Accessibility in women’s healthcare website design is not optional; it is a moral, ethical, and legal responsibility that directly affects patient access, safety, and trust. For many women, especially those navigating sensitive health topics like reproductive health, fertility, gynecology, pregnancy, menopause, or mental health, an inaccessible website can become a barrier to essential care.

From low-contrast text that prevents someone from reading clinic hours to forms that don’t work with assistive technology, digital barriers can create real-world consequences. For women with visual, auditory, cognitive, motor, or neurological impairments, these challenges become even more significant.

This guide explores how WCAG, ADA, HIPAA, UX principles, inclusive content, and ethical design all come together to create accessible, patient-centered digital experiences for women’s healthcare organizations.

Why accessibility matters in women’s healthcare website design

1. Website accessibility should not be optional in your women’s health website design

When you look at it this way, healthcare website accessibility for women is more than just a best practice. Instead, it’s a professional and ethical responsibility. Designing with accessibility in mind does more than improve usability—it builds trust. In other words, patients are more likely to engage with a provider or organization that presents information clearly, respects privacy, and shows inclusivity in every design element.

In accessible healthcare websites, by contrast, can unintentionally exclude patients. The reasons are not surprising. They include low-contrast text, untagged images, confusing navigation or complex medical jargon. These barriers don’t just inconvenience users; they can impact care outcomes by making it harder for individuals to find the help they need.

Best practices for healthcare website accessibility include compliance with regulations.

The first way to ensure healthcare website accessibility is to meet the guidelines that apply to all websites. This starts with following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These internationally recognized standards enable web designers to create digital experiences that are usable for everyone. In short, WCAG compliance is essential for ensuring equal access to your website.

2. The top 10 WCAG recommendations for accessibility

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) outline clear, measurable criteria for inclusive web design. Below are ten recommendations for improving accessibility across any healthcare site:

1. Provide text alternatives for non-text content: Add descriptive alt text to all images, icons, and media.
2. Ensure sufficient color contrast: Maintain a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for standard text.
3. Enable keyboard-only navigation: Users should be able to navigate and use all site features without a mouse.
4. Use descriptive links and buttons: Replace vague text like Learn more with meaningful labels.
5. Add captions and transcripts to multimedia Content to support users with hearing impairments.
6. Maintain consistent navigation: Use predictable layouts across all pages.
7. Label and validate forms clearly: Include labels, error notification, and help text for every input field.
8. Avoid using color alone to convey meaning: Combine color cues with text or icons.
9. Support responsive and zoom-friendly design: Content should reflow properly and remain usable at 200% zoom.
10. Provide clear focus indicators: Highlight the active element when using keyboard navigation.

3. Regulatory Compliance: ADA, HIPAA, HITECH & Section 508

Next, let’s explore guidelines specific to healthcare website accessibility. These policies are in place because sensitive personal information and health-related content can impact patient care and safety. In designing your healthcare website, ensure it follows the appropriate regulations:

HIPAA: Any form or feature that handles health data must be encrypted, permission-based and compliant with HIPAA privacy and security rules

ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act): Treat ADA compliance as mandatory for any patient-facing healthcare website.

HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) Act: Your website must have data security policies, encrypted storage and breach response procedures.

Other requirements that may be relevant to your site include:

• Section 508 (U.S. Rehabilitation Act)
• FDA Guidelines (for health apps and medical devices)
• GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation – for EU patients or traffic)
• Content accuracy and ethical standards
• Patient portal and appointment systems
• Privacy policies and consent management

In summary, these healthcare website policies cover accessibility, privacy and security, content accuracy and transparency. They represent a commitment to inclusive, ethical, and patient-centered digital care access to the health information women need.

4. Accessibility vs. Inclusivity in women’s healthcare

Accessibility ensures every woman can use your website, regardless of ability.

Inclusivity ensures every woman feels represented, respected, and safe.

Both are essential.

Accessibility = usability

Clear, compliant, functional.

Inclusivity = identity + empathy

Reflecting diverse cultural, emotional, and privacy needs. A fully accessible women’s healthcare website must do both.

5. Design best practices for accessible women’s healthcare websites

Inclusive language and imagery

Use language that is clear, respectful, and inclusive of all women and gender-diverse patients. Recognize and support patients with imagery that represents diverse ages, ethnicities, and body types.

Readable and empathetic content

Health information can be intimidating, and you want content that is easy to digest. Drop the medical jargon when possible. Write in plain language with short paragraphs, subheadings, and bulleted lists. Provide simple explanations of conditions and procedures. Convey messages with a compassionate, reassuring tone.

Accessible navigation, forms, and  appointment systems

Poorly designed appointment scheduling, patient forms, and portals can be confusing in the best of circumstances and affect healthcare website accessibility. Clarity is essential. Use descriptive button labels such as Book Appointment instead of generic terms like Submit. Clearly label all elements, make them keyboard-navigable, and ensure they are compatible with assistive technologies.

Color, contrast, and font size

Maintain strong color contrast between text and background for those with visual impairment or color blindness, as well as for general readability. Choose legible fonts that are large enough for easy reading (minimum 16px) for healthcare website accessibility.

Privacy and discretion features

Women researching reproductive or mental health topics may feel uncomfortable or even unsafe without special digital privacy features. Consider adding a quick-exit or hide-this-page button, minimal data collection, and clear privacy statements.

6. Accessibility requirements unique to women’s health

Women’s health users may be navigating topics including:

• Fertility
• Pregnancy
• Sexual health
• Pelvic floor issues
• Menopause
• Mental health
• Trauma or domestic safety concerns

Because of this, your website must offer:

a. Enhanced privacy options

• Quick-exit or “hide page” buttons
• Minimal data collection
• Anonymous inquiry options
• Transparent privacy statements

b. Emotionally supportive UX

• Understanding emotional sensitivity is part of accessibility.

c. Trauma-informed design

• Avoid triggering language, imagery, or overly clinical tone.

7. UX/UI Considerations for OB/GYN, fertility & reproductive health

Different specialties require different UX approaches:

OB/GYN

• Friendly, non-judgmental tone
• Easy-to-find exam prep instructions
• Precise insurance & appointment details

Fertility Clinics

• Clear explanations of procedures
• Visual guides with alt text
• Accessible patient portals

Reproductive Health & Family Planning

• Private browsing options
• Zero-barrier appointment access
• Non-stigmatizing language

8. Culturally competent & trauma-informed design

To create a culturally accessible website:

• Show diverse races, ages, body types, and family structures
• Provide translation or multilingual content for local demographics
• Acknowledge cultural differences in healthcare experiences
• Use inclusive language: “women and gender-diverse patients”
• Accessibility extends beyond disabilities—culture and context matter.

9. Mobile-first design for women’s digital care journey

Women frequently use mobile devices and apps to search for healthcare information. Ensure layouts are responsive so they display and function correctly on small screens. Simplify navigation, ensure readable text, and provide thumb-friendly interactive elements, such as buttons and calls to action (CTAs).

10. Accessible multimedia for women’s health education

Include captions and transcripts for all educational videos or podcasts. Visual guides about pregnancy, fertility, or wellness should include alt text and descriptions for users with visual impairments and healthcare website accessibility.

11. Key UX Differences: How accessibility differs for women’s vs. men’s healthcare

While accessibility principles apply universally, there are subtle but essential differences in how women’s and men’s healthcare sites should approach design and communication. The chart below addresses key differences.

Content focus for designing an accessible healthcare website

Understanding these differences ensures accessibility efforts feel authentic and tailored to your audience, rather than generic.

Healthcare website accessibility is the heart of digital care for all women

When looking at the digital representation of your organization, use healthcare web accessibility as a guiding principle. Among the most critical aspects are intuitive functionality, an empathic tone, and complying with industry guidelines. Build your website to support every patient’s right to their healthcare information. This means ensuring that every woman, regardless of ability or circumstance, can access the care she deserves.

Your website accessibility shouldn’t be an afterthought; it should be built in.

If you are ready to create or improve an accessible women’s healthcare website, partner with Ladybugz Interactive, the award-winning agency specializing in inclusive, accessible healthcare design.

Let’s uncover the most common website design mistakes and how to fix them before they haunt your business.

1. Slow load times

Nothing sends visitors running faster than a slow website. More than half of users (53%) leave a page if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Load speed also affects your SEO, conversions, and overall credibility.

Fix it fast:

• Compress and optimize images
• Minimize plugins and code
• Enable browser caching
• Use a content delivery network (CDN)
• Reduce redirects

2. Not mobile-friendly

More than 60% of global web traffic comes from mobile devices, yet many websites still aren’t optimized for mobile. Poor layouts, tiny buttons, and broken visuals frustrate users and damage your search visibility.

Fix it fast:

• Use responsive design
• Simplify navigation
• Design tappable buttons and forms
• Avoid disruptive pop-ups
• Prioritize essential content and speed

3. Cluttered layouts

A chaotic layout feels like walking into a noisy, overcrowded room; visitors don’t know where to look or what to do. Too many fonts, colors, or competing calls to action create confusion instead of clarity.

Fix it fast:

• Use white space generously
• Limit your color palette and font styles
• Streamline content and navigation
• Provide a clear visual hierarchy

4. Hard-to-read text

Unreadable text is one of the fastest ways to lose visitors. Dense paragraphs, tiny fonts, and low contrast make your content impossible to scan,  which increases bounce rates and hurts SEO.

Fix it fast:

• Use large, web-friendly fonts (16–18px for body text)
• Ensure strong color contrast between text and background
• Break content into short paragraphs
• Add subheads, bullets, and spacing for readability

5. Confusing navigation

If visitors can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll leave. Complicated menus, hidden pages, and poor hierarchy turn browsing into a guessing game.

Fix it fast:

• Keep navigation simple and consistent
• Use clear labels like “About,” “Services,” and “Contact”’
• Prioritize key pages
• Highlight calls to action visually
• Simplify dropdowns and reduce clicks

5. Outdated tech and errors

Broken links, outdated design, and technical glitches send the wrong message — that your business is obsolete, too. Website maintenance isn’t optional; it’s part of protecting your brand.

Fix it fast:

• Regularly test links and forms
• ‘Update visuals, typography, and layout
• Replace outdated content
• Ensure responsiveness across all devices
• Modernize plugins, CMS, and code

7. Ignoring accessibility

More than one in four U.S. adults live with a disability, yet many websites still aren’t designed with accessibility in mind. Ignoring accessibility excludes potential users and can expose your brand to legal risk. To quickly check whether you have accessibility issues, you can run a test on Google to get a general score.

Fix it fast:

• Follow WCAG and ADA standards
• Add alt text to images
• Use strong color contrast
• Include captions and transcripts for videos
• Design for keyboard and screen-reader compatibility

8. Keyword-stuffed content

Overloading your site with repetitive keywords doesn’t improve SEO; it drives visitors away.

Today’s users (and search engines) prefer authentic, focused content that solves problems, not filler that sounds robotic.

Save the long-form stuff for your blog and guides to help your users understand your business and topics. Helpful long-form content can come in the form of checklists and downloads, and can improve SEO for your blog when people are looking for that exact type of content.

Fix it Fast

• Write for humans, not algorithms
• Keep service pages concise (under 1,500–2,000 words)
• Use blogs for in-depth or long-form content
• Focus on clarity and relevance
• Monitor engagement to refine messaging

9. Weak calls to action (CTAs)

Even beautifully designed websites fail if they don’t guide users toward the next step. One website design mistake many businesses make is forgetting to include CTAs altogether, or they bury them under too much content. Weak, generic buttons like “Submit” or “Learn More” don’t inspire clicks.

Fix it fast:

• Use clear, action-oriented CTAs (“Book a consultation,” “Get a quote,” “Join now”)
• Place CTAs consistently throughout your site — not just at the bottom
• Make buttons visually distinct with contrast and whitespace
• Test variations (color, size, placement) to improve conversion rates

10. Poor use of visuals

Low-quality stock photos or oversized hero images can destroy credibility and slow your site down. Your visuals should support your brand story,  not just fill space.

Fix it fast:

• Use original, authentic images whenever possible
• Optimize image file sizes for speed
• Maintain consistent style, tone, and color
• Use visuals to communicate value or emotion, not decoration

11. Ignoring analytics and user data

A website is never “done.” Many businesses make the mistake of launching and walking away without tracking performance. Without analytics, you can’t see what’s working or where visitors drop off.

Fix it fast:

• Set up Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console
• Track key metrics like bounce rate, conversions, and page performance
• Run regular A/B tests on headlines and CTAs
• Adjust content and design based on real user behavior

12. No clear brand identity

Even technically solid websites can fall flat if they don’t convey a recognizable, consistent brand. Inconsistent colors, messaging, or tone confuse visitors and dilute trust.

Fix it fast:

• Define a clear visual identity (logo, color palette, fonts, and imagery)
• Use consistent brand voice and tone across all pages
• Align messaging with your audience’s values and goals
• Reinforce your brand story through headlines and visuals

Quick website design mistakes quick fix checklist

Before you publish, run through this checklist to make sure your website is doing its job — not driving visitors away:

• Optimize site speed
• Design mobile-first
• Simplify cluttered layouts
• Use straightforward, readable typography
• Streamline navigation
• Keep technology updated
• Ensure accessibility
• Avoid keyword stuffing
• Strengthen calls to action
• Use authentic, optimized visuals
• Track and analyze user data
• Maintain consistent branding

Ready to turn your website from scary to spectacular?

Your website shouldn’t send visitors running. By addressing these common design mistakes, you’ll create a faster, more intuitive, and more engaging experience that keeps users coming back.

If you’re ready to transform your underperforming site into a high-converting digital experience, partner with Ladybugz Interactive, Boston’s award-winning, women-owned digital agency. Let’s design something that delights – not frights.

Your women’s wellness clinic website design plays a crucial role in shaping that connection. Women today are taking charge of their health more than ever. From fertility and postpartum care to menopause and graceful aging, women are seeking clinics that not only provide medical expertise but also nurture mind, body, and emotional well-being.

In 2026, a successful website must combine empathy, accessibility, and innovation to attract and retain loyal patients. Let’s explore the top health and wellness clinic website design trends that are reshaping the digital experience for women’s health.

