What is website optimization?
Lawyers, is your firm’s website optimized? In this blog we hope to help clarify what it means to have your website optimized as well as tips and tricks on how to do it!
Let’s begin with the most basic of questions…
“What’s the difference between SEO and website optimization?”… “How do I know if my website is optimized?”
Well, essentially website optimization is an aspect or a part of SEO – Search Engine Optimization. Depending on who you ask, it might be the most important aspect of your SEO strategy.
Website optimization is different from SEO because website optimization focuses on improving the quality of a website versus trying to make that website rank higher on a search engine like Google. The quality of the website in terms of website optimization does not necessarily reflect on how the website looks aesthetically but the visual layout does matter because of how it is built on the backend. Quality refers more to the speed of the website, the website’s layout and how that interacts with a search engine and with the user’s experience.
Website optimization is a critical aspect of an online strategy for a business. Users will not find an unoptimized website as trustworthy or reliable as one which is optimized regardless of what’s on the page or the site. Website optimization also matters because in terms of the search engine and its result, an unoptimized website will not show up on search engine results.
Site speed and Usability
Site speed can be related to backend coding like JavaScript HTML and CSS or also to how the website is hosted in the domain. Site speed can also be related to how quickly (or slow) a website loads as well as the image sizes (where the images are hosted) and other factors. There are simple ways to understand how your website speed is determined. For example, the images on your website might not be optimized, their file size is too large and this might bog down the page. There are also more technical aspects to why a site is slow in dealing with how the website opens itself up in terms of HTTP requests, the server-side of your website and its hosting. What does this mean for my firms’ site and what can I do? Test out your sites speed. You can do this through many different FREE tools (here’s a good one to use).
The usability of a site both on desktop, mobile, and tablet is paramount to the potential success of a website. If the website’s layout is not user-friendly then your audience will not find your website as navigable. Long gone are the days where a website was a simple wall of text with a picture or two. Today, the best websites are those which are an extension of the brand itself. Websites have pop-ups, dropdown menus, search bars, movements based on a click, scroll, or drag. If a user is trying to read some information but the dropdown menu is in the way, they might leave your site too soon (increasing your bounce rate). If they’re scrolling on their phone and the site doesn’t load, or the layout makes it incomprehensible, this may also cause the user to leave. Usability has as much to do with a businesses’ overall SEO and Marketing strategy as any other factor within the world of website optimization.
Mobile. Mobile. Mobile.
Is your website optimized to be mobile friendly? Are the images scaled to the appropriate size? Is your content easily accessible on mobile? All of these basic questions must be addressed!
- Think Small Screen – sometimes less is more
- Consider Social – social media changed the way we do business. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram & LinkedIn have connected our world. When designing your site, be sure to connect these platforms back to your firms website.
- Consider the audience – someone viewing your site on their phone is most likely multitasking as they are searching. Keep the user in mind when building the site (font size should be appropriate, links should be easily accessible, etc.)
Take the “Mobile-First Approach” with your firms site and your SEO ranking will thank-you!
Not sure your firms website is optimized correctly?
The team at Green Cardigan Marketing has years of experience working to correctly optimize law firms websites. Contact us today for a FREE marketing review!
