If you are a Webmaster, you would probably know that, you have to keep your website in tune with the ever evolving world wide web. However, no matter how much efforts you put into it, at some point of time, your website will start giving undesirable results and that is when you get to know that your website is under-performing. As one of the leading firms in the field of search engine optimization, we are taking this opportunity to enlighten our readers with certain, ‘symptoms’ that, when observed should be taken as clear signs that a website is under-performing.
Undesirable Conversion Rates:
Every website on the Internet has been created keeping ‘conversion’ as the sole and final aim for its creation. Conversion can be determined through various factors, such as visitors to sales, visitors to downloads, CTR on advertisements etc. Normally, if your website is fine tuned, then your conversion rate should be as per your expectations. However, if you happen to observe that, the conversion rates are dropping considerably, then it is a clear indication that your website is under-performing. In such an event, you need to identify the source of the downfall and work at it, to bring your website back on track
Low Rankings and Search Engine Traffic:
Search engine traffic is the technical term for the number of visitors that come to your website after locating you through search engine results and this practically deems your website as a success or a failure. If and when you notice a drop in your website traffic, that is the right time for you to employ some serious search engine optimization (SEO) practices to keep your website alive in the sights of search engines. These practices can include some fundamental coding changes, new keyword enriched pages that are search engine optimized. You can also attempt an overhaul of your website by conducting a redesign of your website.
Loss of New Visitors and Returning Visitors:
The only reason that your website would start to lose out on visitors, both new as well as the returning ones is because the visitors do not like your website and hence, you can term it as an ‘under-performing website’. The best thing to do in such a situation is to analyze. It means that, you should take some time and go through the accumulated data over a specific period of time and figure out the pattern and the highs & lows of your site traffic. This way you’ll get an idea as to what kind of audience are really interested in your products or services and you can plan and initiate the optimization process accordingly.
Single Search Engine Diverted Traffic:
If you find that most of the traffic coming to your website is from a single search engine, then your website will have a hard time reaching out to the masses because it will miss out of the traffic sent in by other search engines as well. In such a case, the best course of action is to fine tune your website on the standards of the other search engines as well, for a more fluent influx of site traffic.
Incomplete Sales:
If your online sales are halted by the users before completing it and it happens on a more repetitive basis, then you can assume that there is something wrong with your website or it has flaw, due to which the users simply leave your website without completing the transactions and leaving an “abandoned cart.” You need to go through your website and optimize certain sections, where the users more commonly land. This will help you in attracting them and thus to possible conversions.
Non-Captivating Website:
Your website is not the place where only transactions can take place, it also has to be really captivating when viewed by users. A website with a simple call to action button, will have a hard time materializing the transactions, because the users will simply ignore such websites and move to other ones. Hence, depending upon the nature of your website, you need to keep the users engaged in your website, give them more and they’ll stay.
Absence of FAQs:
Frequently Asked Questions or FAQs are some of the most important elements of a website that are designed to help the user with all his questions and clear his doubts as far as possible, without the direct interaction. Your visitors will always have questions, queries and doubts about your products and services. Therefore, you need to keep them well informed with user related information that you need to add as FAQs. Also, on the basis of the responses from users, you should accordingly update the FAQs as well.
These are some of the most common reasons for a website’s under-performance. Hence, if you watch these factors and take adequate measures to avoid them from happening, then you can easily turn your website into a rewarding endeavor.