Why modern women’s health and wellness clinics need future-ready websites

Women’s health clinics differ from traditional medical facilities. They focus on holistic care,  preventive screenings, reproductive health, mental wellness, and lifestyle support.

Because these topics are often sensitive, your website must feel like a safe, welcoming space. Modern design trends prioritize creating people-first experiences that make your clinic feel approachable, trustworthy, and responsive to every stage of a woman’s life.

Design your wellness website with empathy: The rise of soft, feminine aesthetics

Gone are the days of sterile, clinical web designs. In 2026, the most engaging wellness clinic websites embrace soothing, authentic, and inclusive visual styles.

• Trending web design elements include:
• Muted, nature-inspired color palettes
• Rounded shapes and gentle gradients
• Real-life photography and video (no generic stock imagery)
• Imagery that reflects diverse ages, ethnicities, and body types

This soft aesthetic signals warmth and empathy — two qualities that are vital to building patient trust.

Case study: UPenn Medicine’s PEACE clinics

Empowering early pregnancy care through using soft feminine aesthetics in a women-focused website design

The Perelman School of Medicine at UPenn partnered with Ladybugz to launch a new women’s healthcare website introducing their groundbreaking PEACE (Pregnancy Early Access Center) model, an evidence-based approach designed to close the critical care gap during the first eight weeks of pregnancy.

During this vulnerable period, many women experience complications and uncertainty without adequate medical support. The PEACE team needed a website that would educate clinicians, raise awareness of the problem, and inspire hospitals and organizations to launch their own PEACE clinics nationwide.

Our agency built a bright, hopeful, and emotionally resonant website that conveyed both the urgency and optimism of the PEACE mission. Through clear messaging, meaningful storytelling, and custom visuals, we designed an experience that guided users seamlessly from understanding the problem to taking action. The site’s centerpiece — an interactive, infographic-driven clinic guide — provides a step-by-step roadmap for healthcare organizations to implement the PEACE model. The result is a powerful digital platform that informs, inspires, and mobilizes change in early pregnancy care.

Simplicity is power in wellness website design, where minimalism meets accessibility

A clean, minimal design improves both usability and emotional comfort. When users arrive at your site, they should instantly know how to find what they need — whether that’s scheduling an appointment or learning about fertility services.

Key principles to clean and minimalistic website design for medical and wellness websites:

• Simple navigation organized by life stage or health focus
• Ample white space to reduce overwhelm
• Large, readable typography
• Intuitive forms with minimal required fields
• Minimalism isn’t just about looks — it’s about designing for women who want clarity, speed, and ease.
• Optimize the user experience for calm and clarity
• The best wellness clinic website design trends go beyond visuals. They prioritize how users interact with every element.
• Emerging UX features include:
• Smooth scrolling and soft page transitions
• Subtle hover animations and responsive icons
• Clear call-to-action buttons (“Book an appointment,” “Contact our care team”)
• “Progressive disclosure” — revealing more information only when needed

A seamless UX reduces stress, helping patients feel comfortable exploring care options without cognitive overload.

Build trust with women on your clinic’s website through storytelling and human connection

Women connect deeply with stories,  especially those that feel authentic.

Use your website to humanize your brand and create emotional resonance

• Incorporate storytelling through:
• Patient testimonials and success stories
• Provider spotlights and personal wellness insights
• Video introductions from your care team
• Blog posts addressing real-life experiences

Avoid overly clinical language. Instead, write conversationally, using “we understand,” “we care,” and “you deserve” to establish trust and relatability.

Use visual storytelling for authentic engagement

Visuals on your women’s health and wellness website design can convey compassion more quickly than words.

• Replace stock imagery with original photos and videos that highlight your clinic’s personality and people.
• Show behind-the-scenes moments such as a doctor comforting a patient, a wellness class in session, or a mother holding her newborn.

These authentic visuals help users see themselves in your clinic’s story.

Wellness website design should embrace AI and smart technology to enhance customer care and user experience

AI is one of the most influential website design trends for wellness clinics in 2026. When thoughtfully integrated, it enhances efficiency and personalization without compromising the human touch.

Popular AI features for health and wellness clinic websites:

• Chatbots answering FAQs or scheduling appointments
• Personalized content suggestions based on user behavior
• Patient portals for lab results, prescriptions, or follow-ups
• Automated reminders for upcoming visits

Tip: Always safeguard patient privacy and maintain HIPAA compliance when using AI-driven tools.

Consider mobile-first users when designing a wellness clinic website for women

More than half of all healthcare searches happen on mobile devices. A mobile-first approach ensures patients can find, engage with, and contact your clinic easily on any screen.

• Mobile design essentials:
• Fast-loading, responsive layouts
• Large, tap-friendly buttons
• Vertical scrolling and simplified forms
• One-tap calling, texting, and map directions

A mobile-friendly website is essential for both user experience and Google search visibility.

Design for mobile-first users

More than half of all healthcare searches happen on mobile devices. A mobile-first approach ensures patients can find, engage with, and contact your clinic easily on any screen.

Make accessibility a core design principle

Accessibility ensures your clinic’s website serves every visitor — including those with disabilities. It’s also a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm, so it benefits both your audience and your SEO.

Accessibility best practices for women’s health and wellness clinic website design

• Alt text for all images
• Keyboard-friendly navigation
• Captioned videos and readable text sizes
• Compliance with WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
• Inclusive design sends a powerful message: everyone deserves care.

Case study: Terra Fertility — Launching a startup brand with purpose and empathy

When Terra Fertility connected with our creative web design agency, the team was preparing to launch a new women’s health and fertility clinic from the ground up. As a startup, they needed a complete brand and digital foundation that would communicate trust, compassion, and expertise from day one. Our team created the whole brand identity, including logo, color palette, messaging, and tone, designed to resonate with women navigating emotional and deeply personal fertility journeys.

Once the brand was established, we built a website that extended those values into a calm, authentic, and user-friendly digital experience. Through warm visuals, relatable language, and inclusive imagery, the site helped Terra Fertility connect with its audience immediately. The new brand and website worked together to position the clinic as a trusted, modern fertility resource, successfully helping them launch, attract new patients, and establish credibility in a competitive space.

Designing for inclusivity in modern women’s health

Inclusivity is now a cornerstone of women’s healthcare and wellness website design

Today’s clinics are broadening their approach to ensure all individuals, including those in the LGBTQ+ community, people of diverse cultural backgrounds, and patients with varying body types and life experiences, feel represented and supported.

In our work with clients like Terra Fertility, inclusivity played a defining role in both brand and design decisions.

From language that recognizes diverse fertility journeys to imagery that reflects all identities, modern wellness websites must go beyond traditional definitions of womanhood. By designing for inclusivity, clinics build trust, remove barriers to care, and foster genuine belonging, the foundation of holistic wellness.

Inspire action through purposeful design

Every women’s wellness website should do more than inform — it should inspire patients, providers, and partners to act. Purposeful design guides visitors with clear calls to action that feel natural and supportive, not pushy. Whether it’s booking an appointment, downloading a wellness resource, or learning how to open a new clinic, action-oriented design helps turn awareness into empowerment. Buttons, forms, and prompts should use inviting, empathetic language such as “Get care,” “Join the movement,” or “Start your wellness journey.” When design and messaging work together to motivate, your website becomes a catalyst for real-world change.

Quick design trends checklist for women’s wellness clinics

Use this checklist to make sure your women’s health or wellness website is ready for 2026 and beyond:

Design with empathy
Use soft, calming colors, rounded shapes, and real-life imagery that create warmth and trust.

Embrace minimalism
Keep layouts clean, content focused, and navigation intuitive.

Prioritize UX clarity
Ensure smooth transitions, consistent layouts, and user-friendly calls to action.

Tell human stories
Share patient testimonials, provider insights, and real-life narratives that connect emotionally.

Show visual authenticity
Use original photos and videos that represent real people and diverse experiences.

Integrate AI wisely
Offer smart chatbots, personalized content, and seamless scheduling while maintaining privacy.

Design mobile-first
Optimize every page for speed, readability, and one-tap access on mobile devices.

Ensure accessibility
Follow WCAG standards for text, visuals, and navigation to make your site usable for all.

Champion inclusivity
Use language and visuals that reflect all women and gender-diverse patients across cultures and life stages.

Inspire action
Use clear calls to action that help users take the next step — whether booking an appointment, downloading resources, or connecting with your team.

Partner with a female-owned web design agency

Hire an agency that understands and has experience with women’s health and wellness clinic website design

A women’s health and wellness clinic website design that reflects empathy, trust, and innovation

Ladybugz Interactive is a women-owned, award-winning agency that specializes in creating human-centered websites for health and wellness organizations. We take the time to understand your patients and your brand, building websites that connect, convert, and inspire.

There are So Many Bad Web Design Practices to Avoid!

There are seemingly endless bad web design practices–and nearly endless good ones. Whether you plan to create a new site or update an existing one, reviewing these tips can help you create a website that performs well, enhances user experience, and gets results. Realize that it can’t all be done with the snap of a finger. However, if you put in the right amount of time and resources, you can take your website to the next stage in 2025. Partnering with an experienced WordPress design agency can help you achieve that transformation faster and more strategically. 

Here are 15 Bad Web Design Practices You Can Identify and Fix in 2025.

1. Slow Page Load Speed

Slow page load speed negatively impacts user experience and is now a direct ranking factor for Google’s Core Web Vitals. In 2025, a bad website practice is loading time above two seconds.  

How can I improve page load speed?

• Optimize and compress images.
• Remove irrelevant, useless code and minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML code. 
• Limit HTTP requests for images, fonts, scripts, and other page elements.
• Reduce page redirects.
• Enable browser caching to preload content for return users.
• Consider using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) to host and deliver your site’s static content from multiple server locations.
• Disable or delete outdated or inactive plugins.
• Choose a high-quality hosting solution.

2. Too Many Keywords in Subheads and Copy

Is using keywords a bad web design practice or useless in 2025? Most experts say that keywords are still valuable when used appropriately and in moderation. No one wants to read stilted copy designed primarily for search engines, and Google penalizes keyword stuffing.

How can I improve my headlines and copy for SEO?

• Concentrate on high-quality content, leaving SEO optimization for last.
• Make headlines relevant and appropriately lead into the copy underneath it.
• Increase the use of backlinking as an SEO strategy.
• Add more blogs, case studies, and other content that lead to high-value pages.

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3. Extreme Use of Animations and Movement

At some point, many web developers went overboard with animations, leading users to be overwhelmed. In 2025, it’s time to avoid useless animations that can make a site clunky and slow and in general use bad web design practices.  

How do I avoid bad web design practices such as animation overkill?

• Use sparingly and create more subtle animations and movements to enhance user experience, such as to explain complex scientific processes.
• Focus on usability to keep visitors on the page and provide a positive user experience.
• Explore page design, photos, videos, infographics, data-driven graphs, screenshots, and design-enhanced CTAs as animation alternatives.

4. No Physical Location Listed on Your Website 

Without a physical location on your site, you lose out on appearing in local search results. You may also risk skirting regulations depending on your type of business. A physical location demonstrates legitimacy and even a selling point, such as a tech business in Boston’s Route 128 technology hub.

Where should I place the location, and what is the right information?

• Include a physical address (not a P.O. Box) and phone number on the footer of each page, even if it has to be your home address, virtual office, or co-work space.  
• List your location on other assets, such as your social media and YouTube channels.
• Consider creating a location webpage, which will benefit SEO, provide helpful information (such as directions, a map, and hours of operation), and provide real estate for marketing elements.      

5. Too Much Stock Photography Can Lead to Bad Web Design

While stock photos are cost-effective, they often look impersonal, lack authenticity, and fail to reflect your unique brand. Each company must weigh the pros and cons of using stock photos.

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What are my options for reducing how many stock photos I use?   

• Solicit user-generated content as appropriate for your business and industry.
• Use high-quality, correctly formatted photos taken by staff on digital cameras or smartphones.
• Sift through Creative Commons images, which only require citing and crediting the photographer, and free image libraries, like Pixabay or Pexels.

6. Too Many Different Typefaces and Fonts Being Used on Your Website

A typeface is an overall family style, such as Helvetica or Calibri. Fonts are typeface variations, such as bold and italic. Using too many typefaces and fonts looks confusing, messy, and unprofessional.

How many fonts should I use, and where should I use them?

• Limit webpages to three or four typefaces that complement each other.
• Use typefaces and fonts to differentiate headlines, subheads, and main text.
• Choose a typeface that works well in various sizes, ensuring the smallest size is mobile-friendly.

7. Too Many Images and Not Enough Copy on Your Website Design

Using high-quality content is never a bad website practice. While images add interest and vitality, too many can slow down your website–which can be even more critical to user experience and SEO.

What is the right balance of images to copy?

• Consider how to best tell your story, such as needing more text for a complex topic or using images to raise the emotional content.
• Use images to support, illustrate, emphasize, and complement your content.
• Remove irrelevant or distracting images.
• Test page speed, and consider removing images that slow down your page load times, especially for mobile viewing.

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8. Poor Font Contrast And Accessibility 

The inability to read website text leads to bad web design user experience, usability, and accessibility. The culprit is often low contrast between the font and the background color, images, or other graphic element.

How can I ensure sufficient contrast on my website? 

• Follow the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which define appropriate color contrast guidelines for accessibility.
• Use one of the many free color contrast checkers to see if your colors meet WCAG guidelines.
• Update, replace, or remove background images containing text if you identify contrast issues.
• Enlarge type, especially for headlines, which may resolve contrast issues.
• Look at all text elements, including such as links and mouse-over colors.

9. Too Much Dense Copy and Not Enough Subheads

Too much copy or dense copy can overwhelm readers or prevent them from finding the information they want. At the same time, you need enough copy to persuade, educate, and motivate. It’s important to organize copy effectively and make smart use of headlines. 

How much copy is enough, and how can I use headlines effectively? 

