Optimise your website health: 10 quick wins

1. Run a speed test with Google PageSpeed Insights

Assessing your site's load speed addresses user experience concerns and influences search engine rankings. Google PageSpeed Insights is a free and easy place to start, giving you a benchmark and signposts the first few key areas you might want to address to improve your site health.

2. Update your CMS and plugins to the latest supported versions

Tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights might highlight areas where third-party scripts may be slowing your site, providing a pathway to preload and prioritise assets for optimal performance. These sorts of updates are usually some of the first things that can be done to improve your load speed.

3. Conduct an accessibility audit to meet required standards

Ensuring your website is accessible according to WCAG guidelines creates an inclusive digital experience for all users, including those with disabilities. This involves adjustments to the site interface and content considerations such as providing transcripts for media, or potentially even an accessibility statement – laying out the actions you’ve taken to improve accessibility, and your next steps to make the experience even better.

4. Check cookie consent for regulatory compliance

Proper management and categorisation of cookies not only ensures regulatory compliance under laws such as GDPR but also affects analytics outcomes by appropriately managing user consent. Ensure you’re up to speed with the latest requirements by law, and that all your relevant policies are up to date on and off site too.

5. Review technical and on-page SEO for better search engine visibility

Conducting regular audits using tools, like SEMrush, can highlight critical SEO parameters such as site structure, metadata and link health, aiming for a site health benchmark of 80% or higher. Google Search Console can provide a basic starting point to the world of SEO, so it’s worth seeing what insights arise here to help you begin formulating an ongoing, constant improvement plan for your SEO.

6. Ensure backup protocols are reliable

Understanding the frequency and retention span of your backups is vital. This ensures you can recover efficiently after data loss or unwanted changes, securing your digital assets against unforeseen events. Don’t underestimate the value of a regular check-in with your backup protocols to ensure all is running smoothly.

7. Consider DDoS protection like Cloudflare or AWS Shield

Implementing Distributed Denial-of-Device (DDoS) protection helps safeguard your website from malicious traffic aiming to overwhelm server resources, helping to maintain uninterrupted business operations as much as possible.

8. Test mobile responsiveness across devices

Testing responsiveness ensures your site adapts fluidly to various screen sizes, maintaining user engagement across all devices. It's about more than merely stacking elements; it involves scaling and ordering content effectively, so it’s worth seeing how experience varies across devices. You can use auditing tools like SEMrush, and user-testing to get a sense for where improvements might be made.

9. Run a security scan to detect vulnerabilities

Regular security scans help identify and patch vulnerabilities such as SQL injections and cross-site scripting attacks, safeguarding your site's integrity against cyber threats. Take the opportunity to diarise or enquire how frequently your site is scanned to ensure your security is as up -o-date as possible.

10. Set up uptime monitoring for tracking availability

Continuously monitoring your site’s uptime allows for prompt awareness of and response to downtime, minimising disruption and maintaining service reliability.

Many of these actions can be straightforward and initiated by yourself or your digital team. Once you get going with your next steps it should become clear, and it’s just a matter of assessing the resources you have available to keep on top of it all. At KISS we can help with assessing the cost-benefit of website health actions, or even maintain your site health for you entirely – it’s an investment people don’t regret in order to keep on top. After all, keeping one of your most valuable business assets running smoothly will always stand you in good stead.