Dealing with an Unprofessional Website – How to Delete it
One of the biggest issues that can crop up with any website is non-compliance with web standards. In today’s world of ultra-modern web design, every pixel and button matter, so clashing with the latest trends can seriously impact your user experience and even cause you to lose business (or worse, get sued).
Unfortunately, some websites are just meant to be sloppy, and there’s not much you can do about it. If you’re getting bad web traffic (more than three clicks per day) or you just want a clean break from the frustrating world of unruly, distracting internet noise, all you really need to do is hit delete and move on.
The Legal Aspects
Naturally, you’ll want to be careful about deleting things that you didn’t mean to (like personally identifying or proprietary information). Depending on the situation, you may want to consult a lawyer to ensure that your intentions are clear.
However, there are a number of situations where you can and should be deleting websites without needing a lawyer. For example, if the site is unreasonably expensive and you’re not convinced that it provides value, you can start the process to have it deleted. The same goes for a website with broken links, or a website that contains malware, or a phone number or email that you don’t want to be associated with.
Performance And Loading Issues
To put it bluntly, if your site isn’t responsive and looks like it was designed in a rush, you’re going to have a bad time with visitors. Nobody likes to visit a website that isn’t easy to use (and in some cases, even hideously slow to load).
If your site is experiencing major performance issues, this obviously isn’t good. Nobody wants to visit a website that takes minutes to load or crashes the browser every time they click on something.
If you’re the developer of the site, you’ll face a dilemma. On the one hand, you want to ensure that your site serves its purpose well and doesn’t have any major flaws (like slow loading or overly aggressive advertisements). On the other hand, you don’t want to be responsible for making the site unresponsive or unstable.
The answer here is simple. You can’t make a perfectly good web page imperfect. Instead, you need to find a balance between serving your purpose and ensuring the best possible user experience.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Getting found on Google is the key to online success. This applies to everything from blogging to e-commerce to website design. If you want to be found when people search for your products or services, you need to make sure that your website is search engine optimized (SEO).
SEO is a combination of on-site and off-site factors that influence how people find your website when they type in a search query. On the on-site side, you need to make sure that your site is built the right way, that all the content is easily discoverable, and that there’s a clear call to action at the end of every webpage.
On the off-site side, you need a well-designed and thoroughly optimized website that will draw potential customers to your business (and stay with them once they’ve arrived).
To get started with SEO, you can use free tools like Google’s Analytics to track the performance of your site. With just a few mouse clicks, you can then identify areas where you can improve (such as increasing the average time users stay on your site or reducing the bounce rate).
One last thing about SEO. Not all SEO is created equal, and you can have a fantastic performance in one area (such as increasing traffic) and a disastrous performance in another (such as losing brand reputation due to bad reviews). For this reason, it’s important to have a clear understanding of what you are and aren’t able to achieve with SEO.
User-friendly Design
While we’re on the topic of SEO, let’s discuss the importance of a user-friendly design. SEO is all about making your website accessible to as many potential customers as possible, which means that your UX (user experience) design needs to be of a high standard.
A well-designed and -functioning website will not only help your SEO, but it will boost your user engagement and overall conversion rate. When users have a good experience on your site, they are more likely to stay and engage with you further. Nobody wants to visit a website that is confusing or difficult to use.
In addition to being user-friendly, your website should also be mobile-friendly. As noted earlier, searchability is the key to SEO, and making your website accessible on mobile devices is a guaranteed way to improve your odds of being found.
Content Calendars
Creating and publishing content on a regular basis is crucial for any website. However, keeping up with all the content that you can (and should) be producing can be difficult. For this reason, creating and following a content calendar can be extremely beneficial. A content calendar is simply a list of content that you know you’ll want to publish (or plan to publish) in the near future. Having a clear idea of what content you have coming up can help you decide what is and isn’t a priority.
For example, if you’ve published a blog post three times this year and the latest one was published just a few days ago, it may be time to publish another one. Alternatively, if you’ve published a blog post once every three months, it may be time for a refresher course (even if the latest post was published just this past month).
Keyword Research
Keywords are words and phrases (such as keywords and phrases) that people use to find the information they need on the internet.
If you’ve ever tried to publish a blog post on your own website and found yourself struggling with searches (i.e., no results appear when people type in relevant search queries), you know how important it can be to have a clear understanding of what keywords are being used to find your content.
You can use free tools like Google Keyword Planner to find highly relevant keywords without having to run afoul of Google’s advertising policies.
Back-End Optimization
Once you have a user-friendly, SEO-optimized website, the last thing you need is for it to crash or become unstable due to over-optimization. This is why it’s critical to perform adequate testing before going live with all the changes that have been made.
To prevent this from happening, you must perform back-end optimization, which consists of making changes to the data behind the scenes to ensure that your site functions how you intend it to function. Changes to the database can have significant repercussions, so you need to be careful not to make any hasty, impulsive edits (unless you’re certain that you know what you’re doing). This is why it’s important to have a webmaster or other experienced developer on hand to assist you with any changes that need to be made.
With all of this information in mind, you can start to develop a clear picture of what you need to do to prepare for the big switchover (assuming that you’re the admin of the site). To start, it’s a good idea to contact a reputable SEO service to have their expert eyes on your project and offer suggestions for free. Along with a clear picture of what you need to do, you can also expect to see increased conversions and brand loyalty.