is to increase organic, or non-paid, traffic to your website. Organic traffic is awesome, because it’s free. We like free.
SEO can be rather broad. Common SEO techniques include the following:
- Keyword research to understand the terms your target audience uses
- Optimizing website content and structure
- Earning high-quality backlinks from reputable sources
- Improving site speed
- Creating a mobile-friendly interface
- Ensuring your website is easy for search engine crawlers to understand
You should look into SEO if:
- You need to improve search rankings. The ultimate goal of your website should be to appear on the first page of search engine results. If your site is buried pages deep, it means your site needs to pay more attention to SEO. SEO is a broad topic that includes keyword optimization, quality content creation, link building, and more.
- You have a lot of content, but it does not bring much traffic. Keeping your website’s content up-to-date is a non-negotiable aspect of optimization. If your site content is outdated or lacks relevance, it could hurt your search engine ranking and deter potential customers. Regularly refreshing your content with helpful and up-to-date information is a good practice.
Options to approach SEO
- Enlist a company with SEO consulting services. If you afford it, a quality SEO company is a great way to revisit and rethink your SEO strategy. One thing to check is each company’s portfolio of SEO services – you should see it to believe it.
- Use a tool like SEMrush (paid). Tools like SEMrush offer comprehensive solutions for SEO, including site audit, keyword research, and backlink tracking. They also provides insights into your competitors’ strategies.
- Use Google Search Console (free). Google Search Console is another invaluable tool for website owners. It allows you to check indexing status and optimize visibility of your website. It helps identify crawling errors or any issues that might prevent your website from being found by search engines.
Conversion rate optimization (or “CRO”)
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is aimed at increasing the percentage of website visitors who complete a desired action on a webpage. A “conversion” can be anything, like purchasing a product or signing up for a newsletter. A high conversion rate means more people are doing the thing you want on your website.
CRO involves understanding how users move through your site, what actions they take, and what’s stopping them from completing your goals. By understanding these things, you can take action on them.
You should look into conversion rate optimization if:
- Your site has a high bounce rate. The bounce rate is a measure of visitors who enter a website and leave without viewing other pages. It is expressed as a percentage. A high bounce rate is a sign that visitors may not be finding what they want on your website.
- Your web design feels complicated. Does navigating through your website feel complicated and confusing? Your site’s navigation should be straightforward and intuitive. A complicated website could frustrate visitors, making them more likely to abandon their visit.
- Your site is hard to use on a mobile device. With over half of global internet traffic coming from mobile devices, having a mobile-friendly site is no longer optional. If your website doesn’t render well on mobile devices or lacks mobile user-friendliness, optimization is urgently needed.
Options to approach conversion rate optimization
- Hire a conversion rate optimization company. There are website optimization consultants out there that specialize in refining websites to convert at a higher rate. But, make sure you do your research and ask for proof of their experience. Not all companies are equal.
- Try your own A/B testing. Conversion rate optimization is complicated, however, you can do bits and pieces on your own. A/B testing is only one of the tools that the specialists use, but it is a powerful one. Set up a test with Google Optimize and see if your conversion rate improves.
- Try different marketing strategies. Sometimes all you need is to give your visitors a different perspective about your product. Try different angles and create different landing pages. Measure which ones perform the best, and go from there.
Technical health optimization
The technical health of your website refers to the quality of code underneath the hood. Even if a website was built incredibly well years ago, it may not meet the standards of today.
It’s a fact
You should look into website health optimization if:
- Your website is more than 2-3 years old. Studies show that websites need to be rebuilt and redesigned from time to time. Old websites simply cannot compete with new websites, and they lose traffic. We wrote a full article about this and the research behind it.
- Your website loads slowly. Is your website taking forever to load? Slow load times can be a significant drag on your site. It can also negatively affect your search engine ranking or even Google Ads.
- You are unsure if people with disabilities can use your website easily. Website accessibility matters a lot. More visitors than you think need the assistance of tools like screen readers to use websites. If your website isn’t easy for those tools to understand, these visitors will leave.
Options to approach technical health optimization
- Hire a website optimization company. Companies, like Wonderful, that offer web optimization services can be a great help! Often times they can help with technical SEO, performance, accessibility, and more. Just make sure they have solid case studies to back their reputation.
- Use Google PageSpeed Insights (free). Google PageSpeed Insights is a free tool that measures the performance of a page on both mobile and desktop devices. It evaluates load time and provides recommendations for improvement. By analyzing the content of a webpage, it generates suggestions to make your page faster, aiding in website optimization.
Our recommendation: hire a website optimization company
The technical health of your website will usually require some experience critical thinking and development. For this reason, we recommend enlisting the help of a specialized website optimization agency, like Wonderful. Leaning on an experienced firm allows you to run your business and get the results you need faster.
Don’t hesitate to seek professional help if the task seems overwhelming. We got your back!
