Google launched in 1998 and has taken the Internet by storm. Although a lot of things have changed, there are a few things that remain relevant to this date. First, you will have a successful online career if you get your basics right.
Since the basics in 1998 are different from what they are in 2022, it is easy to get overwhelmed and distracted. Therefore, optimizing your website and maintaining its position in search engine rankings is more important than ever. When you don't optimize a website, you are likely to go through the following situations:
- You will have a website that is not generating enough traffic
- You would have started blogging a long time, but no one is reading your articles
- You are struggling to create an online presence for your brand
Website optimization helps you to increase website traffic and improve conversion rate. Unlike search engine optimization (SEO), website optimization fully focuses on your visitors' experience.
What is Website Optimization?
Website optimization refers to improving a website's performance to attract and retain visitors. You can use numerous tools and strategies to improve its online presence.
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
Web optimization often needs to be addressed by businesses that need to gain experience in creating an online presence for their brand. Individuals assume that once they have built a website and launched it, they have reached their destination. They assume that they will attract visitors immediately after launching their website. However, the reality is that their hard work has only started.
Unless you are a celebrity or an entrepreneur with an established fan following, you must put in the effort. There is no guarantee that your brand will succeed, even if you are a popular celebrity. Many celebrities need help with their respective brands due to their inability of website handling. Google doesn't care about sentimental values and only prioritizes websites based on their attraction and fundamental features.
Importance of Web Optimization
Website optimization helps you to improve the overall experience of your website visitors. A quality website experience allows visitors to spend more time on your web pages and urges them to visit your site again later. Web optimization doesn't just help you in increasing online sales but also improves your website's conversion rate.
Image taken from Strikingly
Every viewer comes to your website for a reason. Website optimization ensures that you fulfill their objectives or accomplish their tasks. However, if your viewers feel you need to invest more time optimizing your website, they will walk away on the first attempt and only return to your site once. Eventually, you will see a high bounce rate, and you won't be able to grow your business through your website. Therefore, please spend energy and time retaining existing customers rather than gaining new visitors. Hence, you must focus on your website optimization practices from the moment you launch your site.
Relevant Web Optimization Practices in 2022
1) Implement Web Design Practices
You can increase your website's conversion rate by optimizing your user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). According to a stat shared by Hostinger, 80% of customers spend more time on a web page due to a better user experience.
User experience (UX) design strategies optimize a website's performance and accessibility. For example, Strikingly is a host of many wonderful eCommerce websites where users provide product information in different languages and payment gateways.
Your business objectives must be clear when implementing UI or UX practices. Your website design should help the customers through their journey. For example, your eCommerce website design should encourage them to buy a product. You can optimize your website's design by:
- Optimizing menus
- Including a call to action (CTA) buttons
- Improving the sales funnel
2) Optimize Content Marketing
Content marketing is a website optimization strategy that helps boost your website traffic. It is a process that involves planning, creating, and promoting content to educate visitors about your products, services, and brand.
This website optimization strategy helps you to increase brand awareness and customer loyalty. According to a stat shared by Hostinger, 60% of marketers believe that content marketing generates higher demand. Here are some popular content marketing strategies:
- Social media posts: These posts encourage audiences from various social media platforms to visit your website. Many website builders have remained proactive with the evolution of social media and started to integrate social media platforms in the form of icons. Users can display these icons at the bottom of their website homepage.
- Landing pages: These pages are customized static web pages containing CTA buttons and a direct value proposition to increase conversions.
- Blogs: Users go through different marketing and social media trends and create blogs to educate audiences about their products, services, and industry. For example, if they have launched a new product, they write a blog to show their experience using it.
- Newsletters: They enable you to communicate with your subscribed users and provide them with the latest updates about your products, services, and industry.
3) Improve On-Page SEO
On-page SEO refers to optimizing web page content for search engine rankings. Working on your on-page SEO would bring visitors' queries to your search engines. Since it is part of your overall SEO strategy, on-page SEO ensures that your website ranks higher in search engine result pages (SERPs).
A high ranking on Google SERPs will result in more organic traffic. Hostinger states that 67.6% of the search engine clicks account for the first organic search engine results. To improve your on-page SEO, you can go through the following tips:
- Create blog posts: You must provide relevant and updated information to maintain high search engine rankings.
- Do keyword research: It is essential to include keywords in titles, headings, alternative text, and the content body. It would be best to use a broad keyword to increase its reach. If you own an online store, you must include keywords on your eCommerce product pages.
- Use header tags: You should follow the principles of header hierarchy on your web pages.
- Include meta titles and descriptions: You should write meta titles and meta descriptions for all web pages and posts.
4) Increase Website Speed
Web page speed is one of the most significant factors behind Google's search engine ranking. One of the reasons why page speed is so critical to your SEO ranking is that 47% of the users expect a website to load in two seconds. Since page speed holds immense significance, you should conduct website speed tests regularly. GTMetrix is a popular speed optimization tool that provides insight into your website speed.
After going through your website performance, you can speed up your website through the following practices:
- Remove unnecessary code: You can optimize a website by removing unnecessary characters on your web pages, such as spaces between lines.
- Establish content delivery network (CDN): A web hosting plan provides a CDN option to improve your website performance. It replicates the static content across data servers to boost your website.
- Image optimization: You must include images on your website that don't take much time to load.
Optimize a Website on Strikingly
If you have a well-established website on Strikingly, it will be easier for you to implement the relevant website optimization strategies. Strikingly is a highly reputable website builder that helps you optimize your web.
Image taken from Strikingly
Firstly, you must enter your website description in the box of the Settings section of your Strikingly website editor. Then, you must click on 'Settings' and 'Basic Info' to check the respective page.
This page also allows you to add meta descriptions and tags to your web pages. All you have to do is click on 'Manage' followed by 'Pages' on your Strikingly web editor. If you have a multi-page website, this strategy is beneficial because it improves the online presence of web pages by Google bots. Furthermore, this practice is part of your on-page search engine optimization (SEO) plan.
Image taken from Strikingly
Strikingly easily allows you to embed videos into your web pages. Remember to upload your videos on third-party platforms like DailyMotion and YouTube before inserting the link from the Strikingly web editor. Adding content to your website adds to your website optimization planning. Here is how you can add a video to your Strikingly website
- After adding a new section, click on 'Image and Video' before selecting 'Gallery.'
- Check out the top website section, and click on 'Add Videos'
- Paste your video link in the provided field and click on 'Save.'
Image taken from Strikingly
Finally, you can add your Strikingly website to Google Analytics, further boosting your website optimization strategies. Once you have added the tracking ID of Google Analytics, you must enter it on your Strikingly website. You must enter the tracking ID in the Google Analytics Tracker field in the 'Services' section in 'Settings.'
Conclusion
Since the Internet has no expiration date, you will see much information and disinformation spread across various search engines. If you show negligence with your website content could lead to serious consequences. Website optimization helps you to improve user experience, website traffic, ranking, conversion rate, and traffic.
You can optimize websites by optimizing content marketing, improving SEO, and gaining customer feedback. Once you have implemented strategies, ensure that you track and measure your website's performance. You are destined for long-term success by having an appropriate website optimization plan.
