A website is the public face of your business, and it’s also your best marketing tool, so you need to get it right.
Whether you’re designing a new website for your business or improving an old one, always ask these questions first: What do I want my site to do? Why are people coming to my site? If they’re current customers, how can I keep them happy? If they’re not customers yet, how does my site help turn them into customers?
You have a very few seconds to capture your site visitors’ attention, and a slow-loading website is the number one way to chase away potential customers. So make it a priority to monitor site performance, and do it on different browsers, different operating systems, and from different locations.
There are networking utilities for performance testing, and a number of websites that perform free tests such as Pingdom and DNSsy. Pointless special effects, inefficient scripts, overloaded servers, and over-reliance on third-party servers can all conspire to make your site a slow-motion experience.
And once your site loads faster, don’t stop there. Clear content, contact information and navigation are the next stops for improving visitor experience.
Adapted from 10 Reasons Why Your Small Business Website Stinks at Small Business Computing.