• Break up copy with subheadings to organize the page, enhance flow,  help users find what they’re looking for, and improve readability and scannability.  
• Be consistent with spacing, color, and other characteristics in headlines and copy.
• Use the succinct H2 and H3 subheads to help structure the copy and create a logical flow.
• Write one to three short paragraphs under each headline, ensuring the copy is highly relevant for proper indexing.
• Base the copy length on how much information will lead the user to take the desired action.

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10. Poor Use of Color and Colored Fonts

Poor use of color and colored fonts is considered a bad web design practice for many reasons, including just bad web design practice in general and accessibility factors. Choosing a color pallet that represents your company and will appeal to your readers is critical. The best practice is to use three colors: 60% as light, neutral background color, 30% as a darker contrasting color, and 10% for accents. This ratio is ideal for differentiating sections of the page, providing visual interest, and enhancing readability without confusing the user.

How do I choose an appropriate color palette and use each color appropriately? 

• Use the fundamentals of color theory to understand the relationships between colors.
• Select colors that reinforce your brand, company image, or website theme.
• Consider if you want to follow established industry color schemes or stand out with a distinct palette.
• Provide colors that improve accessibility for those with color blindness, and other visual impairments, and screen readers.
• Test font colors in different viewing environments, such as outdoor and indoor lighting. 
• Be aware that colors may appear differently on various screens
• Choose a light background with dark text rather than white text on a dark background.

Biotech Logo Design: The First Step in Building an Early-Stage Company’s Brand

11. Low-Quality Images and Graphics

Low-quality images and graphics make a company look unprofessional, increase loading time, lower SEO rankings, and negatively impact the user experience.

What are some ways I can optimize photos for my website? 

• Resize image dimensions to reduce blurriness.   
• Compress images to reduce the file size without reducing quality.
• Use JPEGs for photos or colorful images, PNGs for simple or transparent images, and GIFs only for animations.
• Use vector images that are not resolution-dependent.
• Use image optimization tools and programs.

12. Cluttered Layout and White Space 

Overly designed pages will be out in 2025. Simplicity is in. A cluttered layout looks messy and disorganized. Most importantly, clutter makes it harder for readers to find the information they want.

How can I unclutter my site and create a clean page?

• Use white space (negative space) liberally and consistently to balance page design, organize content, and improve the visual experience.  
• Establish a clear visual hierarchy using font color, size, placement, and spacing.
• Choose simple, clean typefaces, and consistently use them.  
• Limit CTAs (calls to action) on a page to two or three at most.

Your MUST Have Monster SEO Checklist for 2025

13. Not Mobile-First

Not having your site be “mobile first” is a bad web design practice in 2025. Given Google’s mobile-first ranking system, web designers and developers must consider mobile users first.

What are some tips for making my site mobile-friendly?

• Design for one-handed use (including left-handers) by making it easy to tap the most accessible regions. 
• Use a content-first approach, preventing clutter and structuring design around core messages. 
• Consider optimizing for landscape orientation for apps commonly viewed on tablets, including (Point of Sale), SaaS (Software as a Service), sketching, and more.
• Design for mobile-related usability challenges, such as filling out forms and navigation.
• Take into account which tasks users prioritize when divvying out scarce real estate.
• Perform usability testing and measure performance for different mobile devices.

14. Confusing or Inconsistent Navigation

Easy navigation can make or break a site with its massive impact on user experience, page indexing and ranking, page weight, and conversion. Users must know where you are within the website, the actions you can take on the page, and where they will go when they click on a navigation element.  This is a monster topic, so a large list of tips with more detailed tips follows.

What are the best web design practices for navigation in 2025?

• Well-Structured: Organize navigational elements with a logical hierarchy and in clear categories so visitors can easily find the most relevant options. Make it fast and easy for users by having no destination more than two clicks away from any other.
• Primary Navigation: Provide straightforward and easy-to-understand primary navigation items. The primary menu should stand out using color, typography, and layout. Make it short, with typically no more than seven items.
• User’s Location: The users should always be able to know their location within the site and hierarchy. It should also be clear what will happen when they click any navigation element. An always-available search bar is handy, especially with a large site. A clickable logo to the home page can always bring them back to the home page. 
• Fat global footer: Larger footers with more information are trending in 2025. Fat footers can include elements such as: Company description or link to About Us, copyright, address, directions and map, privacy policy, and contact information. They generally include a site map and shortcuts to engaging items such as social media channels, e-newsletter signup form, contact us form, support page, and recent blog posts.    
• Single-page scrolling: This technique, called Parallax, allows the user to either scroll down the screen or click on menu links to find specific content. Currently seen as cool, beware that Parallax sites can hinder SEO, be confusing on a large site, and severely limit how much information you can display in the above-the-fold area.
• Responsive Design: Develop a responsive website where navigation displays properly and is easily accessible on all screen sizes. Navigation elements should find a balance between being large enough to use and not taking up too much real estate.
• Accessibility: Navigation elements should be accessible for mobile phone users and those with all types of disabilities.

Why Hire a Local Boston Web Design Company for your Business

15. Bad and Broken Links and Call to Action buttons

Broken links and call-to-action buttons will kill user experience fast. Internal links are also a key ranking factor. According to AhRefs, “Bad links can trigger a Google penalty, which means a significant drop in rankings and organic traffic. Your site may even be removed from the search results altogether.” There are many types of bad links, including those from link exchanges, hacked links, and links to hidden pages.

How can I identify and fix bad links?

4 ways to identify bad links

• There are many free and paid broken link checkers, and the Google Search Console is a good place to start. This free service allows webmasters to check indexing status, search queries, and crawling errors. 
• Examine common causes, including changes in the URL structure, a typo in the URL malfunctioning plugins, contact forms, JavaScript and CSS files, and more.
• Check links on each page manually or use an automated link checker.
• Use Google Analytics, a free tool that tracks traffic on your webpage, to identify pages that generate 404 errors.

3 ways to fix bad links

• Redirect the link: If the link points to a page you have moved, redirect the link to the new page location—without damaging your SEO.
• Update the link: If the URL is misspelled or a link points to the wrong page, you can update it to point to the correct page.
• Remove the link: You can remove the link if it points to a page that has been deleted and is no longer available.

Avoid and Fix Bad Web Design Practices in 2025

Now that you have these valuable tips for finding and fixing bad website practices, how many can you get to this year? It depends on your level of expertise, expectations, time availability, and budget. If you have limited expertise, the most effective way to create or update a website that uses best website practices is by hiring an outstanding website company like Ladybugz Interactive.

These challenges and a fear of failure cause many companies to delay making major changes to their websites, so the pain points persist. If you’re in this situation, take heart:

• No website will be perfect, even if you have a total redesign…it’s always a work in progress.
• If you can’t afford a total redesign, incremental upgrades and phased improvements can make a world of difference.
• There are nearly infinite ways to improve a website, with remedies for every challenge.
• Some significant improvements are simple and fast, even for the non-technical among us.
• You don’t have to do this on your own; you can call on experts to improve every aspect of your site.
  

The Road to Resolving Your Website Pain Points

So now you’re here, reading this guide. Congratulations on taking your first step in your journey to a better website. If your website problems seem overwhelming, take a deep breath. Many techniques are within your control, even if you are a staff of one. With a little education and insight, you can make a feasible plan to tackle challenges big and small. Identify your top priorities, set goals, and plan for continuous improvements. 

After perusing these pages, you’ll have a better understanding of techniques for driving more traffic, generating higher quality leads, creating visitor engagement, and converting more leads to customers. With this knowledge, you can tackle some of the issues yourself or find a website designer or interactive company that can help you make your website shine.

In no time, your frustration will shrink and you’ll be on your way to meeting your website goals. Who knows, you might even get excited about it!

Let’s move on to looking at common pain points and ways to overcome them.

1. My website takes too long to load.
2. I’m confused about image files and formats.
3. I don’t know what to look for in a hosting service.
4. I don’t know how to choose my WordPress theme.
5. I don’t know if plugins are negatively affecting my site performance.
6. My website keeps delivering 404 error messages.
7. I don’t know if I should include social media feeds.
8. My website may not be secure enough to prevent attacks.
9. I’m not sure if my site is optimized for mobile.
10. Vistors aren’t going to my high-value pages.
11. I’m not sure if I need to update WordPress, or how to do it.
12. I don’t know whether to build my site with HTML or a content management system (CMS).
13. My website breaks when I update it (or when it is automatically updated). 
14. I’m not certain if it’s worth the trouble to figure out SEO.
15. I don’t know if my site is built the right way for SEO.
16. I don’t know how to start optimizing my site for Google.
17. I don’t have a handle on who is visiting my website.
18. Other sites aren’t linking to mine, so I’m missing out on backlinks.
19. I’m not getting enough traffic.
20. Local competition is fierce.
21. My webpages aren’t ranking for my keywords.
22. People are “bouncing” off my site.
23. Visitors aren’t staying on the Website.
24. My website traffic isn’t converting.
25. I don’t know the best way to find a qualified web designer.

Website Pain Points #1: My website takes too long to load.

Improving the speed of your website is one of the most important things you can work on to improve SEO (search engine optimization), reduce bounce rate, retain visitors, and increase engagement. Page load speed is a direct ranking factor in Google’s search algorithm—the complex calculation that determines the order in which each webpage appears on search engine results pages (SERPs). 

Page load speed has become increasingly important over time. The rapid rise of this ranking factor is based on users’ increasing demand for nearly instant results. It has become crystal clear that a slow site is a huge liability for websites and their companies’ reputations.

This is where professional web development services come into play. Expert developers can optimize your website’s performance, ensuring fast load times that enhance user experience and improve search engine rankings. Investing in high-quality web development services not only boosts your site’s speed but also fortifies your brand’s online reputation.

Here are the facts about the impact of page load speed:

Abandonment:

Most users will abandon a site if it doesn’t load within three seconds. 

E-commerce:

On e-commerce sites, a two-second delay in load time can result in abandonment rates (having items in the cart but not completing the transaction) of up to 87%.

Return Visitors:

46% of users don’t revisit poor-performing websites.

User Satisfaction:

A one-second delay reduces customer satisfaction by 16%.

Conversion:

A one-second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions.

SEO:

Poor load time affects many KPIs (key performance indicators), including lower page rank, high bounce rates, high abandonment rates, short session durations, and fewer page visitors—all leading to fewer leads, returning visitors, and loss of customers. 

The consequences of a slow site can be dire. The flip side, however, is that speeding up page load time can give you a competitive advantage, especially on mobile devices.

Suggestions to Increase Page Load Speed:

There are many ways to improve page speed, some being simple and others requiring greater technical expertise. Here are just a few suggestions and remedies:

Check Page Load Speed:

The first step is to test how fast your pages are loading. You can choose between free and paid speed-checking tools, including Google Page Speed, GT Metrix, or Site 24X7. These tools will analyze the contents of a webpage, generate performance results, and make specific suggestions. Some tools are more robust than others, but most will include details about load time, page size, and the number of server requests required to load page content. Once you have benchmarks, you can move forward and analyze changes over time. 

Enable Browser Caching:

This technique creates temporary internet files on the user’s browser, such as Chrome or Safari. These “static files—such as logos, headers and footers, as well as resources such as scripts, images, and style sheets—don’t change from visit to visit. The cached items live on the user’s computer for a while. As a result, subsequent visits to your site won’t require reloading these assets, which can significantly speed up loading time. On occasion, the temporary cache can cause issues on the user’s end, which usually resolves when they “clear their cache.” 

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN):

A CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a network of decentralized remote servers that delivers cached static content, as described in the section above, from websites based on the user’s physical location. This reduces page load time, makes your site more crash-resistant, improves handling of peak load times, and increases security against malicious attacks.

Note that WordPress doesn’t use a CDN by default—it serves your static content from a single location. However, there are many CDN services you can use for your WordPress site, such as Cloudflare, Jetpack, and StackPath.

Related Reading: Here’s an article by WP Beginner on using CDN services for your WordPress Site.

Add an Expires Header:

A way to decrease possible caching problems is by setting caching controls called “expires headers.” This signals to the user’s browser that after a certain date/time, it must reload the asset from the web server, rather than fetch it from the cache. The main issue with this technique is determining how far into the future you should set the expires header. 

Control How Many Post Revisions Are Stored:

In WordPress, the post revisions feature lets you undo changes and go back to an earlier version of posts and pages. These revisions are permanently stored by WordPress (Auto-saves, on the other hand, are temporary revisions that WordPress stores every 60 seconds (in case a problem occurs before you get to save your content). 

Post revisions are helpful if you have lots of tweaks and edits and want to see how it has changed from the previous version, especially if several authors have their hand in the content. However, saving too many revisions can take up storage space and slow it down.

You can change how many revisions are saved manually or with a free WordPress plugin. 

Related Reading: Check out this WP Beginner step-by-step guide about WordPress post revisions.

Hire a Pro:

Many elements can bog down a site. Since some will be on the back end, it’s often easiest (if budget allows) to outsource it to the experts. Services like WP Fixit offer assistance with low-complexity small and medium-sized WordPress websites. Companies with larger, more complex websites can hire a trusted web support partner. Further in this article, we will share tips for hiring an interactive company.

Resource: Site Speed Getting You Down?  An Easy Guide to Improve Your Website Speed (Without a Developer)

Website Pain Points #2: I’m confused about image files and formats.

Website images and animations also affect speed and usability, most commonly when image files are too large. In many modern websites, images take up more than half of the site’s bandwidth, with some high-traffic and image-rich sites like Pinterest taking up over 85%! These oversize images have slow loading times, which can result in higher bounce rates, short session duration, cart abandonment, and other costly problems. While it’s true that minimizing the file may lower image quality, the trick is finding the right balance between file size and quality. 

Here are the three factors that affect image size:

Image Format:

The three major formats used for websites include JPEG, PNG, and GIF. It’s important to choose the right format for proper speed and for rendering—the process of converting hypertext into pixels. Best practices include using a JPEG for photos or images with many colors, PNGs for basic or transparent images, and GIFs for animated images only.

Compression:

The higher the compression, the smaller the file size. Most image editing tools like Adobe Photoshop, On1 Photo, and GIMP, have built-in image compression features. Another option is saving your images normally, and then using a free or paid web tool like TinyPNG, JPEG Optimizer, and Optimole for minimization. WordPress plugins like Optimole, EWWW Image Optimizer can automatically compress images upon loading them, plus you can manually optimize images in the WordPress media library. 

