Would you buy a product from a business that looked disorganized or gave you a bad customer experience? If you are like the average consumer, then probably not. Just as you put extra care into making your physical location look presentable and enjoyable to customers, web design and development Dallas experts suggest doing the same to your website. 

The first impression of your website matters when building a successful website. A study found that you only have about seven seconds before a person decides whether they want to click off your page or keep reading it to explore. Our web design and development Dallas experts have outlined some things you should do to make sure your website is ready for the new year.

How to prepare your website for the new year

Make sure your website is working fast

An aspect that consumers consider when clicking on a website is speed. One in four visitors will abandon a website if it takes more than four seconds to load. So your goal for your website should be to load in less than four seconds. Set time aside and check out the loading speed of your website. There are tools available that can help you measure it, like Google PageSpeed Insights. This tool gives your website a score and then explains why Google gave it that score. From there, you can make the recommended changes or hire a web design development Dallas expert to do it for you.

Refresh your website’s content

When your customer clicks on your website, you want them to find correct and up-to-date information. That is why you should add updating your website’s content to your to-do list. If you are an e-commerce company, then you should also make sure your products are updated as well. Remove any items that you no longer have in stock or do not plan to bring back. 

As for your website’s content then, you should update your:

• Store hours

• Directions 

• Contact information

• Products 

• Return policy 

• Staff information

Update your website's security

Your customers' security should be a top priority. You should take time to ensure your website's security is up to date. This can mean several things, such as making sure your WordPress has the latest updates installed or ensuring your website is secured with a secure sockets layer - SSL. This kind of security helps make it harder for hackers to intercept the data that is coming into and out of your website. A good way to check if a website is secure is by looking at the URL address. If a website has “https://” then it has a valid SSL certificate. 

Make your website more accessible

If you have not done so, you should make your website accessible to everyone. What this means is that anyone, including those living with disabilities. In the United States, one in four adults lives with a disability. 

You want to make sure your website is more user-friendly through web accessibility. This means designing and developing websites and tools that people living with disabilities can use. If your website design is not the most user-friendly, then you should think about redesigning it yourself or hiring a web design and development Dallas company.

Here are some of the ways you can make your website accessible:

• Adding alt-text on images

• Allowing enlarged font sizes

• Keeping color contrasts in mind

• Incorporating keyboard navigation

• Using descriptive URLs

Improve your website with the best web design and development Dallas company!

Whether you are looking to redesign your existing website or build a brand new one, hire Dallas Media Group. Contact us today to get started.