Picture this: you’ve spent long, hard months agonizing over every little site detail, hired someone to write your site content, worked on your SEO, and picked the perfect theme and typography.
You have a great product or service — or even an impressive portfolio — and are eager to show it to your visitors. But then you launch, and you notice something strange: people aren’t staying on your site very long. Your PPC and organic SEO are getting people to the front door, but no one’s walking in long enough to see what’s inside.
There are many things you can do increase conversions.However, many people don’t realize that web hosting plays a part, and there are different ways you can enhance the web hosting experience. Think of your hosting as the foundation that holds everything together. And one of the biggest things that affects that is site speed. Facebook Instant Articles and Google Accelerated Mobile Pages are just a few of the projects that emphasize fast-loading sites and the overall user experience. And you don’t have to change your current hosting solution to make effective changes. With that being said, here are a few things you can do to make the most of your web hosting and ensure your bounce rate isn’t through the wall:
Utilize Content Delivery Networks
There are quite a few benefits to having a Content Delivery Network. Without one, you run the risk of losing a few visitors. For example, visitors from locations far from your server will have a less desirable experience than those that are. A study conducted by LoadStorm found that 25% of people would leave your site if it takes more than four seconds to load. And 74% of those people would abandon the site if it took more than five seconds to load. No visitor should be reprimanded from having a great experience because they aren’t in the same location as you.
Having a CDN network allows for proper distribution of website assets across different servers, which increases your download speeds . Essentially, it provides an efficient path for you to relay all types of content to your visitor, regardless of their location. There’s plenty of CDN networks to choose from, but for those on a budget, companies like Google and Yahoo have their own CDN networks free of charge.
Have A Responsive Website Design
The aforementioned statistics reign true when it comes to responsive design, too. Without responsive design, you run the risk of slower page load times, and a less than desirable user experience. Responsive web design makes your website easily accessed across different devices and screen sizes. And because Google prefers responsive design, it also has an effect on SEO. If you’re site isn’t optimized for mobile, that could be a major reason so many of your visitors are moving on. Mobile makes up a large portion of Internet search, and therefore can’t be ignored: Google announced that there are now more mobile searches than Desktop. And mobile smartphone consumption grew by 78% between 2013 to 2015 alone, according to a comScore study.
Enable Browser Caching
It’s hard for website owners to picture the amount of downloading that’s happening behind the scenes, and this is why they often don’t realize what’s slowing the page. Every component of the site — from javascript files to stylesheets and images — need to be downloaded during the site visit. When you enable browser caching, the page can load without having to send unnecessary HTTP requests. This means that every time you visit a website, the elements on that page are stored on your hard drive on a temporary storage, or cache, making it easier (and quicker) to access components that have already been downloaded before.
Make Site Alterations
Speed isn’t always the only factor impacting website performance. There are a few other, simple tricks you can do to decrease your bounce rate and improve your conversions. This includes breaking up thick paragraphs of text (too much concentrated content affects the user experience) and using subheadings and bullet points to get your point across. You’ll also need to get rid of unnecessary pop-ups — a study conducted by Apigee Insights found that 70% of users considered pop-ups to be fairly annoying, and on the same scale as lottery scams.
Lastly, content was and still is king. It’s imperative that you keep consistent and reliable content on your site. The content marketing benefits are plentiful, and by providing value to your visitors — whether they make a purchase or not — you’re helping your site rank better for future visitors to actually convert. Always think value, and always be forward-thinking.
I agree with the article. You should also look at your Google Search Console. It has tools that help you. Like crawl your site, see if its mobile friendly and see if there is problems with your page.