Related Reading: Here is a suggested list of the best image compression options from WP Beginner

Image Dimensions:

Photos imported from your phone or digital camera often have very high resolution (300 DPI) and large file dimensions (2,000+ pixels). While these image sizes work for desktop publishing and print, loading takes too long for website usage. You can simply resize them with imaging editing software. 

By choosing the right combination of image editing techniques, you can decrease file size by as much as 80% while still having satisfactory image quality for users.

You can learn more details about image sizes for social platforms from this article by Kinsta: 

Facebook Image Sizes

Twitter Image Sizes

LinkedIn Image Sizes

Instagram Image Sizes

Pinterest Image Sizes

Tools for Social Media Images

Website Pain Points #3: I don’t know what to look for in a hosting service.

Each web visitor’s device has to contact your host’s servers and request that the webpage be loaded. If your web server is slow to respond, the page will take longer to load. 

Not all web hosting services are created equal, so do your research before signing up (and switch if your hosting company doesn’t meet your expectations). It’s unwise to base your decision on price alone. Instead, balance cost with the critical factors of speed, reliability of service, downtime, customer service, scaling, and security. 

If you have a WordPress site, focus on web hosting companies that specialize in WordPress hosting. When hosting company for sites on any platform, check out their reviews on G2 Crowd first to get an honest appraisal of each service’s pros and cons. Some of the most popular and reputable companies include WPEngine, Bluehost, HostGator, and SiteGround. 

Website Pain Points #4: I don’t know how to choose my WordPress theme.

A WordPress theme is a collection of templates and stylesheets that are used to design the website’s appearance. While all can look professional, not all themes serve the same purpose. For example, some might be most appropriate for blogs, portfolios, a full website, e-commerce, or other functions. The great thing about ready-made WordPress themes is that you don’t need to be a designer or coder to create a site that looks great. Plus, you can have a unique look with themes that are highly customizable and flexible. 

WordPress.org has thousands of themes, both free and paid, in its official Themes directory. There are many good free themes, but there are several strong reasons to use paid themes, including flexibility, uniqueness, and security.

With a dizzying number of options, how do you narrow the choices down and select one? You could spend days or weeks going through them, and it can get confusing. You can make it easier by planning to find one that’s right for your brand, purpose, technical skills, and functionality needs.

Here are some suggestions for exploring WordPress themes:

List the features you need:

Consider your branding, style, audience’s needs, functionality, and basic design ideas during this stage. For example: Do you need a translation function to serve a global audience? Do you need to include a portfolio? Do you need an e-commerce function? How many columns do you want? Make use of the WordPress Feature Filter for your first way to narrow your options. 

Related Reading: An introduction to WordPress filters.

Go for simplicity:

Don’t go into fantasy land. There are some crazy, flashy themes out there, but limit functionality options to include only those you need now and are most likely to need in the foreseeable future. Why? The more features you have, the more code in your theme; the more code in your theme the more potential problems. Unnecessary coding “bloats” your site with unnecessary visual clutter, slow page load speed, and other performance issues. The main aspects for the speed of WordPress themes are Bytes of CSS and JS; the ideal number for both should be less than 100KB, with no more than 200KB. 

Choose a responsive theme:

Your theme should be compatible with and display properly on all sized devices—especially mobile. Choose a theme with appropriate menu and widget options for a good user experience and easy navigation, whether the user is on a desktop, laptop, or mobile device. 

Stay on brand:

Your theme should match your brand, including colors, overall layout, typefaces, headings, and more. You can choose a theme that reflects the look of your brand, but remember it doesn’t have to be exact; it’s easy to change many elements if it’s not “perfect” before you start working on it. Remember that some themes are more flexible than others, so understand what design elements and functionality can and cannot be modified.

Consider buying a premium theme:

We’ve already discussed the benefits of purchasing a premium theme, many of which are quite reasonably priced. 

Look for an easy-to-read font:

One of the most important factors for UX is readability. Having an easy-to-read font, along with good contrast between text and background color, is also important for accessibility to those with visual impairments. While accessibility is not a direct ranking factor, it will help you retain and convert visitors, which in turn will affect page ranking. If you’re familiar with CSS or have access to a developer, it should be easy to adjust the font, although some free themes might be limited in customization.

UX or UI Design – What’s the Difference?

Ensure browser compatibility:

Your users may be using Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, or other browsers. Most themes work on all browsers, but some get wonky or break when they are displayed on different browsers. Most WordPress theme developers use sophisticated browser compatibility tools, but there’s always a risk—it’s best to check browser compatibility before committing to a theme. A website expert can check for browser and device compatibility. There are also free browser testing tools, such as Comparium and Lambda Test. Others, such as Browsershots, offer free trials.

Know what plugins are supported:

Plugins are apps you install to enhance a theme’s capabilities. You can use plugins to change how your site looks, add functionality and features, help SEO, perform analytics, and do pretty much anything! Too many plugins can bloat your site and slow it down. However, there are some basic plugins everyone should install, including Yoast SEO and W3 Total cache.

In general, most of the control of your site comes from the theme, but you’ll want to check where the gaps are—and make sure your site will be compatible with the plugins you’ll want—because not all themes support popular plugins. If you are unsure, contact the theme developer about it.

Know your support options:

While WordPress support can help you with some basics related to your theme, they’re not experts. Some free themes have support; others don’t. If you botch something that affects your theme and don’t have support, you might be stuck in the lurch or need to hire a developer to come up with a fix. Choosing a theme with good documentation and support is advised. Most premium WordPress themes offer detailed documentation with one year of email-based support.

Be sure it’s SEO-friendly:

Having strong optimization capabilities is critical for driving organic search traffic. Some themes are smarter than others when it comes to coding that helps Google find and index your webpages properly. In general, paid themes offer greater assurances that your site is optimized for search. A good way to see if your page generates good HTML5 code is by using the W3C Markup Validation service. 

In addition to choosing the right theme, check that any theme you are using has been updated within the last few months.

Website Pain Points #5: I don’t know if plugins are negatively affecting my site performance.

A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. Installing too many plugins, or the wrong one can cause your speed to take a dive because users need to download more files. 

While some developers say that having too many plugins is a problem, others say that the problem isn’t quantity—it’s quality. You want to research potential plugins to determine if they are buggy, low quality, or are incompatible with another plugin installed on your site. Look for plugins from reputable developers and check out reviews to find out the pros and cons.

We can see the range of plugins by looking at some of the most useful, reliable WordPress plugins:

• For search optimization: Yoast SEO and All in One SEO Pack 
• For security: Akisment, Wordfence, and Sucuri
• Multipurpose tools: Jetpack, SEMRush
• Forms: Contact Form 7 and WP Forms
• Transactions: WooCommerce
• Analytics: Google Analytics for WordPress and MonsterInsights
• Email: Constant Contact and WP Mail SMTP
• Conversion Optimization: Optinmonster
• Webpage Builders: Elementor and SeedProd
• Backup: Updraft Plus
• Caching: WP Rocket

…and these plugins are just the tip of the iceberg. You can find others for Social sharing, accessibility, live chat, surveys, push notifications, tools for team productivity, link management, translation.

If you think your plugins may be slowing down your site, these steps can help you isolate problems:

1. Uninstall any plugins you aren’t using or don’t need. 
2. Test the remaining plugins to see if any of them is slowing down your site. Here’s how: Deactivate one plugin at a time, checking the speed each time. If the speed slows down after deactivating a certain plugin, you know it’s affecting your speed negatively. If none of your plugins proves to be the culprit, plugins are likely not the issue. 
3. Some website developers say to avoid iFrames, which are used for displaying content like video and audio content, and interactive media. iFrames are often used to embed something into their WordPress site from an external source, such as the embed code for a YouTube video or SlideShare. A word of caution is to only embed an iFrame from a reliable source. There can be a security issue if a hacker leaves iFrame code in a WordPress site that provides unauthorized remove access that leaves the site vulnerable to attack. 
4. Avoid themes that are bloated with unnecessary plugins, so check that out. 
5. Another tip is to check on your plugins regularly to make sure all recent updates have been installed.

Related Reading: WP Beginner article on plugins. How Many WordPress Plugins Should You Install? What’s too many?

Website Pain Points #6: My website keeps delivering 404 error messages.

It’s certainly annoying when you get 404 errors, which are caused by broken links. It also looks unprofessional and gives you pause about doing business with the company. If they have problems keeping up with their website, what else do they have problems with? Having a bad experience on your site may keep them from returning in the future. Plus, according to KISSmetrics, 44% of users will tell others about a bad online experience, which could harm your reputation.

Some common reasons for 404 errors are:

• The website is no longer available
• The webpage has been moved or renamed without adding a redirect
• The URL structure of the website has been changed 
• Links to content (PDFs, videos, etc.) have been moved or deleted
• Links to a third-party page that has changed the URL or moved the page

A few broken links won’t directly affect page ranking, but it has other negative effects. First, it decreases user experience and discourages them from continuing to other pages. This means fewer page views and lower session duration time, indicating to Google that the page is low quality or irrelevant to the search. Perhaps most important, broken links are obstacles on the path to conversion.

There are several ways to deal with 404 errors. There are paid services (with unpaid versions) that have easy-to-use link checkers. WordPress has plugins that find broken links, such as Broken Link Checker and Redirection. Another free option is on your Google Search Console, where you can also download a list of all 404 errors on your website.

The next step is to manually fix links or redirect links for pages that no longer exist or that you don’t have access to fix. 

Website Pain Points #7: I don’t know if I should include social media feeds.

Are you posting very frequently on social media sites? If so, which ones? If you’re not posting regularly on a particular social channel, there’s no reason to include a social media feed for it. One reason is that embedding them on your website will certainly increase load time. A second reason is it highlights that you are inactive. Unless you plan to display your most recent news, as some companies do with Twitter, it’s usually best to delete the social feed plugin or code.

Website Pain Points #8: My website may not be secure enough to prevent attacks.

Hacking, phishing, password theft, viruses, and ransomware have wreaked havoc on some of the world’s largest websites—Experian, Microsoft, Spotify, and Zoom to name only a few. The financial implications alone should encourage every website owner to put security first. For example:

Cost:

The average global cost of a single breach hovering at $3.62 million. 

Business Recovery:

66% of businesses attacked by hackers weren’t confident they could recover, with 60% of small companies folding within six months of being hacked.

Small Business Risk:

28% of data breach victims are small businesses; cyberattacks against small businesses have grown a whopping 424% from 2019 to 2020.

Consumer Demand:

According to a survey by WebsiteBuilderExpert, 25% of all respondent names security as there #1 priority! Adding more detail, a 2019 survey conducted by Cisco revealed that 32% of respondents who said they care about privacy are willing to act, and have done so, by switching companies or providers because of data or data-sharing policies. These consumers tend to be younger, more affluent, and shop more online. 

Reputation:

90% of the Cisco survey respondents believe the ways their data is treated reflects how they are treated as customers and will not buy from companies if they don’t trust how their data is used.

There are many ways to upgrade security, with some fixes being easier than others and a wide range of pricing. You can work with an IT expert to make a security plan that’s right for you and your customers. Some key activities are to:

Update your secure certificate:

A website security certificate, also known as an SSL certificate, is issued by an industry-trusted third party that indicates your website is secured using an encrypted connection. Your SSL can be displayed as a padlock in your web address bar, assuring users that your site has strong security in place.

Update all plugins and your version of WordPress regularly:

WordPress comes with a built-in automated update system that checks for updates and shows you notifications when updates are available for WordPress plugins, themes, and WordPress core software. Here are some tips for managing plugins.

Install anti-malware software:

Use reputable software—such as Norton 360, Malwarebytes, or McAfee—that continuously scans for and prevents malicious attacks. Be sure to keep the software updated and renew as needed.

Create and enforce strong password policies:

In addition to creating strong passwords, regularly educate employees and new staffers about security policies—and enforce them. Openly communicate about their role in maintaining security, provide specific instructions, regularly reinforce policies on an ongoing basis, and takes steps to enforce policies. Instruct users on how to identify and report suspicious activities, such as unidentified email sources and pop-ups.

Run regular backups:

Consistently backing up your website will deter and help you recover more quickly from a security incident. It’s one of the most powerful ways to avoid hackers gaining access to your files, overwriting them, or selling them on the dark web. Make a daily copy of website files and your databases.

Use a reputable, highly secure hosting company:

Hosting services offer different protection options, so pick the company that meets your company’s goals. The most secure hosts are typically VPS (virtual private server) hosting plans and dedicated servers. For all hosting types, look for SSL certificates, CDNs, firewalls, and attack protection. Ecommerce hosts should offer a way to get PCI compliance that meets the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

Website Pain Points #9: I’m not sure if my site is optimized for mobile.

More than half of all searches are on mobile devices. According to Google, 53% of mobile users abandon sites that take more than three seconds to load. However, the average load time for sites is 19 seconds on a 3G connection (14 seconds on 4G). A second issue is that websites display very differently than on smaller mobile screens. Thirdly, some types of navigation and other features can’t be accessed on mobile devices. 

If your site isn’t optimized for mobile, your mobile visitors’ user experience will suffer and you’ll miss out on a powerful competitive edge. Further, Google now uses mobile-first indexing, displaying the mobile version of pages in its SERPs by default. As a result, sites with poor mobile experience are penalized in page ranking. 

Here are key tips for mobile optimization:

Responsive Design:

Use a responsive theme with flexible elements that automatically adjust to the size of the user’s device, whether desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile.

Speed:

Test your website’s speed, content display, and ease of navigation for mobile users. Ways to improve speed include optimizing images and video, minimizing code, leveraging browser caching, and reducing redirects. Use light-weight Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) for a faster loading time. 

Readability and Content Format:

Use large-size text (a font size of 16+), use high contrast between text and background, and enhance visibility for different lighting environments. Also, use smaller paragraphs to prevent mobile users from losing their place. Finally, keep important content easily accessible on a small screen.

Optimize for Touch:

Create menus, CTAs, and other clickable elements that are large enough for mobile users to easily thumb-click and optimized for touch. 

