The age of dial up modems were an adequate excuse for a website’s five minute loading time. But with high speed internet that we now have at our disposal pretty much anywhere in the world, about 60 percent of users want a site to load within a few seconds on their phone, tablet or mobile device. While this may sound like an unreasonable request, it is what many websites strive to provide for users because they understand what consumers want. For example, a site with a number of ads often takes a long time to load, which pushes many website owners toward “Freemium” companies that offer free, premium options that include ad-less services. A site’s loading time, along with its design, and its search engine ranking are often a large part of its success or failure.
Users typically begin their search with the websites that have the highest PageRank, a term coined by Google and named after the co-founder, Larry Page. This means websites that appear on the second, third and subsequent pages will not necessarily even be seen. Once they find a site that loads in a reasonable amount of time, users are looking for a site that gives them the information they want, as quickly as possible. For this reason, is its important for a company’s website to be clear and consistent with its information. A quality website will keep users coming back, and gain more traffic.
Website owners can track their site’s progress using an online free website grader. With a website grader tool, owners can type in their URL, and the grader will generate an overall letter grade for their website. The grade will based on several factors, which include the site’s search engine ranking, its inbound marketing score, social media presence, and website traffic among other measures. Many free website graders offer suggestions to improve these aspects of a website, and help increase its grade. While a free website grader reviews the quality of a website based on factors that are more concrete, site owners can also conduct heuristic evaluations that quantify a website’s quality. These are aspects that are not easily adapted to a grader such as basic navigation ease, visual and aesthetic design, and functionality, since these qualities are determined in the more subtle spheres of a user’s mind when they first visit a website.
The focus in all of this is users. Business owners want to create the best online experience for users so that they will visit site again, and spread the word to their friends. A well-designed website that has accessible links to vital information, a quick loading time, and a high search engine ranking is probably going to be the most popular website out there. Use a website grader and find out how your website is faring. Chances are that if you are missing any of these elements, your grade will not be very high.