Is your website failing to deliver for your business? Improve the performance with our top 10 free and easy fixes. 

1. Google Analytics 

How do you know how your website is performing unless you’re measuring it? If you haven’t done so already, setting up Google Analytics will give you better visibility and enhanced control over your website performance. 
 
It will provide you with useful, up to date insights on: 
How many visitors your site has 
How they’re finding you 
How long they spend on your site 
Which pages they visit 
 
If you don’t know where to start, take a look at analyticsacademy.withgoogle.com - it’s packed with useful tips and guides to get you started. 
 

2. Do a Content and Keyword Review 

How does your site rank for the key terms your customers are using to find your products or services? If you’re not near the top of the rankings – potential customers simply aren’t going to find you when they search online. 
 
Thankfully, there are lots of free, easy to use tools out there to help you identify the keywords you need to be ranking for, and to check where your site ranks for them. These include: 
 
Google Keyword Planner - for finding out the best keywords to target 
Ahrefs Keyword Rank Checker – for seeing where your site ranks for specific key terms 
 
Once you’ve identified the key terms, you can then include these keywords on the appropriate pages as part of your wider SEO efforts. 
 

3. SEO Meta Titles & Descriptions 

The goal of your meta titles and descriptions is to encourage people who find your site via search engines to click through and visit. 
 
Optimising these meta titles and descriptions will improve your ranking and click through rates – increasing both the volume and quality of your traffic. 
 
Optimising meta descriptions comes down to: 
 
Keywords – including the right, relevant keywords that match the page 
Tone of voice – use active voice to encourage engagement 
Call to action – include a call to action encouraging clicks 
Unique content – make sure every page has its own description 
 

4. Google Business Profile – is it up to date? 

Setting up a Google Business Profile page and keeping it updated will make a real difference to your online visibility. 
 
You will start to appear on Google Maps searches, and customers will be able to see a profile of your business at a glance, including important information about location, contact details, opening hours and reviews… 
 

5. Reviews – Google & Facebook 

Customer testimonials and reviews on Google and Facebook are a powerful way to improve the performance of your site. They build social proof, encouraging the search engines to rank your content highly. 
 
In addition, positive, 5-star reviews from real customers will help to build trust in your business and drive competitive advantage – when faced with two similar businesses, a higher Google review average can tip the scales. 
 
The best way to generate these reviews? Simply ask your satisfied customers to leave them. 
 

6. Optimise images 

Images are an essential part of website performance. Carefully chosen, fully optimised images will help to improve your site ranking, drive traffic to your site, add interest to your articles and encourage visitors to stay on your site for longer. 
 
Optimising your imagery comes down to: 
 
Choosing the right images – this means relevant, unique and professional images (not stock photos) 
 
The right file name – choosing an appropriate file name that includes your focus keyword will give it a better chance of ranking in the search engines 
 
The right size – loading times matter, and huge image file sizes will slow down your site. You want to ensure the file size is as small as possible without impacting on the quality of the image. 
 
Alt text and title text – providing a description of the image (with your focus keyword included) will make it more accessible for visitors who may not be able to view the image. This title and description data will also help your site to rank more highly. 
 

7. Blog 

Blogging is a cornerstone of SEO, providing a number of potential benefits to website performance: 
 
Keeping people on your site for longer – increasing the time of each visitor session can help to improve the ranking of your site. 
 
Targeting keywords – blogging offers great opportunities to target ‘long tail keywords’ - longer, high quality keywords that are less competitive and easier to rank for. 
 
Internal linking – blogs provide an easy way to link to pages within your own site, which can help your site rank more highly. 
 
External linking – blogging can provide high quality, interesting content for other sites and social media users to engage with and link to! 
 
Keeping your site up to date – Google loves fresh content, and a blog post is an easy way of updating your site… 
 

8. Freshen Up the Content 

Keeping your site updated can deliver real benefits to the performance of your site. It ensures that you are providing up to date information (like contact details, services, products) to your visitors. 
 
It also offers a chance to encourage search engines to index your site more regularly…. 
 

9. Get Some Easy Backlinks 

Links from other sites to yours = rankings – think of every link from another site as a vote for your site! 
 
In addition to driving more traffic to your site, it can also reassure potential customers about the quality of your business. 
 
Some of the easiest ways to build links are to create free listings on online business directories, and ensuring that any business associations or partner organisations provide a link back to your site. 
 

10. Website health check – speed test/mobile friendly test 

Google hates slow websites, and actively prefers sites that are mobile friendly. 
 
At it’seeze Web Design Scarborough, we can offer a free website health check – looking at the speed and mobile optimisation to see how your site is performing. 
 

Websites that work in the real world from it’seeze Web Design Scarborough 

Website still not performing? 
 
We’re here to help drive your business performance online and deliver real competitive advantage with a fantastic, custom-designed website that you can edit yourself. You won’t find industry jargon or tech speak here – just beautiful, competitively-priced websites designed to work in the modern world. 
We pride ourselves on providing hassle-free web design services in North Yorkshire with ongoing support. To find out more, get in touch and set up your free, no obligation meeting with your local consultant Rob Davies today. 
 
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