Navigation:

Create simpler nav menus that highlight the site’s core functions and simplify the user’s journey. Also, focus on making content easy to scroll, rather than the user having to click through multiple pages. This nifty article shows various types of mobile navigation.

Extra Features and Forms:

Some features and forms, such as flash and pop-ups, are inaccessible or frustrating on some mobile devices, such a Flash and pop-ups. 

Related Reading: Here are some best practices for mobile form design from Smashing magazine.

Website Pain Points #10: Visitors aren’t going to my high-value pages.

The goal of your menu, CTAs, links, and other navigational elements is to make it easy for users to find the information they want while guiding them to your high-value pages—campaign landing pages, sign-up, downloads, promotional items, and the like. If they’re bouncing or not converting, the culprit may be navigation that is not intuitive.

If visitors can’t find what they want, get distracted, or become frustrated, it’s easy enough to go to your competitor’s site. They may also form a negative perception that keeps them from returning or that they tell others about.  

Usability issues are complex, but here are some top recommendations:

Organize your content logically.

Are your products for three distinct groups, such as hospital, financial, and industrial? Channel those groups to the appropriate sections right away by making it obvious where they “belong.” If your visitors are looking for camera equipment, break up your navigation by type of product, such as digital cameras, analog cameras, lenses, and camera accessories. Will your audience want to filter by categories such as price, brand, and location? Make it easy for them to sort through your catalog in a variety of convenient ways. 

Organize your drop-downs:

If you have second and third-level dropdowns, place them logically under the right primary category in a way that is easy to read and understand. Again, be aware of navigational needs for mobile devices.

Purposely guide visitors:

If you want people to sign up, download, or fill out a form, make a plan to drive them to those pages. You can provide relevant links in blog articles, in emails, on social media, and more. In addition, feature those pages and actions prominently on your homepage and pages related to the topic.   

Create clear calls to action (CTAs):

Once visitors land on your site, make the most of your real estate with prominent, clear CTAs. Some tips include:

• Make CTAs stand out with color, context, or other design elements.
• Make them large enough and touch-friendly for mobile engagement.
• Keep text simple, short, descriptive, and action-oriented. 
• Include relevant graphics—photos, a bold graphic, popping text, or a combination.
• Provide space around the CTA for better visibility.
• Include just one or two CTAs per page to avoid distraction and confusion.

Here are some examples that highlight these tips:

Website Pain Points #11: I’m not sure if I need to update WordPress, or how to do it.

Falling behind on installing the latest version of WordPress can result in a variety of problems. Developers are always working on improving WordPress by fixing bugs, adding new features, improving performance, enhancing existing features, and staying up to date with industry standards. 

One of the most crucial reasons for updates is for security. 

This WordPress for Beginners article provides all the how-to information. 

Choosing the Best Boston SEO Company for your Business

Website Pain Points #12: I don’t know whether to build my site with HTML or a content management system (CMS).

The key benefit of building a site from scratch using HTML is that the sky’s the limit. Doing all your own coding makes absolutely everything possible—as long as you have enough time and a big enough budget. However, many web developers stick to WordPress—which is highly customizable and can generally be completed in less time and at a lower budget. Some of the biggest sites in the world use WordPress, and so can you.

When you build your website on a CMS platform like WordPress, you can choose from a nearly endless array of pre-built design templates, create and manage digital content, and work with a user-friendly interface. While there are other CMS systems, WordPress is the world’s most popular, with over 60% of the CMS market (Other CMS systems include Drupal, Joomla, and Squarespace). WordPress powers 34% of all websites on the internet!

Is WordPress Best as a Platform for Your Corporate Website?

Some common reasons to switch from HTML to a CMS are:

• It’s a code-free way to create, manage, and modify content on your website. 
• You don’t want to contact your developer every time you want to make changes.
• CMS platforms offer companies more direct control over the content on your website.
• CMS plugins make it easy to add new functionality.

Those with some technical background (and a lot of patience) can build a WordPress site on their own—especially if it’s a simple site with just a few pages. However, it’s robust enough that a developer can create almost any design, functionality, and interactive elements you could want. Once your site is built, you can update it to your heart’s content—on your own, with a WordPress expert, or through your interactive agency.

There are three ways to convert your site: manually starting from scratch, recreating your site using a WordPress theme, or importing your content with a plugin. 

Related Reading: Here’s an article discussing conversion options.

Website Pain Points #13: My website breaks when I update it (or when it is automatically updated). 

This is painful indeed and can be caused by updates to the WordPress core, your theme, or plugins. Installing updates regularly make it easier to track down problems caused by updates and makes you less vulnerable to hacking. However, many updates happen automatically, outside of your control. 

If your website “breaks” when new upgrades are installed, on your own or automatically, there’s a chance that the core, plugins, or themes are old. It’s unusual that the problem is with the WordPress core itself—although this can happen with a major update. It’s more likely that your theme or plugin is an old version. 

Here are some avenues to explore:

Upgrade your plugins:

If you suspect a plugin, look online to see if other people have had the problem, check with the developer, or disable the plugin (or revert to a previous version), or hire a developer to figure it out.

Upgrade your theme:

If you made changes to your theme, an update can override these changes. Avoid making changes directly to your theme unless you’re a real pro. If a WordPress expert can’t successfully troubleshoot the problem, you made need to choose a new theme that supports the current version of the WordPress core and plugins. 

Design a new Website:

Some problems are beyond fixing—or may be too costly to fix. It may be time to design a new site, which can be a blessing in disguise. While needing to create a new site unexpectedly, there’s no choice but to use this opportunity to create a spectacular site that is infinitely better than your old site.

Marrying SEO with UX: A Winning Combination

Onto a new topic: SEO and analysis of website pain points. 

There are many SEO topics to cover (and multiple pain points), and we’ll go through them one by one.

Website Pain Points #14: I’m not certain if it’s worth the trouble to figure out SEO.

You don’t pay for traffic generated by searches on Google or other search engines. This organic traffic is generally higher quality than paid ads, so it’s in any organization’s best interest to optimize their website for search engines. With Google having the lion’s share of search, we’ll just say “Google” instead of “search engine.” As a website owner, your goal is to optimize your site so that your webpages rank in the top position for a search term that is important to your business. This is called search optimization, or SEO for short.

The reason people care about SEO so much is:

By Page Rank:

The first organic result in Google Search has an average click-through rate (clicks divided by impressions) of 28.5%, while position #2 gets 15.7%. From there it drops steeply—with position #10 earning only 2.5%.

By Page:

According to Moz, the first page of Google captures 71% of search traffic clicks and has been reported to be as high as 92% in recent years. Second page results are only 6%!

By Leads:

60% of marketers say that inbound (SEO, blog content, etc) is their highest quality source of leads. (HubSpot)

The basic process for page ranking starts with Google’s crawler (known as Googlebot) scanning every page it can find on the Internet. It then parses each page’s content to determine how to store the data, called indexing. Finally, Google’s secret algorithm takes into account hundreds of factors to which pages to serve up on the search engine results page (SERP), in priority order (page rank). Google’s search algorithm is designed to make it easy for searchers to find the most relevant, valuable pages. 

In the broadest of terms, these are the three steps to successfully optimizing your webpages:

1. Setting up your website and pages so the Google crawler (or Googlebot) finds your pages.
2. Use your best knowledge of the algorithm to optimize your page so that crawlers giving it a top position, ahead of competing pages. 
3. Make your page listing (snippet) attractive to your audience with a good url, SEO title (the blue clickable link), and meta description (the short paragraph under the page title).

How do you know if your SEO efforts are paying off?

For SEO, you’ll need to determine which website performance metrics matter to you (for example search visibility, new or return traffic, and conversions), how to set goals, how to analyze performance, and how to refine your site to better meet these goals over time. Without a definitive plan that includes these elements, it will be a struggle to improve your results. 

https://www.ladybugz.com/your-must-have-monster-seo-checklist-for-2021/

Website Pain Points #15: I don’t know if my site is built the right way for SEO.

When it comes to an overall SEO strategy there are three areas to address. The first is on-page SEO, which is what your visitors see. The second is off-page SEO, which focuses on getting referred traffic from other sites, or backlinks. The final area is technical SEO, which relates to the back-end architecture and site code.

A successful SEO strategy uses all three types of SEO, with each type reinforcing the other. If you haven’t been paying close attention to any one of these areas, you need to create an integrated plan that incorporates each of these three areas.

SEO Metrics Your Digital Agency Should Track

Keywords – what’s the fuss?

Optimizing your site for SEO requires a keyword strategy that helps you compete for page ranking on important search terms, called keywords. In Google’s most recent algorithms, the importance of keywords has decreased, while the importance of context has increased. Nonetheless, keywords are still an essential part of SEO that cuts across front-end, off-page, and back-end SEO. 

There are endless articles and countless opinions about SEO. We’re not going to delve too deeply into the subject in this guide, but let’s still cover the basics:

Research long-tail keywords:

Based on topics that are important to your business, you’ll need to identify the keywords and phrases that you can realistically compete for. As an example, unless you’re an enormous, brand-name company, you’ll be hard-press to compete for a large category term, such as “women’s shoes” or “digital cameras.” 

Your best bet is to focus on long-tail keywords that offer more detail, such as “where do I find discount women’s dress shoes in Pasadena.” The term will be less popular but more competitive, so you’ll be more likely to rank for it. In addition, use natural-sounding language, which leverages the growing number of people using voice search.

You can begin your keyword research with the free Google Keyword Planner, which shows you keywords related to your business, average monthly search numbers, and costs for targeting on AdWords—which are indicators of competitiveness. 

Conduct competitor analysis:

You can do SEO competitive research to see what other companies in your niche are ranking for, then go to their website and see how they do it—similar to reverse engineering. See if you can find keywords that fill in the gap that you can realistically rank for. You can do the same sort of research on your competitors’ links and content.

Install Yoast SEO:

One of the most user-friendly optimization apps is the Yoast SEO plugin, which has a robust free version and a premium version with some extras. Yoast helps optimize content, prepare your Google snippet, and get a readability analysis. And at no cost, it’s a bargain!   

Review your content:

We might get tired of the phrase Content is King, but it certainly is. Page ranking and user experience absolutely revolve around content. Make it professional, relevant to your audience, and a valuable resource. This will increase traffic, shares, return visitors, and engagement. Once your reputation is established, people will be more likely to click on content published by your company.

Website Pain Points #16: I don’t know how to start optimizing my site for Google.

One of the best ways to get started is to know where you stand. There are many analytical tools, but Google Analytics is the logical place to start. This free service provides information on who is coming to your site, where they are coming from, what device they are using, and other vital stats. It’s not difficult to learn the basics of how Google Analytics. Jump right in or take a tutorial. Take steps to set benchmarks, understand traffic trends, compare your key metrics to previous time periods, and more.

Being Affected by Google’s Core Updates for SEO? Here’s How you can Leverage it.

Website Pain Points #17: I don’t have a handle on who is visiting my website.

Tracking who is coming to your site from organic search is one of the most basic metrics. It’s not just the quantity of visitors, but also the quality of visitors—visitors who engage with your site, convert on your high-value pages and ultimately make a purchase. If you’re getting low-quality traffic, you’ll get people who just stay for a minute, bounce around aimlessly, and never convert. Google Analytics will be very helpful in finding out who you are attracting and giving you insights to attract the visitors you want. 

Website Pain Points #18: Other sites aren’t linking to mine, so I’m missing out on backlinks.

One of the most powerful SEO strategies is backlinking, which is one of Google’s direct ranking factors. Also known as inbound links, they refer to any traffic coming from any URL other than your own. The best backlinks are from highly trusted, authoritative sites with high traffic volume. Why? Google takes it as a sign of your authority when a well-respected site trusts you enough to refer its visitors to you. Note that backlinks or traffic from “link farms” or from disreputable sites can even hurt you. 

The most effective way to get backlinks is by publishing high-quality content that people running other sites determine will be valuable to their audience. Some of the most popular and successful content to gain backlinks include: 

• Original studies, surveys, and research
• Visual content, such as infographics
• Videos
• News and trending topics
• Guest columns 
• Promoting content in social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn Groups

Website Pain Points #19: I’m not getting enough traffic.

We’ve talked about some reasons why traffic can be low. For example, if your site is slow, people may click away before your page is even displayed. Or you get a low page rank because your site isn’t properly optimized. Perhaps your snippet on Google is unappealing. Or, you aren’t promoting your content so it doesn’t have proper exposure.

It’s disheartening when you’ve put together a website or a marketing campaign and you don’t pull in any traffic. Based on some of the reasons above, let’s take a stroll through some of the strategies you can use to boost traffic.

Conduct an SEO audit:

If you don’t know where to start, or if you know your site is not ideally optimized, a professional can help you conduct an SEO audit for your eCommerce site or any other websites. The audit will uncover information about your site’s structure, keyword use, images and video, user experience, and other key areas that can affect your traffic volume.

Write for small audience segments:

Don’t try to write an article for a “general audience.” You’ll end up with bland, generic information that doesn’t interest anyone. Instead target a small segment so you can create meaningful, specific content. Identify and understand their concerns, problems, and information needs. Identify what will make their lives or jobs easier. Find gaps in the information they need. Write about what matters to them from their perspective—and stay away from meaningless fluff. 

Create engaging content:

Creating compelling content is probably the single most important factor in getting people to stay on your site, share content, and become returning visitors. Whether you’re talking about content on blogposts, webpages, videos, or an infographic, make it count. Professional, relevant, high-value content is what makes your site hum. When your content returns positive user signals to Google, you’ll get the kind of boost that nothing else will accomplish.

Optimize your site on the front end:

Even if you’re not a technical guru, there are plenty of ways to optimize on the front end, such as providing alt text for your images, using heading structures in a keyword-friendly way, avoiding dense text, and other fairly simple fixes.

Analyze your competition:

We discussed this topic above but, in short, learning what your competition is doing right can give you tips for optimizing your own website. 

Related Reading: Here’s a good article from Moz that includes a competitor analysis template. 

