I’ve broken down five categories to consider and seven easy steps to take for your next website assessment, from how it looks (visuals) to how it works (conversions).
Website Assessment Design Checklist Categories
#1 Visual Appeal
First things first. How your website looks will be the first thing that stands out to the user. Make the ultimate first impression by “seeing it” through their eyes. Ensure branding guidelines are put to good use, and check the brand colors, fonts, and imagery. Do page titles align with the brand’s core offering or service? Does the content clearly communicate what the company does? Are your CTAs clear? Do visuals align with the website’s goals?
When visuals are aligned with your brand, and the services and products provided are clear, the website design has passed the first test for users.
#2 Page Layout & Hierarchy
If a user can’t tell what’s important, they won’t know where to direct their attention or where to go next.
Looking at any page, is the content hierarchy intuitive? Can a website visitor quickly understand what’s most important? Are there clear headings and sub-headings?
In the page layout, alignment and spacing are key. Look for scannability, too. Landing on a page and not knowing where to look will disrupt any user journey. Are the paragraphs short enough, with bullets to break up the text and keep users from getting overwhelmed?
In the past, it’s also been valuable to see which content is “above the fold”—not requiring any scrolling—so your user can understand the brand without having to take any physical action. Today, with so many users on mobile phones and different user behavior, it’s dated advice, but the overall message remains – put your most important information where it can most easily be found, not buried at the bottom of a long page.
#3 UX (User Experience)
The best website designs focus on the best possible user experience (UX). What does that entail? A simple navigation, for starters. Reduce the cognitive load, spare your users from sorting through a ton of options, and eliminate the drop-downs that aren’t necessary. A visitor with too many choices may choose to bounce off the page entirely.
Another consideration: the services and categories. Are they easily accessible and not buried in a mega menu? The primary CTA button should also be super clear in the navigation.
As the user moves throughout the site, breadcrumbs are helpful to retrace their steps, and footers can help capture some paths that aren’t as obvious (or are not present) in the top navigation.
Good website UX also includes accessibility. Check WCAG and ADA for compliance standards to ensure complience. Or opt for a product like accessiBe or Userway to help identify and solve areas of improvement.
#4 Performance and Responsiveness
Most users have forgotten (or never experienced) the languorous speed of dial-up internet. If the page doesn’t load quickly enough or look right when they open it on mobile, they’re a lot less likely to stick around. Try running a page through Google’s Page Speed Insights. Each page will get a score, and Google can assess and flag issues that may be slowing the load speed—too large of images or unnecessary JavaScript, for example.
Look at both the front end and the back end of your site. Even if page speeds are decent, site management shouldn’t have to feel like a slog—get rid of whatever’s unnecessary, and consider streamlining multiple plugins for multipurpose ones instead. If opening up the website editor takes a long time, that’s worth working on, too.
Check responsiveness, as well. Buttons can get stretched and forms can become difficult to fill out on mobile. Use the zoom in feature in the browser to ensure everything still looks the way you intended, too.
A few tips for page performance and responsiveness:
- Eliminate the fonts you’re not using (you don’t need every font weight available for one of your typefaces—get rid of that extra unused heavy bold version, and keep only the variations you need.)
- Use “lazy loading” for your images—only images above the fold, or the images in view load immediately. This keeps things efficient for visitors, only loading images as they scroll.
#5 Conversion Rate Optimization
Each of the above categories will factor prominently into your conversion rate. If you’re hoping to optimize it, pay attention to how your site’s design looks on mobile. If there’s a glut of content, the mobile experience will equate to a lot of scrolling. Look at CTAs—are they present? Easily accessible?
Check your analytics (or make it easier on yourself with a CRO plugin like Path Pilot) to see which pages are most popular, and what user journeys lead to the most conversions, and determine what may need to shift if users are not taking the desired action.
For example, if users are getting to the contact page, but not filling out a form, they may: 1) Need more info; 2) Not want to fill in *all* the fields on the form; or 3) Be thrown off by misaligned visuals (that don’t look like the brand/minimize credibility).
No website design should be fully set in stone, so be prepared to make changes bit by bit to better your users’ experience and boost your conversions:
- Test CTA language (“Request a Demo” vs. “Talk to Sales”)
- Look at how many fields are in your forms—all necessary?
- Check analytics to see where holes may be in the user experience
- Look at competitors. Using similarweb.com can provide competitor websites so you can better assess what next steps could improve your own site
Website Design Assessment Steps
When you’re ready to complete a full website assessment, have these steps handy. We’ve folded the above categories into each so you can have a checklist to go through:
Define Goals – All website goals vary, and page goals within the website also have differing goals. Determine whether your primary goal is steering those sub-goals and the tasks that support them. Connect your brand’s mission to your UX, and connect your UX to your conversion rate.
Evaluate Key Metrics – Use Google Analytics to see which pages are working and which aren’t. Use the data to figure out where your users are falling out of the funnel and how your conversion rate can improve.
Test Usability – Get fresh eyes on the site and watch as they use it, or use heat mapping to see where users are struggling. Run all pages—but certainly your most vital ones—through responsiveness checks. If you expect users to engage on mobile, make it easy.
Review Visuals and Content – Look at everything through the lens of a visitor: how does it appear? Is the layout working with the user journeys? Is the messaging and branding consistent? Is the content clear?
Check Performance – Test your page load speeds and identify where there may be technical issues to fix.
Consider Competitors – Definitely compare your website against your competition. What do they have that you could do better? What do you have that you could double down on? CRO gets easier when you have a competitive strategy.
Gather User Feedback – Don’t make changes in a vacuum, without consulting your actual audience. Collect feedback to best understand what users want most from the website (an explainer video? A comparison tool?), and provide it clearly and easily.
Ultimately, website design should be both useful and beautiful, and all in the service of the user. Use these steps to prioritize your next website assessment and push your conversion rates higher.
