What’s Website Hygiene?

The current epidemic situation in the world has already put almost every country on alert. We hope that everyone affected by this condition is safe and receives the treatment required for a full recovery. Since we all are trapped in the same situation, let’s talk about health in terms of the digital world. In other words, it means through which you can keep your digital product clean.

We have been taught of the importance of hygiene from a young age. Today, it has become a serious issue that can literally save your life. Besides, hygiene can be also applicable to any digital product. Just like in the physical world, if you do not maintain the hygiene of your website, massive problems may occur. In this posting, we have decided to discuss the importance and methods of maintaining your site’s hygiene to keep in life and running during these difficult times. 

Read also: HOW TO LAUNCH YOUR PRODUCT WITH OPTIMIZED BUDGET AND TERMS

What’s Website Hygiene?

As you may know, hygiene  refers to practices aimed at preserving health. When it comes to web design and development, hygiene can be defined as a set of actions performed to preserve your website’s health, its digital footprint, and online visibility. 

In today’s data-driven reality, poor site hygiene has become quite common. However, over time, all minor functionality issues and on-page errors will accumulate like a snowball, resulting in much bigger bugs and problems, and becoming toxic to your website’s performance and ranking. That is why it is crucial that you regularly maintain the cleanliness and organization of your website.

What are Key Site Health Indicators?

There are numerous characteristics and attributes that can impact the health of your website. Below, we have gathered some of the most common indicators that show whether or not your site is doing well.  

  • Links 

Broken URLs or links with “bad” status codes can have a negative impact on your site’ performance. This problem is common on both small and large sites. The thing is that dead URLs leech vitality from your web pages. As a result, your users will experience the frustration from seeing the “Page Not Found” message after clicking on such links.

  • Website code 

Undoubtedly, code errors are significant to the functionality of your website. Besides, this can impact how search engines index your web pages. 

  • Domain name and data 

Many site owners don’t pay attention to the domain name registration date. Being too close to the expiration date is not a big issue. At the same time, renewing it on the last day is not a good idea. Would you buy yourself such a product in a supermarket?

  • Server 

Generally, there are numerous server-specific indicators and technical parameters that impact your websites’ speed and performance. In simple terms, if your site is hosted on a server that is poorly organized, overcrowded, or too slow, it will take a century to load. 

  • Website navigation

Site navigation affects your bounce rate, the number of pages users view, and the time they spend on your website. In its turn, this impacts your visibility and SEO rankings.

  • UI/UX design

This is probably the main indicator determining your website’s health in your user’s eyes.

Read: also: PWA VS NATIVE APP DEVELOPMENT: BENEFITS FOR USERS

How to Improve Your Website’s Hygiene?

It is never too late for you to start washing your hands (unless you’re dead). Similarly, it is never too late to improve your website’s hygiene to increase your chances of getting ranked better on Google searches.

  1. Diversify your links and fix all broken links

It is crucial that you scan your site regularly to fix all errors connected with links. Also, we’d recommend you to utilize a single type of link building method if you want to rank high with Google. Create optimized, focused, and clean URLs.

  1. Get rid of unnecessary code

Any excess code is bad, because it will take longer for search engines to crawl your site. So we’d recommend you to make your code as lightweight and clean as possible. 

  1. Add click-worthy descriptions and titles

This will increase traffic and improve SEO on your website. And don’t forget to front-load keywords.

  1. Encourage social media sharing 

Being inactive on social media is unhealthy these days. Encourage users to share your posts and products on their social media accounts. Also, add social media buttons to your website.

  1. Provide relevant contact information

The absence of your location, email address, or phone number can crush your SEO as users may start reporting your website.

  1. Properly format your web pages

Consider things like typography and font size. The layout of your website needs to be uncluttered, organized, and clear.

  1. Improve your UI/UX design and optimize your website for mobile 

If your site is not optimized, it will ruin the UX design, adversely affecting your rankings.

  1. Make sure your content is readable

Produce high-quality content. Keep your target auditory in mind (use their language) when you are preparing the text for your web pages.

  1. Optimize your images

Various types of visuals are great for your site. But you need to make sure your images are well optimized if you want them to improve your SEO.

  1. Improve site loading speed

This has a great impact on the way your users engage with your pages.

Read also: MINIMALIST WEB DESIGN: HOW TO GET MORE WITH LESS?

Key Takeaways

Maintaining personal hygiene and keeping away from crowded places can help you stay healthy and reduce the risk of becoming infected. Following the recommendations above will help your site stay healthy. So wash your hands, keep calm and carry on! And don’t forget to contact us if you need any help. Cheers!