Use the power of Social Media:

Start with great content. Then promote, promote, promote. The more eyeballs see quality blog articles and content from you, the more shares it will receive—and the more potential prospects and leads will land on your site. Consider where your prospects consume media to determine if you should put your efforts into Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or other social platforms. If you don’t plan on posting on a particular platform, don’t include the widget on your website—ghosting on your own channel is not a good look.

Get a guest blog spot:

Guest blogging on a trusted industry blog introduces you to a new, relevant audience. If they respect the site you guest blog on, that respect transfers over to you—making them a high-quality lead. Becoming a guest blogger may be a one-time thing and, if it works out well, you might be able to expand your guest blogging into a regular gig. 

Send an email newsletter:

Your email newsletter goes to people who know you and are interested in what you have to say or the products your offer. It’s the perfect place to provide links to your blog articles, product promotions, content marketing landing pages, or other high-value pages.

Add blog posts to your email signature:

Why not add links to a few of your recent or most popular blog articles right on your email signature? Because of spam, hacks, and viruses, many people don’t open emails from unknown sources. If people have opened your email, they most likely know about your company or have some type of relationship with you. If your email offers something valuable, they are more likely to click your link.

Promote content in industry groups or your community:

Get in front of industry colleagues and influencers to showcase your expertise. As an educated audience, they will be most interested in in-depth articles, white papers, research, studies, expert opinions, and downloadable resources. Post this content on Facebook, LinkedIn groups, and other places your peers go for industry information. 

Focus on local search with citations and directories:

If you have a local business, especially a storefront, there’s nothing more important than being visible when a potential customer is looking for a service and enters your product category plus the name of your town or “near me” into their browser. To get found, create a citation/directory program.

First, here are definitions of each:

Citation:

Anytime your name, address, and phone number (NAP) are mentioned by local websites, review platforms, local directors, blogs, social media pages, and even your own website. 

Directory:

Lists of business websites are categorized into different industries or niche areas. 

While NAP is the most basic information, others let you provide maps, services, hours of operation, images, reviews, and various business attributes. Some directories are more general than others, with some focusing on industries and specific localities. Some are free, and some require payment. 

Citations boost local SEO and earn referral traffic from other sites. The very first action is adding a listing to Google My Business, which offers a free business profile that is connected with Google Search and Google Maps. Other basic directories are Bing Maps, Facebook, Yelp!, Localeze, and Yellow Pages (YP). 

Check out your directory and citation listing at least several times a year to make sure they are up-to-date and consistent with each other. You can do this manually or with an automated citation checker app.

Local SEO Made Easy – Tips To Get Your Business Found

Website Pain Points #20: Local competition is fierce.

You have done your homework with directories and citations, as discussed in the section above. However, enormous local competition requires you to do more.

Here are some additional ideas:

Get Reviews:

People care about what other people think. Having positive reviews builds local trust in your business and encourages your neighbors to “give you a shot.” You can try several techniques to encourage reviews For example, ask for customers’ email addresses and send a friendly follow-up thanking them for their business—and ask that they provide a review (and give how-to directions). You can request that they write a review at the bottom of a receipt, on your website or social channel, or simply mention how much you would appreciate their reviewing your business.

Create local web pages:

Did you know that 72% of brand engagement happens on local pages? These are stand-alone webpages that are highly individualized with information related to a specific business location. Local pages increase your total number of impressions, boost organic search traffic (especially on mobile), and give you a better chance of ranking above your neighboring competitor. 

Create local blog pages:

Blogging isn’t just for large companies. Perhaps the main reason people blog is to increase search traffic—and you can do that on a local level. Write blogs that will appeal to your local customer base with topics like local or company news. In addition to SEO, local blog pages can build backlinks with other local businesses. Two words of wisdom: first, make sure your blogs are high quality. Second, if you don’t have the resources to blog regularly, at least several times a month, wait until you can be consistent.

Website Pain Points #21: My web pages aren’t ranking for my keywords.

If you never come up on top of the search page, no one can find you! If you need to raise your page rank, reexamine how your website is organized, your SEO strategy, your content, and your ability to create pages optimized for search. 

Improve your site structure:

The basic architecture of your website will affect how Google crawls and ranks pages. Your main focus should be on UX (user experience).

Here are some UX tips:

• Create a logical, consistent structure for your website’s top menu items and sub-pages.
• Make sure pages flow seamlessly together for a natural user journey.
• Develop navigation and interactive elements that are intuitive and easy to use.
• Plan for a link structure that is comprehensive and guides users to relevant content, resources, and high-value pages.
• Design a fairly flat structure so that users don’t need any more than one to three clicks to get to a page.  
• Make page topics discrete and avoid redundancy between pages. 
• Design for mobile, which accounts for half of all searches.

Marrying SEO with UX: A Winning Combination

Website Pain Points #22: People are “bouncing” off my site.

We’ve talked about ways to improve organic traffic and create a positive user experience. The flip side is how to reduce the bounce rate. This metric represents the percentage of visitors who leave the site after viewing only one page. Bounce rate can reflect a variety of problems, the primary being poor user experience, bad content, and unclear calls to action (CTAs).

Note that there is no single “good” bounce rate. Average ranges differ by industry, B2B versus B2C, e-commerce sites, blogs, type of page, and other variables. You can get a general idea of a target goal based on your industry niche and measure where you are at a point in time as a benchmark. 

Check your bounce rate regularly in conjunction with your other metrics to get a sense of where you can make improvements. Also, identify which landing pages people bounce from as a way to pinpoint problem spots. You can also look at pages where people spend a long time to see what is keeping them there.

Website Pain Points #23: Visitors aren’t staying on the Website.

Sometimes visitors don’t officially bounce. At the same time, they don’t stay long either. This isn’t always a bad sign. For example, they may just want your phone number so they can call you. Or they go to a specific form to order something, sign up for your newsletter, download a white paper, or read a blog article. These can all be positive points of conversion. The problem arises when visitors leave quickly without interacting or converting.

Here are some questions to explore if you have poor retention:

Are you delivering relevant content?

Your Google snippet may get the right audience to click. However, if you don’t deliver what your Google snippet promises, users will find the content irrelevant and leave. 

Are you targeting the right audience?

Your snippet may be too general, bringing in a lot of stray traffic that fails to convert. Narrow your content to answer the questions of the people who matter most to your business.

Is your content valuable?

If you don’t have anything interesting to say, if what you say is written poorly, if it’s outdated, or if your content has other issues that don’t meet user expectations, they’ll leave in a hurry.

Are you providing additional resources?

Your internal linking strategy and CTAs should provide a range of ways for users to find out more about their topic of interest. The more valuable resources you offer, the longer they’ll stay. 

Are you optimizing for engagement?

Refining your website’s results requires gaining insight into how users behave and interact with your site. We’ve already discussed several positive user signals. Add to that:

• • Pages per session
  • Average Session Duration
  • Returning Visitors
  • Time on page
  • Exit rate and top exit pages

Many of these metrics are easily accessible through Google Analytics. 

Website Pain Points #24: My website traffic isn’t converting

If you have good traffic volume but your conversion rate is low—they’re not signing up, making comments, downloading, or buying—your message might be off-track. You may not have a clear understanding of what an audience segment truly values in the category (cost, quality, trendy, etc.). Or maybe you haven’t communicated your USP (unique selling proposition) convincingly. Another possibility is that your navigation, internal linking strategies, or CTAs aren’t driving visitors to points of conversion.

The most typical reason why leads don’t convert—to sales in particular—is that you’ve attracted low-quality leads or tire-kickers. You may also be creating content geared toward leads at the top of the funnel who are not at the decision-making stage of their buyer journey. 

In this situation, you can follow several paths:

First, you can focus on creating content that is more relevant to leads who are closer to purchase. You can also create branding messaging and provide resource that educate and create positive feelings among leads who are early in the buyer’s process.

Second, you can create separate messages and content for leads in various stages of the sales cycle. You might consider developing drip campaigns to move leads from awareness to interest, to evaluation, to decision-making, and ultimately to purchase. 

Third, look at your presentation in the purchasing stage. Are your forms easy to complete? Do you have messages that reinforce value? Is your sales information—such as pricing and product attributes—easily accessible during the purchase?

Website Pain Points #25: I don’t know the best way to find a qualified web designer.

Your website could be past its prime—with the wrong look, old content, and lack the functionality and scalability needed for your growing business.  And worst of all, it’s just not bringing in new leads and customers.  Doing a major refresh or creating an entirely new website is a big investment of time and money. To get the best return on your investment, you’ll need a web team that can take you from start to finish—and ultimately delivering a high-performing website. 

If you’ve never hired a website designer, developer, or interactive company, here are suggestions for how to find one that suits your needs: 

Look online:

If you want a look that is in line with other sites in your niche, find websites you like and contact the designer. If you want to stand out from the competition with a look that’s out of the ordinary, explore websites in other industries to get ideas. And, of course, look at digital agency websites to check out their portfolio and see how they represent themselves.

Talk to your peers:

Talk to colleagues in your industry or other industries and get the names of interactive agencies they have worked with. You’ll find potential candidates (or even to find out who to stay away from!)

Know what you want:

You don’t have to give details in your first conversation with an agency, but make sure you’re on the same page. Think about what you like and don’t like about your current website, why you want to change it, how big a site you need, what kind of look, and general functionality. Have a budget range in mind. (Ladybugs has a blog article on this—I think) 

Look for Fit:

Your website is a big project. For good communication, results, and enjoyment of the process, look for a team that’s a good fit for your organization. Move onto a new candidate if the design company doesn’t listen to you, doesn’t understand marketing goals, doesn’t have referrals, doesn’t offer options, and can’t produce a WordPress site that you can adjust on your own. It may take several conversations with different agencies to make your decision, but it’s time well spent.

Best SEO Practices From 2018 You Need to Change in 2024

We Hope You Found Website Pain Points Ultimate Guide & How to Fix Them Helpful!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this guide and can use it to solve some of the pain points caused by your website. There are many options for improving your website. If you have the expertise, you can do some tweaking on your own. If not, there are experts of all types who can help create the website your business needs.

Ladybugz Interactive started in the Fall of 2020 with Lysa Miller freelancing for women-owned and local growing businesses. Miller put her digital marketing and relationship-building chops to work, making her own web design and search marketing company a top priority.

“Many business owners make the mistake of not doing their marketing first,” says Miller. “But as a web design and digital marketing company, I had to focus on what I know best to grow our agency.”

Not wanting to build another agency, a few of Miller’s freelance clients urged her to start over and to do what she was doing for them, for others. So she did.

Within a few months, inquiries increased and Miller had no choice but to start the company by hiring Frank Pereira from Providence’s Ten12Design in late October. From there, Ladybugz continued to grow over the next year. We are now a team of 19 experts specializing in niche verticals for early growth companies in biotech, B2B, education, and non-profit. We’ve launched over 40 websites in our first two years and are servicing a clientele of more than 50 support and 10 digital marketing clients. 

Ladybugz also works with Boston area legacy brands to up-level their traditional marketing efforts helping them navigate these fluctuating and unpredictable times.

An Impressive Team of Digital Marketing Leaders With Decades of Online Experience

Finding amazing team members wasn’t that hard and it’s a crucial piece of our digital marketing success story. The pandemic had hit most freelancers relatively hard and Miller offered some seasoned experts an opportunity of a lifetime.

The ability to grow with Ladybugz along with keeping the option to still work in their freelance firms as they desired. In the end, Miller felt like these experts brought so much value to the table. With a shortage in the workforce, this model suited our agency just fine. 

Most of the team now represent the company exclusively, but the agency still slides contractors the perfect direct client when needed to let them fine-craft their skills on non-agency projects. The team consists of digital specialists in web design and development, brand building, web support, SEO, social media, online marketing, and more.

Digital and Creative Leaders Paving A Local Web Design Agency’s Success

Agency Mama Bear of Strategy and Growth 

Lysa Miller oversees Ladybugz’s overall growth, focusing on business development, demand gen, strategy, and operations. Lysa has worked in digital marketing for more than 20 years and understands how to create long-term success in an ever-changing online environment. 

Web Services Director and Fun Video Guy

Frank Pereira is a graphic designer and WordPress content implementation specialist. He manages computer networking systems and oversees layout designs that go above and beyond client expectations. 

Creative and Branding Leader

Morgan Kropa has worked with companies to perfect their digital online branding for more than a decade and a half. She understands the importance of businesses identifying and honing their brands online to ensure real-world results. 

Growth Leader

Aya Lanzoni leads our digital marketing team with project management and strategy. She keeps our digital marketing clients growing and happy. As a highly organized team member, Aya keeps deadlines in place and manages an awesome team of rockstars.

COO Extrodinaire 

Billie Kenyon is dedicated to customer success and is constantly coming up with innovations and improvements that benefit both the Ladybugz team and the clients they serve. 

User Experience Dream Team

Leanne Kennis, Alison Sullivan and our excellent designer, Ryan Kohler pair up to guide clients as they work to identify their digital voice, especially early-growth companies. The combined expertise makes for the perfect design, messaging, and user experience that flows together perfectly. A recent example of such a success story is Paradigm4’s new website.

Social Media Rockstar

Crystal Daher’s expertise is in digital marketing, social media, and SEO implementation. A beautiful new website means nothing if nobody can find it online, and Crystal ensures that Ladybugz clients’ content ranks highly in web and social media searches. 

Content Ranking Queen

Amy Westebbe is referred to as the agency’s secret weapon when it comes to ranking content. Amy is the voice behind many of our client’s highly engaging (and ranking) content. Our SEO team works with Amy to craft topics and website content that will read and rank.

Online PR & Events Maven

Meet Ola Patykowski our public image coordinator. Ola is the creator behind our social media reels and video promotions. Ola also helps clients with the same. In addition, she manages our Ladybugz awards, events, and media opportunities. Secretly she is our agency’s stylist.

Visual Storyteller

Wherever you find a Ladybug event or PR opportunity, you will also find our company photographer, Lis Rock, documenting it. Lis helps us tell our story through photo-journalism capturing real moments we can share with our friends and fans.

