How to Increase the Accessibility of Your Website
Your website likely works amazingly well for you, but that’s because you know what you’re looking for; indeed, your website was likely built with you in mind, when in actual fact it should have been designed with other people in mind. What does it matter if you love your website, if no-one else can access it properly? If you want to boost your visitor numbers – and who doesn’t? – then it’s important that you check that the site is set up to be conducive to your visitors.
Check the Speed
Your website might be lightning fast when you visit it, but you’re probably close to wherever the server is. For the website visitors across the ocean, your website might be anything but fast, and that means they’re unlikely to stick around for too long. Studies have shown that if a website hasn’t loaded within a few seconds of arrival, then the user is going to leave; though we don’t need studies to know this – you probably do the same with the websites you visit! You can get around this by hosting your website in multiple countries. That means that it’ll be as fast for a person in, say, India, as it would be wherever you’re based.
For Other Languages
Take a look at the makeup of the people that are using the internet across the world, and you’ll quickly notice something: for the fast majority of users, English is their second language. That means that, if your website is only in English, that you’re missing out on a lot of potential visitors! If you’re in the US, then you’ll be well served by contacting a company that provides translation services and having your website translated into at least Spanish. There are some 45 million native Spanish speakers in the US; can you afford to miss out on them?
Check the Layout
Sometimes, it’s not that people can’t access your site quickly; it’s that your website is a mess, and too confusing to be navigated easily. If your website is overcrowded with too many headers, pages, and the like, then it might be time to trim down the site to the essentials. It’s better to have a handful of qualities pages rather than dozens of worthless pages. By trimming down, you’ll be making it easy for visitors to find the most important information.
Run the SEO Check
Yes, you’re likely pretty tired about hearing about SEO, but there’s a reason why so many website articles go on about it: it’s important! It’s also forever changing. If you haven’t run a check in a while, then you might want to do so now. If it’s not as strong as it once was, then it’s likely because Google made an update that you didn’t know about it.
Different Browsers
Did you know that the majority of internet traffic now comes from mobile devices? Or that there are many different web browsers available? Take a look at how your website looks and runs on all of them, as you can’t just assume that it’ll work across the board.