There’s no doubt that web design and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) have come a long way through their existence, and have both evolved to serve users with a positive UX (User Experience) in order to achieve high rankings and conversions.
In fact, UX is now critical for all websites – yes, even your small business website – especially, if you want to rank well in Google and delight and convert your website users.
So, what has UX got to do with website code?
One of the elements that very much contributes to a positive UX may not be the most obvious, but it certainly plays a vital role – your code.
All websites have been designed by using coding. Whether it’s the latest WordPress template, a drag and drop editor such as Wix or a customised HTML site – it needs code to exist!
When a site is coded correctly and cleanly, it allows the site to function much more effectively and efficiently. This means that a user can access and navigate your website with easy and is far more likely to stay on the site and convert. Furthermore, clean code also allows search engines to do the same thing – crawl your website with ease and accuracy.
A clean coded website will ensure the crawlability of your website happens at a much faster pace! Why does this matter? Because speed is a ranking factor. A site that has content that can be easily crawled and indexed by Google (as well as being unique and relevant), will rank higher as the site provides a positive UX.
On the contrary, if a website’s code is full of errors or is outdated, this means the exact opposite happens. Both users and search engines will experience issues with your site, such as much lower speeds and a poor UX. The results – watch as your rankings move way down the Google SERPS!
You may not even realise it, but website code can become outdated in just a couple of years – especially if you do not have a website maintenance schedule in place.
Coding can affect sites by being outdated, inefficient, or littered with unintentional errors that accumulate over time. Regular maintenance will ensure your website, theme files, plugins etc. are all up to date to their latest versions. This keeps your code up to date, efficient, bug free, secure and fast!
If you’ve never performed maintenance on your website, don’t fear, there are a few different options available to get your website’s code where it needs to be for the best SEO and UX results.
Though this might be the most time-consuming option, a thorough audit of your code can help to identify any issues and address them as necessary.
The first time you perform your scheduled maintenance, you’re likely to discover a whole range of issues and areas that need attention. From there, you can either move to step 3. (below), or you can address the issues accordingly. Then, the next time you undergo scheduled maintenance (as often as required), this will keep all your website’s functionality and code up to speed – literally.
Sometimes, an audit of your website’s code can reveal just how outdated it really is and the best option can be simply refreshing your website with a new one and then starting fresh with a scheduled maintenance routine.
While this might sound excessive, sometimes fixing really outdated websites can be costly, time consuming and almost a waste if it means going through the same process again in the near future.
By having your website completely refreshed, you really can start fresh and ensure that your theme, plugins and code are all chosen with performance and speed in mind. DigitUX provides affordable websites that are performance based and ideal for small and medium businesses. Just ask us for more info, or check out our UX web design services.
You might think that your website is performing ok (and it probably is), the truth is, it could always be better. How much better it could be depends on multiple factors, so it’s best to get an expert to take a look. If your website is even just 2 years old, remember – that is considered a long time in the digital world.
Talk to DigitUX about how your small business website can be taken to the next level.