7 ways to improve your website in a few minutes

A website is never truly finished. There is always a way to improve your website — to make it more relevant, more current, more effective. What are these methods, these avenues for improvement? Today, we list 7 paths to follow to make your website more effective than it already is. The advantage of these 7 ideas is that they require little time to implement.

1. Run a speed test

The speed of a website is important both for SEO (Google favours fast sites) and for the user experience of your internet users (they will leave after a few seconds a site they consider too slow). It is therefore an element that can make a real difference to the success of your website.

You can check the speed of your site in just moments with certain tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights.

The actions needed to optimise your site's speed may take some time, depending on their nature, but simply getting an overview of the situation will take no more than a few seconds! And to improve your website, the first step is inevitably to have an idea of the actions to take.

2. Use Gzip compression

One of the small changes that can make a big difference in terms of loading speed is using the Gzip compression software.

Much like zip files on a computer, Gzip compresses your site's files so that they take up less space. Smaller files load faster and allow pages to display more quickly.

You can test whether Gzip can be used for your site by entering its URL on Check Gzip compression.

If your site can benefit from it, you can use a plugin to implement it (W3 total cache, for example) or have your developers implement it manually. Nothing beats this for optimising loading speed and improving your website!

3. Use A/B Tests

The effectiveness of a page sometimes comes down to small details. A slightly larger image, a button positioned a little further to the right, a slightly different wording…

A/B Testing is precisely designed to identify these significant variations and use them to your advantage.

Whether the goal is to encourage internet users to sign up for your newsletter, use your services, or purchase your products, create two versions of your page and analyse which one performs better.

Make one change at a time. If you overhaul your page completely, you will struggle to identify which changes were beneficial.

Many online tools allow you to run these tests. WordPress Calls to Action is one of them.

4. Optimise your images with a plugin

Visuals often represent a significant portion of a website's overall weight. Reducing their size will allow you to offer a faster-loading site.

Beyond using images at the appropriate dimensions (and not larger versions than what will actually be rendered on the site*), plugins can optimise the weight of your visuals.

EWWW Image Optimizer is one such plugin. It not only automatically optimises photos that you upload to your site, but does the same for photos already in place before its installation!

You will be hard-pressed to find a faster and simpler way to improve your website!

* The online tool WebResizer allows you to do this easily.

5. Edit old content

Content is a central pillar in the success of a website. Producing content regularly is inevitably a valuable addition to your site. But it can take time.

On the other hand, in the same vein but less time-consuming, revisiting old content proves to be an ideal strategy!

Your old content is still there, (ideally) still relevant, and continues to bring a certain amount of traffic. Giving it a second wind could be valuable from both an SEO and a user perspective. Indeed, Google loves updated content, as do internet users! Here are a few avenues for revisiting past content:

• Edit the style and improve readability: If your content is already a few months or even a few years old, you have no doubt honed your writing skills since then. Do not hesitate to rework your old content to make it more impactful. This will be all the more effective because, with hindsight, you will have a fresh perspective on your past work.
• Update the information: Are the facts reported at the time still true? Has new data appeared that needs to be taken into account? Do you have new information to add to your content to improve it? Seize the opportunity to reshape and update your content.
• Add and update links: Are the outbound links still current? Do you have additional or better sources to add to your links that did not exist at the time?

6. Keep your "About" page up to date

Still in the spirit of updating your content, the "About" page is particularly important. Internet users are naturally curious to know who is behind the content they read or the services they are looking for.

It is therefore a good idea to keep your "About" page up to date. Checking whether it accurately reflects reality is a definite improvement for your site, and will take only a few minutes.

Have your team members changed? Has your approach evolved? Have your services expanded? These are all elements worth keeping current. Especially since the human element is genuinely important on the web.

In the same vein, make sure your contact details are still accurate and that any photos (of your teams, of yourself, etc.) are still appropriate.

Also consider including a sign-up or contact form on your "About" page — a perfect way to improve your website with ease!

7. Check for 404 errors and redirects

Users detest broken links that lead nowhere.

Even with a customised 404 error page, this can prompt an internet user to leave your site. This is why the best solution is still to eliminate them — either by simply removing the link in question, or by redirecting it to a page where the internet user can find the information they were looking for.

The online tool Broken Link Check will analyse your site and tell you whether it contains any dead links. If so, redirection plugins will allow you to resolve the issue.

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Improving your website is an ongoing task. There are always new approaches, details that get overlooked, new ideas for doing better. We hope our 7 tips give you a few ideas for optimising your site. Although the changes mentioned may seem minor, their cumulative effect can make a real difference to your site's performance.

Knowing that every website needs to continually improve, we hope we have given you some useful avenues to explore for your situation.

And for any question or enquiry, the Http5000 team is here!

(Freely translated from Elegentthemes)

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