8 Things To Make Your Website Look and Work Better Instantly

1. Use lazy load techniques for images.

One excellent way to increase the performance of your website for your visitors to benefit from is to introduce the lazy load image technique. Usually, this is a simple JavaScript or HTML5 code (or WordPress Plugin) that only loads images to the viewpoint of a user’s device once the image is in their viewpoint.

There’s no point in loading all images on a website (and taking up valuable server resources) if visitors aren’t going to see them anyway. This may not benefit your visitors if your website isn’t image-rich, but it’s still worth considering if you want to make every page-loading second count.

2. Use the WordPress platform.

Many website owners overlook the WordPress blogging platform because they think it’s only a blogging platform. However, WordPress has become the biggest player in terms of Content Management Systems, and building a full-scale website on the platform is now easily possible thanks to the many plugins and themes available.

However, they aren’t the only reasons why WordPress is so valuable to web developers. WordPress is highly extensive and the admin panel it comes with makes website management easy. WordPress also comes with a host of plugins, so undertaking tasks like SEO site optimization and implementing analytics such as Google Analytics is effortless.

3. Ensure your website is HSTS, SSL, and AMP ready.

Customers aren’t keen on buying products from websites that aren’t secure or fast, so ensuring you’ve taken the necessary steps to implement HSTS, SSL, and AMP is crucial – especially if you’re looking to compete strongly. HSTS can prevent cookie hijacking and protocol attacks – which could save you a lot of hassle.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encrypts data sent between the web server and browser. AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is Google’s present to you to help increase page loading times for your visitors. These are three things your website needs to increase security and performance so you can stay ahead of the competition.

4. Use dedicated WordPress hosting.

The benefits of using WordPress hosting over shared hosting are simple. Not only will you benefit from faster page loading speeds, better site security, and automatic backups, but you’re going to benefit from giving your visitors an all-around better experience – and that’s highly important when it comes to user experience (UX).

Even if your site isn’t based on the WordPress platform, WordPress hosting could well be the difference in gaining or losing a customer because of the high performance it offers. There’s nothing to suggest shared hosting can’t perform highly, but WordPress hosting obviously has other benefits that shared hosting can’t provide.

Additionally, if you're looking for cost-effective solutions without compromising on quality, cheap WordPress servers in Germany offer an excellent balance between price and performance, making it an attractive choice for enhancing your website's user experience.

5. Perform on-page optimization.

On-page SEO optimization makes the difference in your site getting seen in the search engines. If your customers are searching for your targeted keywords but you’re not being found, they’re obviously going to shop elsewhere. Therefore, ensuring on-page optimization is at the top of your list of things to do is a must-have. There are tools that can help you do this – SEMRush is one of them. SEMRush is the ultimate all-in-one SEO tool that can help better your chances in the search engines. If you’re looking for further insights on how you can improve SEO, you could opt for DeepCrawl, too.

6. Interactive elements are an excellent addition.

When it comes to interactive elements, you can’t do enough to ensure UX is up there with the best and your visitors are well looked after. Interactive elements give your visitors more to do on-site and thus, keep them there wanting more. There are multiple options available to you here. You could implement basic games, ask for feedback, and much more.

Many web developers choose to implement the Disqus forum network to improve discussions and build highly engaging forums. Others, however, like to take advantage of Apester polls to give their visitors more in terms of story-telling and other options.

7. Optimize your pages for speed.

The speed of your site is paramount to its success. One second could be the difference between losing or gaining a customer, so you need to shave off as many seconds as you can when it comes to page loading times. The lazy load image technique is a good start, but there’s more you can do to increase speeds. If you’re based on the WordPress platform, for example, there are a host of plugins that you can use to your advantage. The likes of WP Smush, W3Cache, GT Metrix, and Gonzalez are all free plugins you can quickly install to automatically help you improve page speeds.

8. Always write content for the people, not the search engines.

Many website owners only create content to suit the needs of the search engine spiders to try and better their search engine presence. However, this is usually the wrong way of doing things – search engine spiders aren’t the ones interested in the content you’ve got to offer. Be human and only provide content you know your audience can benefit from, otherwise, you’re going to have a poor bounce rate, and that could hurt your search engine presence even more. Always produce high-quality content for your audience – the search engines will love your site more for it, and you will be rewarded handsomely.

Last but not least, always be in touch with a trusted tech team that can help you and support you with more advanced maintenance of your website.

Of course, there are plenty of things you can do to improve the look and speed of your website, but you don’t always need to spend money on hiring someone else to do it. Consider the above tips, and you’ll find your website has a friendlier bounce rate with a much better conversion rate.