6 Critical Website Considerations for 2020
This article will take you through 6 critical considerations for your website in 2020. These tips will help you make sure you are getting the most out of your investment.
1. Responsive Design
It is important that your website presents well for visitors on all screen sizes. In fact, a majority of your visitors will probably be using mobile devices. Mobile performance is a key factor for Google rankings and will help your website’s search engine optimisation (SEO).
You can test whether your website’s mobile performance with Google's Mobile Friendly Test.
2. Fast Load Times
Page-speed is a critical factor in the overall experience provided for your visitors. There is nothing more frustrating than waiting a long time for a website to load, to the point where the user may even give up. Page load times are also a key factor for Google rankings and will help your website’s search engine optimisation (SEO).
You can test your website’s page speed through Google’s tool, Pagespeed Insights or through a service such as GTMetrix.com.
3. High-quality content
Is your website dressed to impress? Low-quality images, spelling mistakes and broken links can all be major issues that may cause prospective clients to look elsewhere.
Your content should be eye-catching, engaging and informative. If you are struggling with content creation consider hiring a copywriter and a professional photographer.
See our post about sourcing website images here.
4. Clear call-to-action
Your website should present your client with a clear next step. Don’t keep them guessing, lay it out plain and simple. If you are wanting your clients to book a quote, make it easy to access, your visitors shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to utilise your services.
5. Site Security
In 2020, it is imperative that your website has an SSL certificate. All good web-host providers should be able to provide this to you at no additional cost. Put simply, an SSL certificate ensures that the visitor only receives the exact data that was sent by the server, meaning that no third-party has intercepted the transmission and added or removed data. See this article from kinsta.com for a more in-depth look at SSL.
WordPress is the most popular web development platform globally and is also our #1 choice. This has many advantages regarding the quality of the platform and the tools available, however, it also makes WordPress a regular target for web-hackers. It is important that your website is secure. The following steps are essential to ensuring your website is protected as best as possible;
- Regular security checks
- High-quality and reputable web-hosting
- Regular updates of WordPress, themes and plugins
- Live-firewall and site-login protection
All the points are available on our WordPress maintenance packages. Find more information here.
6. Site Backups
How regularly is your site being backed up?
As with all software, there is always the possibility that something could go wrong. Whether you accidentally delete content, a plugin or an update goes wrong. Having regular backups means that when something goes wrong, your website can be restored in a matter of minutes.
All our WordPress maintenance packages come with regular backups to suit your needs. Find more information here.