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First impressions matter. Research shows that 94 percent of people will abandon your website if they don’t trust the website design, or think it looks outdated. This statistic is pretty shocking, but it’s not the only reason a huge number of people abandon websites.

According to website designers the more people you can impress on that first visit, the more leads you’ll get, the higher your conversion rates will be, and the less money you’ll spend trying to attract new customers.

Here are five simple tweaks you can make on your website to improve that first impression:

Ensure Your Site is Up to Speed

Ideally, you want your site to load in under one second. Research shows that 47 percent of customers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less. Forty percent will abandon a site that takes more than three seconds to load. For every one second delay in page speed, businesses see an average of seven percent reduction in conversions.

Visitors may not notice if your site is fast, but they definitely will notice if it’s slow, and it will be hard to bring them back after they’ve abandoned your site.

There are several ways to speed up your site. Among them, make sure you’re using a reliable web host. If your site is hosted on a slow server, it doesn’t matter what other steps you take to speed it up; the server won’t be able to handle your demands. Upgrading your hosting package or switching web hosts entirely can pay off in the long run, so don’t be afraid to invest in the best website hosting. Creating a website is an easy task especially with all the resources and tools that are free to use online. However, websites need to be hosted to reach the internet. You have two options for hosting. One is shared server hosting and the other is dedicated server hosting. When it comes to dedicated server hosting, it only means leasing an entire web server from a hosting service provider. It is all yours meaning you do not have to share it with anyone else. On a shared server, you share the resources of the server with a number of clients. There are other options too like opting for a colocation provider if you already have existing equipment. Server hosting costs vary depending on which to choose. Shared servers are the cheapest while dedicated servers are the more expensive solution. However, choosing a dedicated server truly has its benefits and is actually an affordable solution compared to purchasing your own servers. Plus, you simply get the best service that your money will buy.

A shared server may be a good solution for small companies and personal sites. In this case, there is really no reason for the owner to get an exclusive server unless the site expands. However, when your small business starts expanding, the bandwidth and disk space may suddenly become too small for your computing needs. You can deal with this in two ways. One is to stick with shared hosting while purchasing additional disk space and the other is considering dedicated server hosting. The first option will not be a good solution if your business truly takes off because before you know it, you will be encountering the same problem all over again.

Dedicated servers cater only to your site. You have all the disk space and bandwidth on the server all to yourself and you will never have to worry about adding disk space ever again. There will be absolutely no need for you to share the server with other website unlike on a shared server. You will have the option of building your website as large and as sophisticated as you want.

A Knownhost dedicated servers is also more secure over a shared server because you will have full control over the security of your server and your site. On a shared server, you will not have this kind of control simply because you share it with other people. Data on a shared server is almost like a computer being used at home by other people so it will never be as secure as you would like it to be.

Dedicated servers can be managed or unmanaged. When you opt for an unmanaged server, this means it is up to you to do the managing. A managed server on the other hand comes with services that will include technical support, firewall services, and security audits. A list of these services can be quite extensive.

On a managed server you will have the time to deal with more important matters knowing that someone is tending to your computing needs. You have the time to focus on the business end of things or looking over communications with your customers or clients. Managing a server is not only challenging but also time-consuming. Having the luxury of time alone is already a huge benefit in itself.

Lastly, you will have technicians for twenty-four seven support. As you own the entire server, any problem that arises is dealt with priority and is resolved in a matter of seconds or minutes. To put it simply, you do not experience this on a shared server. You get premium service on a dedicated server because of what you pay for. You may now sleep soundly at night knowing that you have professionals on top of things.

There are many options in terms of servers for your internet computing needs. There is shared hosting or dedicated server hosting or a colocation provider just to name a few. The type of server that you get really depends on personal choice, website needs and affordability of server hosting costs. However, if you can afford it, dedicated server hosting is the best choice.

Tweak Your Font

One of the top reasons people abandon websites is because the content is difficult to read. Your type of font, color of font, and size of font can all affect how easy it is for someone to read your site’s content.

San serif fonts are typically easier to read online than serif fonts. High contrast between the font color and background helps.

Limit Your Ads

Displaying too many ads on your site can appear overwhelming and spammy. (Not only that, but you may limit the potential of your ads by distracting readers with too many.) Ads shouldn’t take up more space than your content, and they shouldn’t be the first thing readers see.

Clearly State Your Purpose

If people don’t understand what your site is about, you can bet they’ll abandon it and never return. Develop a clear purpose statement, and make this obvious throughout the site. What benefit does your company or product provide to customers, and how can you convey that in a single sentence?

Look at the Site from Multiple Angles

Today, fewer and fewer people are entering websites from their home pages. That’s because people are finding other ways in through content shared on social media and pages that show up in search engine results.
With this concept in mind, picture the visitors’ journeys from anywhere on your site and create simple navigation tools, making your purpose clearly known across the site, and making it easy to contact you from any page.

Which step will you take first to ensure you’re putting your best foot forward on your website?

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