A short and easy guide to give your website it’s 5-a-day (well, more like 5-a–month). Everything you need to know from hosting to conversions.
Introduction
Websites are just like us. They need to be taken care of with the right nutrition, emotional fulfilment and self actualisation… Okay never mind, the metaphor is slightly lost now. Humans are far more complex. It’s much easier to look after your website. We’re going to cover the basics in a simple 5-a-month checklist (yes, back on the metaphor) to maintain all that hard work you completed from our previous blogs and maximise your website’s performance.
Looking After Your Website’s Health
We’ll talk you through hosting, site speed optimisation, analytic tools and how to act accordingly. Don’t forget to ask and learn about those who matter, your clients or customers.
- Website Hosting
- Site Speed Optimisation
- Analytics and Tools
- Reacting to Analytics
- Ask and Listen
1. Hosting
Choosing the right server for your site
1. Find out your site stats
Using Google analytics or even on your site dashboard, find out your current visits and traffic. It’s worth noting the storage required to save a backup of your site. You can work out how many times you can back your site up in a plan. Think about your desired speed, memory management capability but there is such a thing as overkill… A small site will not benefit an overcompensated hosting package.
2. Work out and research if you need features such as:
- Dedicated or Shared Server
- Control Panel style (often depending on the platform your website is built)
- Memory, CPU and Disk stats (if applicable)
- Traffic capability
- Core updates included/excluded
- Site backup storage
3. Choose wisely!
Many companies overpay for features their site doesn’t require. Even if you’re expecting dramatic growth, most hosting sites can adapt plans quickly. Secondly, if you have the time, managing a server, backups and updating plugins can be an effective cost-saver for your business. We are happy to provide hosting training in this area if you wish to make a long-term saving.
2. Site Speed Optimisation
Site speed is not only derived from your hosting but the loading time of individual pages.
Smart Animations and Graphics
Animations, images and graphics all slow down a site’s speed. It’s important to optimise them as much as possible. There are some good tips in our blog ’15 Easy Ways to Improve Your Website’ to balance animations, images and block-colour or gradient space. Using your development platform features such as shape dividers can be more effective than images or heaps of code.
Mobile Optimisation
Many people viewing your website on mobile will be using data as oppose to Wifi. This means your mobile website should be easy to load and not guzzle your visitor’s data. This means avoiding forced-loading video like backgrounds. Embedded videos work more effectively on mobile. It is possible to hide animations on mobile, that are misplaced, damage usability and loading. Be sure to hide/unhide consistently for a seamless user experience.
Remember!
Use analytics to optimise to devices in traffic breakdown accordingly. Find the happy medium for you visitors.
3. Analytics and Tools
There’s an abundance of tools that you can use for your website. We’ll list a few below for your reference, many of which we (or our clients) use.
- General site stats – Development Backend, Google Analytics (you can use search bar for almost any stat on Google Analytics).
- Seeing what the customer sees – FullStory, Hotjar
- Knowing who your visitors are – Whoisvisting
- Device testing – Inspect / Cntrl + Shift + I (on Google Chrome) – Click the device button to see popular screen sizes.
4. Reacting to Analytics
A healthy website pays for itself in conversions. Once your site is optimised with great hosting and speed, use analytics to improve your conversions and session time.
Always think critically when looking at analytics, there are such things as a ‘bad week’. When observing analytics, make note of everything that was ‘going on’ in that time period. There are so many elements that can effect your traffic and conversions. However, there’s never harm in testing something new.
Once decided what needs to be improved or reworked, plan effectively to test different options. Gather internal and external opinions to make the correct decision. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work first time, or second, be patient the more you learn the closer you are to a solution.
5. Ask and Listen
There’s a lot that you can do to look after your website and it’s functions, but those who matter most are your prospects. When you get a conversion, don’t be afraid to ask how they found you, and what made them enquire.
Say Hello!
If you require any additional help about anything in this article from hosting to improving your conversions, do not hesitate to Say Hello.
Say Hello
We'd love to hear from you! No matter your business size, industry or budget, we'd be glad to make an appointment at your earliest convenience.
The Otelli Team
