There is hardly a website in the world that does not have some problems. However, that does not mean that projects that are well thought out and organized do not reduce the chances of avoiding any catastrophes. There are certain criteria that your website has to meet if you wanna seriously give your online business a go.
We could always analyze these issues bit by bit, but the holistic, structural analysis yields a far better understand, as well as a more thorough apprehension of the coming possibilities, dangers, etc. For example, you website might have a few hiccups here and there, nothing outlandish, but they might be connected in such a way that greatly inhibits smooth navigation.
We will be discussing various complications that might arise from two different perspectives. Initially, form the side of the user, afterwards we will focus on how matters seem to stand with regard to the owners of the business. At the end, we will summarize the produced picture that the dichotomized analysis will afford us.
User POV
We are starting this with users since they take priority in terms of business relations. Besides, if your organization fails in these aspects, it would be quizzical to suggest that it was a success, most of the time at least. In order to get a better grasp of how things stand, we have decides to employ the GoodFirms survey that deals with this subject. If you have any questions about its legitimacy, reliability, validity, etc feel free to give it a more thorough look.
Our first topic will be and its priority will be easy enough to understand: speed. Your site takes more than 3 seconds to load and say goodbye to the 50% of the users, at the very minimum. Similarly, if your website has trouble doing what its supposed to do the users will clearly leave (e.g. if the search field is not responding at all).
We often discuss navigation - for a good reason. If the visitor cannot utilize your website without becoming annoyed, agitated or getting lost then you have a lot of work to do. Poor content structure, that is outlined below, is directly related to navigation. If parts of your pages are all over the place it is likely to frustrate just about anyone. Especially, if you do not have a search function (that surely not every site needs).
Owner POV
When things are going well from the user POV we can move on to the expectations and the demands of the owners.
Of course, as usual, owners focus on conversions - in fact, most people think that the success of a business is reducible to its financial profits. We have already discussed conversions elsewhere, so we will not be spending much time on it now.
The second factor, the bounce rate is intimately linked with conversions. Here, it should be noted that these two factors are an amalgam of many other different elements that coalesce into a whole. You cannot tell a whole lot by viewing things in terms of bounce and conversions.
As for outdated design and poor content structure - these go hand in hand as well. Whenever people talk about things being outdated in this business, they might be taking note of missing functions, but more likely it is about poor design features.
And lastly, we have to say a few things about SEO, also. Most people do not understand what role it plays in terms of how popular your website gets, so the relatively low percentage is understandable. Although, tools like mySEO are crucial when it comes to actually configuring your website in a way that is conducive to business success.
The summary
In short, whenever a visitor comes across your site they should be easily and unobstructively achieve whatever aims they have (the design should also not put them off). How frequently are you unsatisfied with websites that look good and function well? Of course, these two ideas are vague and contain multitudes. However, that is what the users care about the most, and if the infrastructure of the website is not well-equipped enough, then that will be reflected on the conversion and bounce rate.