For parents who struggle with advanced technology, maintaining a website can prove extremely challenging. With so many factors to consider, it’s hardly surprising why so many people find it difficult.
In the past, lots of web designers were forced to build a website using HTML only.
However, in recent years there are plenty of software packages and online websites that make creating and maintaining a site a lot easier – but even those who understand a lot about modern technology sometimes come into difficulty.
There is much more to a website than just a few pages linked together. To increase the chances of people finding your page, and to keep visitors on your site, making sure it is user-friendly is key.
Making sure your visitors enjoy their experience on your website will also affect your site’s ranking on major search engines. To increase the amount of traffic your site gets, it will all depend on where your site is ranked on search engines like Google.
A phrase like SEO (Search Engine Optimization) might sound extremely difficult to rank, however, when you’d want to rank a phrase like local SEO it becomes a lot easier.
Increase the Page Loading Speed
If you are a parent struggling to understand how to maintain a website properly, put yourself in the shoes of your site’s visitors.
If they click on your site, how long does it take for each page to fully load? If it takes any longer than 3 seconds, you have a problem.
More than 50% of internet users will find another website if it takes longer than three seconds to appear on their screen. After all your hard work creating the site you will have lost over half of your visitors as soon after they have come across the page.
To avoid this from happening, there are a few simple alterations you can make to your site including the following:
- Decrease the quality of each image: Large images on a page can slow down your site. There are lots of imaging software and apps available that allow you to edit images. Also, avoid using multiple images.
- Coding errors: If there are coding errors on your site, there is a strong possibility it is slowing down your site. You may have to ask an experienced web designer for advice.
- Avoid using multimedia on your page: Although animation, background music and interactive items might look and sound great on your site, they are known to slow down websites.
- Long pages: A lot of non-tech people think they need lots of content on each page to attract visitors. Not only do these sites look unattractive, but they can also slow down the page’s loading time. Separate your content into different pages, and make sure the visitor can easily locate what they are looking for. Making it easy to navigate through your website’s pages is very important.
- Consider changing your web hosting provider: Sometimes there is an external issue that is causing your site to take forever to load. Many people find that changing their current web hosting provider can make a major difference.
The quicker your page loads, the better chance the site has of getting a better ranking on Google.
Encourage Users to Interact With You on Your Website
Engaging with your site’s visitors is a fantastic way of understanding what changes you need to make to your site to improve it.
You can add a forum to your site which allows visitors to talk about your webpage. You can also provide visitors with an online chat forum.
Consider adding a contact page displaying your email address, telephone number, and any other methods of communication you might have.
Without visitors, having a website is completely pointless. Encouraging them to make contact with you can help you understand what they want to change on your site. Visitors’ input can bring your site to the next level.
Provide Quality Content
Obviously, publishing quality content will help improve your site. However, making sure that the content looks good on each page is vital.
Even if your site has fantastic content, there is no point in publishing it if it doesn’t appear to look good. If the text is too small to read or if the layout of the body of the text is not easy on the eye, you can’t expect your visitors to stay on your site for a long time.
A lot of internet users like to scan through content instead of reading it entirely. Make sure each of the paragraphs has a title that describes what each paragraph is all about. This allows visitors to quickly scan through content so they can easily find what they are searching for.
Making sure that the content you use is right for the page is also important. For example, if your site is about sports, there is no point in having lots of content about share prices.
Conclusion
Making a website is fairly easy and can be a relaxing hobby but maintaining it can be a challenge – especially for parents who are not tech-savvy.
Use the above tips to ensure visitors to your site enjoy their stay as well as ensure that your site ranks on Google’s search engine.