How to Tell if Your Website has a Problem

Does your website load reliably and offer a great user experience? Or are there problems with design, SEO, and code that are holding it back?

Issues with your site can increase your bounce rate, as users will leave in search of a better experience elsewhere. Search engines also may not rank your site as highly as one that is functioning smoothly.

But how do you know if your site has a problem? Let’s go over some common site issues.

1. Your site loads slowly, or elements on it do.

If it takes several seconds (or more) to load your site or some of your site elements, that is going to drive a lot of users away.

There are many reasons why a site might load slowly. It could be that you have many large images on the site. Another possibility is problems with JavaScript. A large quantity of ads can slow down a site. Slow hosting is also possible.

2. Your links are broken or go to the wrong pages.

Do you have links leading to incorrect pages—or sometimes nowhere at all? Broken links frustrate visitors to your site. They also can have a negative impact on your on-page SEO.

3. There are HTTP errors.

A variety of HTTP errors can crop up on your website. The most common and well-known is of course the dreaded 404 (Not Found). You will likely see this error if you have a link pointing toward a page that no longer exists.

Other examples of HTTP errors include 401 (Unauthorized), 403 (Forbidden), 500 (Internal Server Error), and 504 (Gateway Timeout). Each has a different fix.

4. There are errors with your URL parameters.

If you have set up URL parameters for Google, it is possible that you have made some mistakes with those parameters that are leading to problems with site crawling and SEO.

5. Your metadata isn’t the right length.

When you write your meta descriptions, do you pay attention to the character limit? If you go over the character limit, your description will be cut off. The same is true for page titles. Fixing these can improve SEO and help attract visitors.

6. Your design is not responsive.

Your site may load beautifully on one system and terribly on another if you do not have a responsive design. If you have not checked on this, you should. It is important to make sure that people who visit your site are having a good experience whether they are on desktop or mobile platforms.

We Can Identify and Fix Website Problems For You

Worried that your website might have some of these problems or others? Support Shield can perform an in-depth audit to check for issues that may be decreasing the quality of user experience and harming SEO.

We can then correct these errors for you and walk you through steps to help prevent website problems in the future. That way, you can look forward to a healthy site that is optimized and error-free.