If you have a website, you want it to be discovered easily by potential customers.

You want as much traffic as possible in order to generate strong sales and leads. And to make that happen, you should use an SEO strategy called site optimization.

What is site optimization?

Also sometimes called search engine optimization, website optimization, or on-page optimization, site optimization is the process of optimizing website performance in order to acquire traffic and improve conversion rate. It includes various marketing and technical strategies and techniques that make your website easily discoverable by potential customers and effective in converting visitors to buyers.

What are the basics of site optimization?

There are different ways to optimize your website and choosing which ones to use depends on what your objectives and goals are. Below are some examples of basic approaches to site optimization that we take:

Search Engine Optimization or SEO

Knowledge of search engine optimization or SEO is important if you run a website. It is a site optimization technique that can help your web pages attract traffic through the use of relevant terms or keywords in your content.

Every day, Google and other search engines get billions of searches from people who are looking for something specific. Some might be doing research for school, job hunting, or checking the latest news, while others might be searching for products and services that you happen to offer.

If you utilize SEO techniques, you can make your website appear on the first page of search results every time terms for keywords relevant to your niche are searched. The higher your site ranking is, the greater your odds of generating sales. Not all customers have the time or patience to go through hundreds of websites to buy something, so making your website appear on the front page of search results is vital to boost your traffic and sales.

In order to drive more traffic to your site, you can use free or paid SEO tools. If you are a beginner, Google has a number of SEO tools, such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics, which can help you conduct keyword research, and track site metrics and rankings free of charge.

Website Technical Performance

How many seconds does it take for your homepage to load? Does it open slower in some browsers? Can visitors easily navigate between pages? Is your site optimized for both desktop and mobile devices?

The architecture and structure of your website also plays a vital role in site performance. You site has to be fast, solid, and stable. It should be easy to use even for the technologically-challenged.

Website speed – According to studies, the ideal load time for any website is between 1 to 5 seconds– anything longer poses a high risk of abandonment. So if your webpage takes 3 seconds to load, it has a risk of losing half the traffic. And if it takes 5 seconds or longer, the abandonment rate shoots up to 87%.

Desktop, tablet, or mobile display – In recent years, there has been a significant increase in traffic generated by tablets and mobile phones. Especially when online shopping, the majority of people prefer to use their handheld devices instead of laptops or PCs. Because of the high traffic that comes from mobile web browsing, it is to your benefit to ensure that your website is optimized for both mobile and tablet use. When designing and creating your site, double-check that your pages are responsive and that your content adapts to whichever display size your visitors use.

Website errors and hosting – Page loading errors, such as internal server error (500), bad request (400), forbidden (403), and not found (404), are not uncommon if you run a website. However, if these occur often and are not immediately fixed, you will see a decline in your traffic. To get things working again, incorporate crawler software tool such as Apify, Screaming Frog, or Deepcrawl. These resources can help you identify the cause of the errors. If the findings show that your website is not causing the issues, look into your website hosting. You might want to upgrade your subscription or find another hosting provider.

User Experience and Conversion

Giving your website visitors a smooth and pleasant browsing experience is important. Especially if you have an e-commerce site, you will want your potential customers to have the highest quality experience from start to finish.

To effectively optimize your user experience and conversion rate, you first need to identify any issues and problems. Google Analytics is a free resource you can use to gather data on abandonment rate, conversion rate, and more.  There are also other tools that offer more advanced analysis and can give you information on your visitors’ browsing behavior, including heatmaps and user session recording. We have access to several of these tools so we can offer comprehensive site optimization services to our clients.

Site optimization is key to the success of any website. If you learn, understand, and correctly apply these site optimization techniques, you will not only get what you want (high traffic, sales, and leads) but your customers also get what they want (quality experience, interaction, and products/services).