By reading this article, you will be able to know what your website needs to improve in 2020. Your website is the first impression that you will make with a lot of potential and returning customers. This means that you need to make your points clear and continue improving your website all the time. It is never truly finished. It needs to be tended to and updated often. Below we have included the 10 things we recommend for making sure your website is updated and that your business will get the best results in 2020.

1. Update your plans for your website

Make sure you have updated your goals and vision for what you wish to accomplish with your website. You will want to make sure that your website is consistent and that all the parts work together to accomplish your goals. There should be consistent wording and other design elements throughout. Along with planning where you hope to succeed with your website, you will also want to plan for where things could go wrong. A great example of this would be in planning how your website will handle 404s on your website. 404s are broken links or pages and they can cause some friction to visitors. There should be plans in place to make things such as this simple to resolve for the visitor so that they are not turned away.

2. Test the effectiveness of your efforts

Do an audit of what is working for your website and what needs to be updated. This will go hand in hand with your planning. You will need to evaluate how your previous plans have gone or are still going. This will help you to know how to incorporate some of the other points on this list as you improve your website.

3. Simplify your website and its layout

Don’t be afraid to simplify and declutter your site. A cluttered website will confuse visitors, so utilize some white space to break things up and help to direct visitors’ focus. Organize your website in the simplest ways possible without leaving out important elements. This can be done by breaking things down across different pages, segmenting information, or including resources that are able to convey information visually, such as videos or images. Along with keeping the layout simple, you will also want to keep the copy trimmed and succinct. You want to get across your value proposition to your visitor. You want to make sure they understand your value and your business’ purpose right away.

4. Check up on your page speed

Be sure the loading speed for your web page is not hurting your website’s effectiveness. If a page takes too long to load, the people visiting your website will turn away. Page speed is something important that can be overlooked as the website is being designed. This is often the result of your web page having too many elements and the loading process is bogged down. This can be avoided by spreading things more evenly across your website and by keeping things simple. There is a time and place for certain elements, and if something will make your web page take a while to load, it might be something to reconsider. You can also compress images to reduce loading speed. 

5. Update your calls to action

If you have a website already, then you are familiar with calls to action. Calls to action are an important part of encouraging visitors through the buying process. You may have some great calls to action, but it can be helpful to shake things up. It is important to revisit your calls to action periodically and test different ones. Updating things can be as simple as changing wording or adding in new types of calls to action. Going along with updating the text portion of your calls to action, it can be beneficial to review the effectiveness of their location and the colors used for them. Make sure they are easy to spot and draw attention.

6. Evaluate your use of images and visuals

Make sure your use of imagery is complimenting your goals for your site. The images should be cohesive with the goals you have for your website and not distracting from them. The use of images can come in the form of pictures or custom graphics and illustrations. You also want the visuals you use to be high quality since they reflect your business. People are quick to make judgements and you don’t want your visuals to be a problem. This is also important to consider when using pictures. Stock photography can hurt more than help if you aren’t careful. Another great tool to use if your website is equipped for it, is to incorporate moving visuals and videos.

7. Make sure your website is responsive

Being responsive is super important. This is done by making sure your website works well on different types of devices, such as mobile phones, tablets, and computers. Mobile friendly sites do well since so many people view the internet on their mobile phones. This is because it is so convenient and easily accessible. Being responsive is even going to affect a website’s results in a Google search. If your website is not responsive, people will have trouble viewing your website and miss things or not even be able to access important features. Make sure your website is easy to view on a mobile phone and other devices. This is something you will want to check often and update as phone, tablet, and computer browsing softwares experience updates.

8. Review your website’s navigation experience

Along with simplifying each page, it is important to simplify the navigation experience. By simplifying this process and providing navigation tools and links you will help visitors. They will be able to find what they are looking for and reduce the chances of them giving up and leaving. It is surprising how often people can be turned away by a difficult or long navigation process. This can be simplified by providing a menu of pages at the top and bottom of your web pages, including a search bar, and including links where appropriate. 

9. Incorporate social media elements where appropriate

Social media is an important part of today’s culture and it is great as a marketing tool. It can connect people with your content and be a useful resource for allowing people to easily share your content or links to your site. Be sure you are utilizing all the benefits of social media on your website with things like share and follow buttons. By connecting your website with social media, you will open your website to a lot more visitors.

10. Organize your content and plan new content

Your content is super important to traffic on your website. This means that updating old content, organizing it to be more accessible, and continuing to add new content is necessary. How you display your content can significantly improve your visitors experience. By keeping things organized and accessible, you will be able to display what is available without overwhelming them.

Your website could be good, but by applying these 10 things it can be great. There are always ways to improve it. Each of the items from our list really contribute to one another. The most important thing to keep in mind as you are improving your website is to see things from your potential customer’s point of view. As you do this and go over each of these different points, you will find the ways that your website could be improved. Doing a review of your website will help you make sure that you are being more effective in converting the visitors to your website.

– The Forge Team