5 Simple Website Checks you can Review Today /
With the explosion of technical advances over the past few years, it’s not only necessary that your equine business has a website, but that you have a website that runs smoothly and is functional at all times.
Your website is an integral part of your business as it can help you find new customers, increase reach within your niche, or raise your brand awareness (these are just a handful of the many benefits). Checking your website regularly is a great habit to get into! And it’s much better finding problems yourself rather than hearing it from customers.
We specifically picked these 5 checks because they can be easily forgotten but could have a surprisingly harmful effect on your brand’s reputation and growth.
ARE THERE ANY BROKEN LINKS?
There’s nothing more annoying than being taken to a 404 page, and it also gives the impression of a poorly maintained website… and therefore the impression of a poorly maintained business maybe?
Broken links are hyperlinks on your website that lead to webpages which no longer exist. Therefore, the longer you’ve had your website, the higher the chance of having a few lurking around.
You can check for these by either going through all the links on your website, or you can use online tools such as BrokenLinkCheck.com if that sounds like a daunting task!
HOW’S YOUR SITE SPEED?
Site speed is a really important part of user experience – if your website takes a painful long time to load each page, this can be infuriating, and users will just find a website that loads faster!
Google actually uses your page loading speed as a factor for ranking. You can check your site speed using Google PageSpeed Insights. One way to increase site speed is to ensure your images are no larger than they need to be, meaning users don’t have to wait ages for multiple images to load.
ARE ALL YOUR IMAGES HIGH-RESOLUTION?
Now this slightly contrasts with our last point, but the best outcome is to find the right balance between blurry, pixelated images, and photos that use more storage space than a Shire horse.
It’s important that images are clear to look at, otherwise this can look unprofessional and really damage your customers’ perception of the brand.
DO YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ICONS WORK AS THEY SHOULD?
Make sure you test that your social media icons on your website lead to the right pages. If you’re familiar with our blogs, you’ll know the impact social media can have on your equine business, so making sure your customers can access them is helping your business take one step in the right direction!
HOW IS YOUR WEBSITE RANKING IN SEARCH ENGINES?
Google Search Console is an easy and free tool for website owners which you can use to view metrics including ‘Average Position’. There are also online tools such as Seobility, which analyse your website and give you tips to improve your site’s search engine optimization, so you can aim to improve your ranking.
Could your equine business benefit from some help and guidance? Equerry / Co specialise in marketing and website design services for equine businesses. Book a FREE discovery call to have a friendly chat with Christine!
