There’s nothing more discouraging for online shoppers than an irresponsive or slow-loading website.
Even if you’ve spent years developing a premium product or service, all of your efforts are in vain without a reliable and well-built online shop.
6 Critical Website Issues & How to Fix Them
A well-built and maintained website is fast-loading, responsive, easy to navigate, and secure.
The issues described below fall into one of the following categories: speed, design, responsiveness, and security.
And while there are DIY fixes for some of them, others require professional assistance.
1. My site takes ages to load
Slow loading is one of the most common issues online merchants report. In an attempt to show the most of their products, they upload high-definition images without optimizing them first.
Heavy HTML codes and uncompressed Java scripts and CSS files are other culprits for your site’s slow loading time.
Solution
You can address each speed-related issue at the code level or, if you have a WP-based site, install a speed-optimization plugin like WP Rocket.
2. My site's mobile version is irresponsive
While desktop site versions should load in 2.5 seconds or less to score maximum conversion, mobile versions should load in not more than 15.3 seconds.
The main culprits for bad mobile optimization are inadequate site layout, unoptimized font and image size, and call-to-action buttons that are stuck together.
Solution
It would help if you had your website redesigned for a mobile-first experience. Such a move can be costly, but it will boost website sign-ups by 25% and reduce cart abandonment by a third.
3. My site's inaccessible
Instead of seeing your top products and best deals, website visitors see various error messages, such as:
- 500 Internal Server error
- 502 Bad Gateway
- Error 145
- Error 28
The list can go on, but the problem stems from your hosting provider.
Solution
It would help if you opted for managed VPS hosting or a dedicated server. The latter hosting type provides 100% uptime and 24/7 technical support and can cope with traffic surges.
4. My site has security issues
Security vulnerabilities can slash your web store’s turnover by 20%. Worse still, Google can stop indexing your site at all.
The most common security problems a site can run into are expired SSL certificates, outdated or unpatched themes and plugins, and core configuration errors.
Solution
First, install a valid SSL certificate or update the existing one. Next, check for conflicting themes and plugins that can expose your site to various cyberattacks.
After that, you should manually update all themes and plugins and the WP core. Finally, you shouldn’t forget to run regular website backups.
5. My site's SEO is a mess
Even if YOAST pretty much automates the SEO optimization process, many WP site owners still manage to mess up things somehow.
The most common SEO issues are title tags, meta descriptions, and H1 headings. There may be duplicate or missing title tags or too much or too little text within title tags.
SEO issues occur when blogs have multiple or missing H1 tags or when they contain duplicate content.
Solution
Revise your site’s content and take heed of Yoast’s suggestions. The plugin will identify and fix all SEO issues almost automatically.
Also, ensure that your site’s content is up-to-date and original and that all hyperlinks and call-to-action buttons are working.
6. UX-related issues
Poor user experience (UX) can adversely affect your site’s popularity.
Visitors can downgrade your site if important content is challenging to find or if there’s no information about featured products or services.
Missing contact details and forms and irresponsive customer support can hurt a site’s UX rating.
Solution
Restructure your website so that all critical sections are less than three clicks away from the homepage.
- Make sure that each featured product or service has an accurate description.
- Fix all broken links and call-to-action buttons.
- Recheck the site’s mobile viewports.
