6 High-Impact Testing Tools for Websites

A website will act as the central point of focus for a business. Consumers may find you on social media, but your website is the place to go for all relevant information. Even though it retains significant importance, many businesses don’t spend the time to ensure their site is truly delivering. A website that doesn’t help convert visitors to customers, and doesn’t improve brand recognition is an issue. Thankfully, several tools can test various aspects of your site, ensuring it is working to a highly optimized level.

1. UserTesting 

Many web designers use a limited audience to test a site. People directly involved with the design, or the business owners themselves, will be very close to the website and its functions. When a user visits a page, though, they will largely be unfamiliar with the company. UserTesting offers better analysis by using real people to test a site, providing immediate feedback as they complete tasks set by the owner. You can choose a targeted group, allowing you to replicate your actual audience as they browse your site.

2. Hotjar 

Hotjar is a tool offering several elements for testing your site. Heatmaps let you see exactly how visitors are interacting with your website as a whole. Screen recordings can show the actions taken by individual users. The conversion funnel element looks at the journey taken on a site, so you can see if people are visiting the desired pages that lead to a sale or email subscription. Additionally, you can ask for feedback using surveys and polls, giving you immediate feedback from actual site visitors.

3. DeepCrawl 

DeepCrawl analyzes what is going on within your site code and architecture. You may have a site that looks attractive and helpful, but there are fundamental flaws that minimize the effectiveness for visitors. DeepCrawl could, for example, find pages that are located deeply within the hierarchy, making them harder to discover by users and more difficult to crawl by the search engines. You can then add the page to your navigation or link to it from your home page. The tool can also offer similar functions with internal linking, indexed pages, and sitemap analysis.

4. Google Search Console 

Google Search Console is a free service that provides many useful options to site owners. The tool is designed to help you identify problems and increase visibility within the Google search engine. Still, many of the issues will be appropriate for other search engines and user experience. You can quickly identify problems with indexing and ensure that Google can crawl the entire site. Mobile usability can be monitored, ensuring your website is effective across all devices. Search Console also tracks factors external to your site, such as linking sites, spam issues, and traffic volume.

5. GTmetrix 

GTmetrix is a tool for checking website speed and optimizing performance. You can get a quick snapshot of your site performance, before looking more closely at any issues. GTmetrix uses both the Google PageSpeed tool and the open-source YSlow service, ensuring you get a broad look at your site. Recommendations are listed for factors like caching, image optimization, and JavaScript coding. If you follow the advice given, you should anticipate a faster loading site and a slicker experience for visitors.

6. Mobile-Friendly Test Tool 

Google has created the Mobile-Friendly Test tool to ensure that sites offer a positive experience for people using mobile devices. More than half of all site visitors are now using mobile devices, so your website must cater to these visitors. The tool will give you a quick answer as to whether your site passes the test. You also get access to loading issues, often relating to a lack of image optimization or a coding error. These problems may not be critical, but fixing them will offer a better mobile experience.

Many websites are developed to look attractive but don’t entirely focus on the primary goals of the business. You may want to inform visitors about your products or services, helping them to make an informed buying decision. Alternatively, the site might primarily be focused on solidifying your brand identity for consumers. By using these testing tools, it is possible to tweak your website until it is maximized to achieve your primary goals. You can still build a website you find attractive and engaging, but you can be sure it has also been fully optimized.

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