A custom interactive and iterative process (Agile!) for a successful website launch

The team at Ladybugz Interactive has created a unique method to help early-growth companies identify their digital voice. This agile process allows clients to get custom WordPress websites designed, developed and launched in just 8 to 12 weeks. Afterward, Ladybugz continues to work with clients to ensure the long-term success of their digital strategies. Learn more about all of the digital marketing professionals at our web design and digital marketing agency.

As an ecommerce design agency, Ladybugz Interactive leverages a blend of creativity, technical expertise, and strategic thinking to deliver online stores that are both visually compelling and optimized for conversions. Our team understands the unique needs of ecommerce businesses, ensuring every website we build is tailored to enhance user experience, drive sales, and support long-term growth in the digital marketplace.

Focusing our web design sights on growing companies in biotech and beyond

Throughout Ladybugz Interactive’s inaugural year, we have carved out a niche for ourselves in digital marketing for biotech companies, specialty education and non-profit organizations, and B2B and B2C companies. We specialize in affordable but high-quality service for early-growth companies, with a focus on woman-owned and minority-owned businesses.

See our impressive portfolio to learn more about the digital marketing strategies that Ladybugz has implemented for our clients. 

Our boutique digital agency gets featured in the online media (over and over.)

We specialize in helping clients tell their stories through digital marketing. Like any business, Ladybugz has its own story, which has been featured in print and on podcasts. 

A November 2021 article from the MetroWest Daily News highlights how Ladybugz from a one-woman show to one of the top agencies in the Boston area. When the pandemic required companies of all kinds to increase their digital presence, The Ladybugz team was there for clients who didn’t even know where to begin. 

For those who want to hear our digital marketing success story for themselves, we’ve been featured on the popular podcast The Resilient Entrepreneur twice. The first time, Lysa and host Michelle Mercier discussed how to block out the noise in your life, both personal and professional, to focus on success. The second time, Miller shared her advice on building strong relationships to grow your business.

For an in-depth look into our digital marketing success story, read our feature on Cloudways.com, a managed cloud hosting platform that features a blog with advice from industry experts. In this 2020 interview, Lysa shared the origins of Ladybugz, the team’s creative process, and her definition of customer success. She also highlighted the diverse clientele of Ladybugz Interactive, how the team has shifted during COVID-19, and how to balance personal and professional brands online. 

For more expert advice and insight into the Ladybugz creative process, see the full list of publications that have highlighted our work in the world of digital marketing. 

Continuously Named a Top Boston Web Design + Digital Marketing Agency 

Ladybugz Interactive has been recognized time and time again for our work helping dozens of companies create and maintain a strong digital presence. 

Ranked 2023’s Top Creative Agency in the USA on Clutch.co and The Manifest, proves the agency’s hard work is highly coveted and recognized in the industry.

Ladybugz Interactive was also named one of the Women-Owned Agencies to Watch Out for in 2021 by Agency Vista, a network of more than 46,000 marketing agencies. 

Clutch.co, a leading B2B research company, named Ladybugz Interactive one of the Top Global Creative & Design Firms of 2021 as well as one of the Top-Ten Women-Owned B2B Web Design and Digital Marketing Agencies. Ladybugz continuously receives perfect 5-star reviews on this platform. 

Most recently, Ladybugz was named as one of the Top Web Design Agencies in New England as well as one of the Best Boston Marketing Agencies by Agency Spotter, a site that uses customer reviews and data to help clients find marketing services worldwide. 

As Our Agile Digital Agency Evolves, Our Commitment to Our Clients Remains the Same 

While helping clients expand their digital presence, Ladybugz Interactive is expanding our physical presence in Boston and beyond. Our studio in Hudson provides a space for creative services – namely photography, video production, and podcasting – allowing our talented team of full-time staff and freelancers to exercise their skills and go above and beyond for clients. Additionally, the Ladybugz Interactive Boston Seaport office provides a central meeting point for digital marketing clients across the greater Boston area. 

As Ladybugz Interactive continues to evolve in 2022, we remain committed to our mission of providing high-quality digital marketing to local, early-growth companies at an accessible price. We will continue to bolster women/minority-owned businesses and focus on diversity. Hand in hand with this goal is Ladybugz Interactive’s commitment to supporting freelancers by providing regular work in a people-first environment. 

If your New Year’s resolution includes growing and maintaining a strong digital presence for your business, contact us to see what our award-winning digital marketing team can do for you.

If your company is overwhelmed by the upkeep of your WordPress website, consider getting more support by hiring an interactive company with WordPress expertise.

What Can You Expect from Your WordPress Website Support Company?

Keeping a WordPress website running smoothly and getting the best results is complicated and time-consuming. That’s why companies of all sizes often take it to the experts. Outsourcing WordPress support can remove the burden of critical website responsibilities in the following ways.

1. WordPress Versioning Updates

Each new WordPress version releases fixes bugs, adds new features, improves speed and performance, and enhances existing features to stay up-to-date with industry standards. Your WordPress support partner can ensure that you don’t miss out on new functionality, design, plugins, and security opportunities.

2. WordPress Website Security updates

WordPress sites, especially outdated ones, are particularly vulnerable to hacking and other cybercrime. WordPress releases frequent security updates to plug vulnerabilities that present security risks. Delays in installing these updates introduce many security risks. If your internal IT team is overwhelmed, a WordPress support partner can take over this crucial task.

3. WordPress Theme and Plugin Updates 

Another way to improve site security and functionality is to regularly update your WordPress themes and plugins. Third-party plugin developers generally rely on the latest version of WordPress. Older versions may be unable to take advantage of these plugins and some newly available themes.   

4. Website Update Testing for WordPress

Whenever you update or add new content, design, or functionality, you should thoroughly test your WordPress site before going live. Your WordPress support partner can take all the proper steps so that your changes look and function as intended.

5. Google Site Health

Improving your site health, a metric used by SEO tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs, can boost traffic and search engine visibility. Your website partner can use a site health tool to better and more efficiently understand and resolve problems such as site structure, speed, security, broken links, slow-loading pages, and other technical issues that impact the ability to rank for your target keywords. 

6. Accessibility for your WordPress Site

The Internet is enjoyed by a diverse population, including those with visual disabilities, physical impairments, and other challenges. These folks might be great customers. A WordPress expert can improve usability for all your visitors using accessibility tools and techniques when planning the site’s design, layout, navigation, content, plugins, forms, and much more.

How to Maintain Website Accessibility Post-Launch

7. Technical Elements Relating to WordPress

Site performance and speed shape the user experience and how visitors judge the quality of your business. Technical problems can cause sites to run slowly. Your Website partner can significantly speed up your site by running performance tests, using the latest version of PHP, optimizing images, deleting unused plugins, tidying up your WordPress database, reducing file sizes, and more.

8. Google Indexing for your WordPress Website

Disorganized URLs and poor architecture can hinder the Googlebot’s ability to crawl and index your site, limiting its visibility to your potential customers. WordPress support experts can fix and avoid these problems in many ways, such as creating mobile-friendly webpages, optimizing your interlinking scheme, and eliminating duplicate or outdated content.

9. WordPress Website Monitoring

Providing an optimal, seamless user experience—including site performance, reliability, and availability—will improve your conversions, search engine rankings, and security. A knowledgeable WordPress expert will use industry best practices to fully monitor your WordPress site, leveraging tools that track critical performance indicators.

10. Best Practices for WordPress Website Support

Internal staff is often not well versed in best practices in website design, development, functionality, and other key areas. After all, the cyber world moves at lightning speed. A good WordPress support company keeps up with digital trends, technology advancements, security issues, and new opportunities on the WordPress platform.

11. Proactive Website Site Content Review

A website content review identifies all content on your live website, including images and design features. Your website support team will ensure that your web pages  function properly, all links work, your photos are optimized, and more. You can use this valuable information to tweak your current content, identify new content opportunities, and boost performance.

25 Major Website Pain Points and How to Fix them (An Ultimate Guide)

12. Form Testing for your Website

When your forms aren’t user-friendly, you can lose orders, registrations, subscribers, leads, customers, and other important visitors. Your WordPress support team can improve submission rates by testing (and fixing) each online form’s functionality, integrations, and effectiveness by looking at elements such as design, copy, required fields, usability, and CTAs.   

13. Integrations on your WordPress site

A website integration is when your website sends or receives information from another application, system, or website. Integrations help web teams save time, manage information, and be more efficient. Common website Integrations include connections with other servers, CRMs, sales tools, chatbots, email signups, marketing automation, social media functionality—and the list goes on and on.

14. Site Speed for WordPress

The factors affecting page-load time and overall site speed are complex and varied. A WordPress support guru can maximize speed by analyzing text, videos, pictures, other media, plugins, third-party apps, coding, scripts, and more. This information enables your WordPress expert to implement the best solutions for top speed and performance.

15. Technical SEO for your Website

Technical SEO directly impacts your web site’s crawlability, indexability, and search rankings. This includes components like page titles, title tags, HTTP header responses, XML sitemaps, 301 redirects, and metadata. A WordPress support person who is an SEO expert can use a variety of techniques and tools to boost SEO results.

Your MUST Have Monster SEO Checklist for 2022

16. Website Update

Your website support team can easily make updates to your website. Another option is to have them train you on how to make straightforward updates (without blowing up the site). Many companies like a certain level of control over routine WordPress tasks and have a knowledgeable staff member who can lend a hand.

17. Iterative Website Build-Outs

Building a website is typically a linear process in which design and content teams work in silos, and key decision-makers only see the site after much of it has already been built. The result? Misunderstandings, frustration, and going back to the drawing board. Certain website companies can effectively lead an iterative process, which focuses on the broader scale involvement (including senior decision-makers) and close collaboration between the design, developer, and content creators. This agile process offers continuous feedback, catches problems early on, and gets faster approval from decision-makers.   

18. Emergency Outages and Website Software Issues

You can be in big trouble when your website is unavailable, slow, or glitchy. A website support team can write up a plan that protects you against such problems, with the specific steps required to resolve them. When trouble hits, a clear plan ensures that your customers won’t be inconvenienced.   

19. Questions about your WordPress Website

Companies often have questions about their website’s functionality, performance results, SEO, or other topics. A client-focused website support company can provide the answers you need and insights for improving your online business.

20. Training on your WordPress Website

You might use a company for the heavy lifting and back-end development, but you might want to take on other tasks yourself. You can work with your WordPress design or support company to figure out what you can reasonably handle internally, without risking site quality. If you are confident using this approach, your website company may offer to train you in some basic WordPress skills.

Why Hire a Local Boston Web Design Company for your Business

Maximize Your WordPress Site by Hiring a Boston-Based Website Company

Keeping a WordPress site finely tuned is complicated and time-consuming. If you’re considering hiring a full-service website design agency that offers the best support to its clients, talk to Ladybugz Interactive. Our award-winning agency focuses on websites and digital marketing services, with superior WordPress expertise. Boston-area businesses should consider Ladybugz, specializing in B2B industries, biotech, non profit, education, construction, professional services, and manufacturing.

There are several free (and paid) tools available to check your website speed. Some of these of these speed test services include Google Page Speed, GT Metrix or Site 24X7. Once you have tested you website speed, successfully, you can now make improvements and fix it. 

Update your Hosting Service

Not all web hosting companies are created equally and if you have the need for speed, choosing your website hosting company should be done carefully. Stay away from value hosting and focus on web hosting companies that specialize in website hosting for WordPress, and focus on important items such as dowtimes, speed, customer service and data security.

When choosing a web hosting company check out their reviews on G2 Crowd first. Customers are honest and will give honest answers. Some of the companies we recommend to our clients for web hosting clients include WPEngine, Cloudways, SiteGround for small and mid sized clients and Pantheon for larger companies. 

Hire WP Fixit to Improve your Website Speed

One easy way to get your website speed tuned up in a cost-effective and an efficient way is to easily outsource it to the experts. This is a great solution for non-complex small and medium sized WordPress websites just check out their reviews. 

For larger complex websites we suggest hiring a trusted web support partner with experience and reputation.

WordPress Website Support: 20 Reasons Why You Need It!

Update your WordPress Theme

Using a new WordPress theme can be a solution to the speed problem. Newer WordPress themes are built with the latest site speed in mind and offer flexibility in ways to improve your website’s speed and load time. 

Being Affected by Google’s Core Updates for SEO? Here’s How you can Leverage it.

Resize and Optimize Images

Large images tend to be one of the major culprits when it comes to site speed. In most cases there are three types of web image formats JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Choosing the correct image format plays an important role in image optimization. For best practice, you want to use JPEGs for photos or images with many colors, PNGs for basic or transparent images, and the GIF  format  for animated images only.

First and foremost you want to size and optimize images before you upload them to your site’s media library. You can also manually optimize images within the WordPress Website theme in the site’s media library. This gives you more control over the actual size and quality of the images on your website. 

You can also compress images on your website using plugins such as resmushit.com or EWWW Image Optimizer can solve this problem. Here is a suggested list of the best image compression options from WP Beginner. 

For more tips on reducing image size on your website, check out WP Beginner’s complete guide to image optimization.

Your MUST Have Monster SEO Checklist for 2022

Fix Broken Links

There are suggested paid services that are best to  find, fix and manage  broken links on your website such as Ahrefs and SEMRush. 

You can also use a WordPress plugin called Broken Link Checker. Some managed hosting companies such as WPEngine, won’t allow you to install this plugin because it uses resources that can sometimes slow down your website. 

Google Search Console is free and another option to find broken links. You can download a list of all 404 errors on your website.

Once you have found all of your broken links, you will need to fix them. You can manually fix links that you have access to, or use redirection for links that no longer exist or you don’t have access to fix. You can use WordPress Plugins such as Redirector (most popular) or Simple Redirect to do this. 

Remove Social Media Feeds

If you have feed from social media websites such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter embedded into your website, that can certainly increase your load time. There is no real use for this unless you are using it to display your most recent news (some companies like to use Twitter this way). We don’t suggest using social media or feed of any kind on your website, it just slows things down. So delete the feed plugin or code, and keep it simple. 

A 2022 Plan to Improve your Blog Content and Turn it into Rocket Fuel

Minimize the Use of WordPress Plugins to help with website speed

It’s time to audit your WordPress plugins. 

Use only plugins that are tired and true, and necessary. Review your website for plugins that are out of date, and or not being used at all. 

