5 things that should be on your website wishlist for 2020 (and how to get them)

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The start of 2020 is an ideal opportunity to look afresh at your website and its performance. 

In all likelihood, your business already has a website. And also in all likelihood, that website isn’t working as hard as it could. Now’s the time to fix it!

Obviously, there are a million ways to improve a website. Far too many to go into in one blog post. However, there are a few basic elements which, if done properly, can have a huge effect on your website KPIs. These are the things that need to be on your website wishlist for 2020.

So, without further ado, let’s get into it:

More (and relevant) website traffic

Driving relevant traffic to your website is fundamental to everything else. Essentially, traffic is the lifeblood of your marketing efforts. Without it, your other KPIs are pretty much meaningless. Frustratingly, however, increasing your traffic isn’t always simple. 

Thankfully, there are a few ways to achieve it, without breaking the bank. For example, you could try a mixture of increasing your social media activity (including plenty of links back to your site), outreaching your marketing content to relevant blogs, or you could even try spending a small sum on Google ads. 

Better conversion rates

Once you’ve upped your traffic, you’re going to want those users to take certain actions on your website. These are your goals. And some of those goals will be conversion actions — things like form submissions, email contacts or phone calls. Conversions are a KPI that you’ll really want to take care of. 

Improving conversion rates is a huge, nuanced subject, but there are basic things that can help. Start with using the concept that you need as little friction as possible during the journey between where your users enter your site and where your conversion actions are. People don’t like jumping hurdles when browsing the web, and a hurdle could be something as small as an extra click. 

Higher SERP rankings

Being visible on Google’s search rankings is one of the most powerful ways to boost your traffic. And as you all know by now, being on page two is about as good as not being there at all. 

Improving rankings can be tough, taking time and effort. But (and this might sound familiar) there are basic things that can take you a long way. First, make sure that you have your title tags and meta descriptions are in place and optimized. Then check the same for your headings (h1s etc). Now check that your site has a sensible, and helpful internal linking structure. And last, but far from least, make sure that your content is new, relevant, and helpful to your target customer. 

Lower your bounce rates

Unless you own a trampoline business, you don’t want a bouncy website. Bounce rates track how many of your visors leave immediately after arriving on it. So a high bounce rate means that you’re either attracting the wrong customers, or that your website isn’t giving the right customers the information or experience they’re looking for.

How can you fix this? The first step is identifying the problem. If you’re attracting the wrong visitors, look at your marketing funnel. If you’re getting the right visitors and they’re leaving, look at the structure and content of your site. Are you giving them what they want, and taking them on a good journey? If not, then try to make those changes. 

Increased average time on page

One of the KPIs that we like to track is the average time that people spend on pages. Obviously, each page is different, and you’ll hope that visitors spend more time on pages that contain more information. So if you notice that people aren’t spending much time on the pages where you really need them too, then you need to look at why.

Start with customer journey on that page. Do your page visitors have an easy path the information they need? Next look at the content — is what you are talking about, relevant to your audience? Also, make sure your page is responsive. Are people who are browsing on a mobile getting a worse experience than those on desktop? If so, this could be causing people to drop off the page earlier than you’d like. 

What next?

Hopefully, this has given you something to work towards in 2020. There’s a good chance that your website wishlist will include at least one of these points, and if you’re lucky, you might be able to fix the issue in-house. 

If you do need any help with any of these issues — or even if you’ve got all of these covered, but want to take your website to the next level — then get in touch. We’re experts at analysing websites and figuring out how to make them work harder (here’s an example), and we’d love to take a look at yours.