If your website doesn't have these seven things, you're missing out.
In 2016, you can't afford to be missing these features from your site
Sure, you want your website to look great. It might even have some bells and whistles to give it a personal touch. But web design and development is just as much a science as it is an art. The internet is a competitive place these days, so it takes a lot more than a pretty façade to pull real weight. That’s where the technology driving your site and the skill of your developers come into play.
1. Mobile Optimization: Two words that mean more than you think.
You’re not alone if you think mobile optimization just means that your website should look good mobile devices. But that’s a simplified version of the story. Mobile responsive web developers create sites with content breakpoints targeted at specific screen sizes so the content displays properly on any device. Image and font sizes are also coded to adjust based on screen size, and custom menus are created to make navigation mobile-friendly.
To top it all off, the complex calculations that make responsive sites possible need to happen in an instant, or your site won’t load quickly on mobile devices and your visitors will lose interest while they’re waiting. Websites should be developed with mobile usability in mind from the very beginning.
2. Page Speed: The silent SEO killer.
The speed at which your website loads, even on slow connections, is a really important factor in search engine optimization. A lot of issues can affect page speed. Large, unoptimized images are the most common culprit. Beside image sizes, there are a lot very technical processes behind the scenes that have a huge impact on page load speed. Coding efficiency matters, as well as the speed of the systems on which your site is hosted and a lot of other, more advanced details like render-blocking scripts and minification.
3. Analytics: It’s not as scary as it sounds.
Just the word “analytics” is enough to send some would-be marketers running for the breakroom, but without analytics you’ll never know what’s working and what isn’t. Websites absolutely need to have analytics tracking in place. If your site is built on a content management system with simple dashboards that display the important information up front, turning that data into actionable items will be painless.
4. Content Management: The freedom to make your own site edits without knowing how to code.
A good content management system will allow you to make changes to the content on your site quickly and easily, without knowing any code and without needing to pay a developer every time you want to change a few words. You should be able to easily post blog updates, add new pages, edit menu items, and upload files.
5. Lead-Generating Forms: Capture email addresses from site visitors so you can follow up.
Your content management system should make it simple to build forms and collect data from your site visitors so you’ll have an opportunity to turn anonymous visitors into known leads. It’s even better if that information automatically syncs with a built-in database that you can use to create mailing lists.
6. On-Page SEO: Search engine optimization doesn’t stop with keywords.
Does your website have an XML sitemap? What about an optimized robots.txt file? Is your schema information in place? It’s totally ok if you don’t know what all that means, because if you have a good web developer you’ll never need to know. The point is that there’s a lot of invisible work being done behind the scenes that must be done right, or your page rankings will really suffer!
7. Website Security: Your visitors should be able to trust you with their data.
Safety and security are important for every website, but it’s crucial for eCommerce sites that process payment information. The technology that makes websites secure involves a combination of identity verification and encryption. Website data breaches seem to pop up in the news every few months, so it goes without saying that it’s really important for your website to be hosted on a secure system.
If your website is missing anything on this list, the web developers at efelle creative can help.
The team at efelle creative builds award-winning websites that are mobile and SEO optimized, and our proprietary content management system, FusionCMS, includes all of the above features and more. Call us at 206.384.4909 or use our contact form to schedule a web development consultation.