The less integrations you use on your website the better. Also don’t use “Iframes” unless you have to, and keep interacting with outside data to a minimum. 

For example don’t feed in social media or YouTube videos unless you have to.

Use a reputable, highly secure hosting company

Not all hosting companies are created equally, but there are some hosting partners we love and choose to work with. There are also other companies better suited for smaller companies who need value based hosting. Again “value” choose your hosting company and don’t skip out on hosting if your website is an important resource for your business. 

Here is a list of the best hosting companies. 

Overall, site speed is super important when it comes to how your website ranks for SEO and if a user chooses to interact with you. Don’t let your site speed get you down, fix it and lead more customers to finding your business and hiring you.

In particular, we’re talking about notoriously limited budgets that often require a lot of DIY action by staff or volunteers.

What are their choices given these restraints? 

Do any of these approaches sound familiar?

• The first option is to fly solo using a website creation platform like WordPress, Squarespace, or Wix.
• A second option is to hire a full-service digital agency but reduce your expectations for the site’s functionality and the number of pages.
• A third possibility is shopping around for individual services—including a developer, writer, designer, and hosting service—and acting as a project manager to bring it all together. 

Each of these methods has its pros and cons regarding money, staff time, and skills required. If you’re short on resources and expertise, the methods above often take much longer than you anticipated and fall short on design, functionality, performance, and SEO results—all key elements of website success. 

What’s the bottom line? In short, if your website fails to attract and engage visitors, it’s that much harder to meet your funding, recruitment, and awareness goals.

We’ve put together seven fundamental lessons for building websites for non-profits based on our experience and collaboration with Aruna. 

Another Approach for websites for non-profits: Focusing on Greater Partnership and Accessibility

You may be asking if there’s another way to lower the cost and increase the efficiency of building high-quality websites for non-profits. Absolutely, and here’s the recipe for success: partnership and accessibility. 

Partnership:

Collaborate in new ways by making the most of the non-profit team’s skill set—such as marketing strategy and copywriting. By taking on a larger role in the project, the non-profit is empowered while agency hours and fees are reduced. This doesn’t mean, however, that the agency and non-profit teams work in silos—they collaborate and share ideas throughout the process.

Accessibility:

Second, and equally important, provide the non-profit access to the site during production. This enables them to work directly on the production site without having to go through the agency’s team. 

This two-ingredient recipe requires planning, trust, and ongoing communication. It takes an honest effort to form one cohesive team from two organizations, but the results can have both immediate and long-lasting impact. 

If you’re wondering about what we mean by “greater collaboration and accessibility,” read on.

The Challenge: How to Build a Website for a Deserving Non-Profit with a Small Pocketbook 

Here’s a real-life example of website collaboration and accessibility. 

We recently worked with the Aruna Partnership, a non-profit organization that, for three decades, has assisted people in the impoverished Tiruvannamalai district of Tamil Nadu, South India. 

Many of Aruna’s programs focus on education, such as sponsoring education for children, vocational training, and technology for off-site learning. Other programs are literally a matter of life and death, including providing hot meals and food supplies for the needy and providing care and housing for traditionally outcast widows. One featured program is Fair Trade handicrafts, where Aruna imports and sells crafts made by local women—providing villagers with work and helping to improve the economy.

Where did our agency come into the picture? Aruna’s compassionate mission, together with the dedication of their staff and volunteers, deeply touched us. We wanted to accomplish three things: create a great website, maximize Aruna’s limited budget, and provide tools to empower Aruna to keep their website up to date.

The Solution: Team Up to Create Agency-Client Synergies 

We started a basic premise:

If we could offload some of the work to Aruna, we could maximize our combined resources. The question was how. I have to admit that when we first had the idea of opening up the production site to Aruna, we had some reservations—but also optimism. We thought the idea had potential, but we didn’t know what kind of bumps we might experience along the way. 

Fortunately, we found something very valuable and essential—a talented staff that was eager to give it their all, be flexible, and learn along the way.  At the same time, as with any website project, we faced several challenges. 

Right off the back, the current site was in HTML—which was impractical if Aruna planned to directly work on the site. Instead, we went with WordPress; the Aruna staff was already familiar with the platform and was willing to learn more. 

The second challenge was figuring out what such an approach would logistically require, such as: 

What were the best ways to take advantage of our respective skills and time? 

What process and workflow would we use to coordinate the work of the agency and client?

How would Aruna update and maintain the site post-launch? 

We were able to answer some of these questions up front, such as offering an ongoing monthly retainer to manage ongoing site maintenance and support. Other matters required some back-and-forth adjustments, such as creating a realistic workflow to help build functional websites for non-profits.  

Project Success: Lessons for Building Future Websites for Non-Profits from the Aruna Website Project 

We’re very proud of the collaboration with Aruna and the quality of the resulting website. The messaging and copy created by Aruna is clear. Our agency’s design is elegant and expresses the organization’s personality. The site’s back end is robust. And it came together in the true spirit of partnership. 

Perhaps the best way to explain the process—and why it worked– is by sharing the key lessons we learned:

Lesson #1: You can’t fake commitment.

Aruna put in the time, with enthusiasm and gusto. They demonstrated that this was a top priority. We quickly realized that without such a high level of commitment, this approach wouldn’t have worked. 

Lesson #2: Leverage the client’s abilities.

Aruna’s two staff members had strong marketing, messaging, and writing skills, plus some knowledge of WordPress. They learned more WordPress skills on their own, and we coached them as necessary. Our agency focused on design, development, and back-end SEO. 

Lesson #3: Create the right level of accessibility.

We created a fool-proof design template for the Aruna staff to use. They had the ability to add copy and make edits, all without the risk of damaging other aspects of the site. Working in synch, with real-time access for all, was a win-win. The design team didn’t have to wait for new copy and go through endless rounds of revisions. Aruna didn’t need to wait for the design team to insert copy; they could instantly see how the copy looked on the page and edit it until they were satisfied. Further, they could see the design evolve and provide feedback in real time.

Lesson #4: Define the process.

Any new collaboration requires mutual commitment to a common process. Whether you use project management software, a spreadsheet, or another method, there must be a consistent way to schedule and assign tasks, track progress, share updates, review work, and plan next steps.

Lesson #5: Be open to continuous improvement.

It’s okay—and natural—not to get everything right on the first try.  The important thing is to trust each other enough to bring up problems as they arise, be flexible to change, and take decisive steps to refine the process—as often as needed. 

Lesson #6: Communication is critical.

It can get messy with so many hands in the pot. A continuous flow of information, along with a system for ongoing review, will help ensure that the site is cohesive and that all requirements are met. Have frequent conversations—and remember that (1) are no stupid questions, and (2) unasked questions can rapidly throw things off course.

Lesson #6: Seek feedback.

Be open to feedback beyond the project team. For example, Aruna shared the site pre-launch with a test group of customers. With many older donors and volunteers, they wanted to make sure that the site was easy to read and use. This was an unusual step for us, but we were able to make some final adjustments based on the feedback.

Some Important Takeaways for Building Affordable Websites for Non-Profits: 

We were able to accomplish our objectives for the Aruna website with a powerful combination of partnership and accessibility. Now, Aruna is free to make copy edits while relying on us for technical elements beyond their skills set—such as security measures, updating plug-ins and software, new functionality, and providing reporting. Having built a foundation of trust while building the website, they are confident in our ability to work together in the future.

The degree of accessibility and responsibilities for building websites for non-profits can be adjusted depending on what each party brings to the table, of course. What is required in all cases is a combination of good planning, flexibility, and open communication that will result in reduced cost, faster launch time, and a website that both agency and client will be proud of. 

Find out more about the Aruna Partnership. 

Do you have any digital projects in mind? Let’s discuss how we can work together and use digital solutions to reach your goals.

Contact us for an Estimate

Let’s say you launched your website three months ago or did a major refresh, you are going to now need to maintain website accessibility. You put everything you had into it because your online presence is so critical to your sales and marketing efforts. What’s next? Just like you recognized the importance of launching your shiny new website, it’s equally important to recognize that launching your site is just the first part of the process. 

What do I mean? Without ongoing maintenance, you can face a lot of nasty problems related to visitor accessibility. 

Website Accessibility Will Suffer Without Ongoing Maintenance—With Negative Results.

One result  if you don’t maintain website accessibility, might be security issues that negatively affect your company’s reputation and may even require that you temporarily shut down your site. A second possibility is longer page load time, which harms SEO and causes users to click away. Further, old or irrelevant content can cause page rank can drop below your competition. Finally, broken links and other technical problems look unprofessional and can prevent access to important pages.

What’s the point? These accessibility problems happen all the time when sites are neglected. I’m sure you’d agree that it would be such a waste to let your website go downhill, especially after all the work you put into creating it.

Proper website maintenance creates the accessibility needed for success.

We can clearly see the type of problems that website owners experience when they call their site “done” and pay very little ongoing attention to it post-launch. 

What’s the solution? Regularly performing the tasks described below and you’ll not only maintain website accessibility but you’ll even give it a boost and see improvements. This translates into a lower bounce rate, a more positive user experience, longer time on site, and more page views. These benefits all lead to the ultimate goal—a higher conversion rate. 

Here are the key items we recommend to maintain website accessibility and in top condition. 

What is Accessible Design and Why We Need It

Keep checking that your website is bug-free.

I’m sure you agree that a buggy site is no fun for users. Just think of how quickly you click away when you get a 404 (page not found) error or if you arrive at an “orphan page” that doesn’t link to other pages on the site. It’s annoying and looks very unprofessional. Don’t let this happen to you!

Let’s review some ways to test your site regularly from the user’s perspective. First, check that the main page is easily accessible from all pages. Next, review the organization and flow of the site to ensure that it makes sense. It’s especially important to make sure all the forms work, are easy to complete, and go to the right place in your system. Finally, make sure that the site is easy to use on all devices—desktops, laptops, and mobile devices.

Keep all technical aspects of the website up-to date.

Operating with the most updated versions of your software will pay off a hundredfold. After all, a website is the software it’s made of, right? You want to make sure it all works flawlessly to keep users happy. Let’s look at several “buckets” of technology.

The first update element is keeping your platform up-to-date.

Many of you use WordPress, but all platforms frequently release updates, patches, and bug fixes that provide new code for you to install. Upgrades can improve accessibility in several ways. Updates commonly include code that speeds up page load time, fixes bugs, and improves functionality. Perhaps most important, they may include security updates that help protect your business and your valued customers. 

25 Major Website Pain Points and How to Fix them (An Ultimate Guide)

Similarly, install all updates for your themes and plugins.

You may already be thinking that a key foundation of your website is the theme and whatever plugins (third-party applications) you have. You’re correct. Failing to install the latest version of your plugins can leave the door open to hackers and spammers. New, improved code can improve access by speeding up your site for better access and improve user experience to increase retention and conversion rates. 

Note that WordPress comes with a built-in update system. It automatically checks for updates and provides pop-up notifications when updates become available for your WordPress plugins, themes, and WordPress core software. My recommendation is to check what each update includes before blindly installing it. You might even want to wait a week or two to give the developer a chance to fix any bugs that have been reported.

As the last word on this topic, test if the update has made unwanted change

After installing an update, be sure to test the user interface and back-end functionality for any unintended changes resulting from the new code. As an aside, having too many plugins can bog down a site. I suggest removing “extra” ones that were automatically installed by WordPress or your theme when you initially set up your website. 

Back up your site regularly.

Is it enough to fix what’s on your site to ensure accessibility and security? No. Regularly backing up your site is another critical task. The reason is simple. If your site is backed up, you can restore your site if data is lost, recover more swiftly from malware attacks, test versions of your website, and more. You can also go back further to review or revert to a previous version. When you sign up with a hosting service or new platform, ask about their standard and optional backup capabilities. 

How often should you perform your website backup? Well, it depends on several factors, such as your traffic volume, level of engagement, and how often you update your site. For example, if your only change is adding a blog article every two weeks, backups won’t be as frequent as a large eCommerce site—many of which do a backup each night. 

Continuously improve SEO.

Some readers here may be wonder what SEO has to do with accessibility. I’d explain this by saying that SEO is a major factor in getting people to the site, which is the first element to maintain website accessibility. While the topic of SEO could take volumes, but I’ll just say a few brief words.

Ongoing SEO efforts are only a shot in the dark unless you regularly monitor and analyze key performance indicators like traffic, page views, and time on page. Once you know which techniques are working and which aren’t, you’re in a better position to improve your SEO tactics.

Elaborating a bit on this topic, I’m sure you know the truism “content is king.” Keeping content relevant, fresh, and accurate is vital to all aspects of SEO—how Google core updates, indexes, and ranks webpages. Plus, its effect on social sharing—an important source of traffic—is huge. 

https://www.ladybugz.com/your-must-have-monster-seo-checklist-for-2021/

Optimize your database

Moving on, deep into the belly of your website is a massive database. WordPress uses its mySQL database to hold and organize everything in your site. In addition to storing posts, pages, and other content, it also organizes categories and tags, user data and comments, revisions, site-wide settings, plugins, and more. 

What’s the point of knowing about this? While you don’t have to be a database management expert, it’s helpful to understand that your website is, on a fundamental level, is the manifestation of this database—and can’t exist without it. So you must keep it in good condition.

Here’s the main issue. This complex database accumulates unwanted data over time, which slows down your site, decreasing accessibility. Regularly clear out useless data—such as unnecessary plugins, spam comments, pingbacks, and more. You, an IT expert, or your interactive agency can use one of the available database cleaning plugins, such as WP-Sweep plugin or WP-Optimize. 

Here’s a how-to on cleaning up your WordPress database from WPBeginner.

While you’re cleaning up, you can also take care of some annual tasks. First, renew your SSL and domain/hosting accounts. And two, check and update any disclaimers, notices, and copyright dates. You can do these tasks annually.

Keep website accessibility top of mind.

Keeping your website highly accessible is a “must-have” criteria for any website. And it’s easy to understand why: Being accessible is one of the most important ways to improve SEO, keep visitors on your site, and encourage them to return. The items in this article are a great place to start. Should you need help with any of these tasks, a reputable digital agency can be your best friend.

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