Site performance: analyze and boost it in a few essential points

The performance of a website is measured in particular by the flow of visitors. However, it is not enough to put it online to generate traffic, or even increase your turnover. So, how do you judge the performance of a web platform? How to analyze the impacts of marketing actions? Discover the benchmark performance indicators that will allow you to analyze and boost your website.

Site performance: the main indicators to take into account

Indicators are essential for judging and analyzing the behavior of visitors to your website. In addition, experts also support you in your various digital projects: web performance analysis and UX, SEO web or digital transformation: whatever the case, if you want a site analysis, it is advisable to refer to the most relevant performance indicators and to call upon a qualified agency if necessary.

The number of sessions

As a reminder, a session is equivalent to a visit. This is the amount of time a user spends on your website. In practice, the count is made by 30 minutes. So, if a visitor consults a site several times during these 30 minutes, Google will consider it to be a single session. The visibility of a site is optimized by improving natural referencing. It will also be necessary to remain active on social networks and on professional platforms. In addition, the communication campaigns carried out on other channels (radio, press, TV, etc.) help to make your website known.

The bounce rate

The bounce rate measures the number of Internet users who visit only one page of your site. So a 50% bounce rate means that one in two visitors leaves your web platform without taking any other action. In other words, a high bounce rate indicates poor quality content, poor targeting, too slow loading speed, a non-ergonomic interface or a lack of call to action.

Nevertheless, it is possible to remedy this by improving the ergonomics of the site, by encouraging the visitor to move from one page to another and by optimizing natural referencing. It is also necessary to rework the HTML tags which aim to structure the content.

The time spent by each visitor on the web platform

This indicator takes on its full meaning when it comes to analyzing the performance of a website. A visitor who takes the time to visit your web page and stays there several minutes means that the content offered is interesting. And of course, Google takes this indicator into account to position your site in search results.

It is also possible to increase the time spent on your page by optimizing the user's journey. In other words, indicate the path to follow by focusing in particular on related content. Also place relevant internal links between the pages of the site.

Boost the performance of your website: the most effective solutions

As a first step, optimizing the performance of a site involves the implementation of user tests. This will be an opportunity to detect flaws such as a link that does not work, typos in the content or poorly ergonomic navigation. This will allow you to make the necessary changes as quickly as possible.

A study of statistics upstream is useful if you want to boost the performance of your website. To do this, create a Google Analytics account in order to collect fundamental data to follow the evolution and to improve the performance of your web page. In a same time, integrate conversion pages in order to attract new customers. It is a question of creating a link via a form to fill out or by offering them a special guide, a reduction voucher ...

Optimizing images on a website also improves its performance. This mainly involves integrating alternative texts into the photos. This solution will facilitate the indexing of your site in the results pages of Google. Casually, alternative texts facilitate access to your page, optimize its referencing as well as the user experience.

In the same vein, think about structure your content with the titles h1, h2, h3. This will allow visitors to have an overview of the information offered and its relevance. Also note that titles that contain tags are taken into account by indexing robots when referencing a site. We recommend that you start your pages with a relevant and catchy h1 title. It should include equally relevant keywords. Then structure the content with h2 and h3 titles.

It also makes sense to boost the performance and natural referencing of a site through a blog. You will be able to convert your visitors into customers, generate stable and recurring traffic, while adding new content. We must not forget that Google favors active sites whose content is updated very regularly.

Analyze the speed of your site: the most relevant tools

It may seem trivial, but the loading time of a page impacts the performance of a website. In practice, a too long loading time systematically penalizes natural referencing, the user experience as well as the indexing of the site in the search engines. A site that takes too long to display gradually loses its visitors.

Added to this is an extremely low conversion rate. Suddenly, Internet users are systematically turning to the competition. It is therefore necessary to test the loading speed using tools such as Google Insights PageSpeed, Google My Site Test or Uptrends.

Alternatively, you can use GTmetrix, a free tool suitable for beginners. In the same register, you will find Dareboost which informs you about the speed, the security and the quality of your web page. Otherwise, Pingdom is prized for its ease of use. There you will find several essential features for testing synthetic interactions.

Finally, the WebPageTest is accessible through Chrome and IE browsers. This easy-to-use software measures the loading speed of web pages with just a few clicks. You will also be entitled to advice to optimize the load time of your page.