As the number of internet and eCommerce users grows, so does the importance of website optimization. Factors such as page load speeds, user experience (UX), and search engine optimization (SEO) now play a significant role in your brand’s online success.
To make your site more seamless and intuitive for shoppers, you’ll need top-notch website optimization tools to help you out – and that’s what I cover in this article. Read on to learn about the powerful influence of an optimized website on shoppers, as well as my 20 recommended tools to simplify the process.
What is website optimization?
Website optimization is the process of improving your site’s performance, UX, search engine rankings, and more. Your aim is to identify areas for improvement, then make various changes to your site’s design, content, and functionality.
The end goal is to make your website faster, more user-friendly, and aligned with your marketing — all of which attract and retain visitors, as well as improve online visibility.
Why is website optimization important?
Along with the broader business advantages mentioned above, website optimization brings other key benefits.
Superior UX
A website with quicker page load speeds, an intuitive layout, and accessibility features provides stronger UX. Organizing your web pages, CTAs, and informative content helps captivate visitors and customers. By implementing these optimizations, your business will see:
- Greater return on investment (ROI) – You can gain $100 for every dollar you spend on UX improvements.
- Higher user engagement – If your website loads too slowly, 39% of users won’t take the time to go through it.
- Fewer abandoned carts – Subpar UX is the culprit behind 70% of consumers abandoning their carts.
Improved search engine rankings
Implementing SEO strategies also goes a long way toward helping you appear at the top of Google and Bing search engine results pages (SERPs). This added visibility lets you enjoy:
- Increased sales – 70% of digital marketers say SEO drives more sales than pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
- An uptick in website traffic – SEO attracts more traffic than social media as well — over 1,000% in fact!
- Reliable leads – Inbound includes SEO and blog content and, for 60% of marketers, it generates the best-quality leads.
Smoother mobile experience
Increasingly, people are accessing the internet and shopping through their mobile devices, which presents a huge opportunity for brands:
- In the U.S. alone, more than 270 million consumers own smartphones.
- Since the end of 2022, at least 79% of them have made an online purchase through their mobile device.
- Additionally, Insider Intelligence anticipates sales from mobile commerce will account for 40.4% of all eCommerce sales in 2024.
These stats underline how optimizing your website for mobile experiences lets you access a massive pool of potential customers.
Greater accessibility
Speaking of site usage, accessibility features allow people with disabilities to use and navigate your website easily. Incorporating these allows you to extend your reach to a more diverse audience.
In answer to a survey by the Pew Research Center, 75% of disabled Americans said they use the internet daily, so catering to their needs can turn them into customers. Further, 38.6% of employees assert their product’s accessibility is a key reason people make purchases.
More conversions
Website optimization focuses on making tweaks to increase conversions. For example, you could incorporate social proof into your website and employ other conversion rate optimization (CRO) tactics. These encourage visitors to take desired actions like making a purchase or filling out a form.
Improving your website load speed alone can convert significantly more customers, as research by Portent revealed it plays a huge role in the customer experience.
They found that, to maximize conversions, you should aim for one- to four-second load times. Websites that load in one second have 2.5 times more conversions than those that load in five, and 1.5 times more than those that load in 10.
20 Awesome website optimization tools
Now that we’ve covered the benefits of refining and optimizing your website, let’s talk through some of the best website optimization tools, sorted according to their specific purposes. Use the sections below to jump to the relevant sections.
Web page speed tools
The tools below can help you improve your page speed to get your content in front of your visitors faster.
GTmetrix
GTmetrix is a website performance optimization tool that analyzes your website’s speed and identifies areas for improvement.
Features:
- Performance testing across seven global locations
- Daily to monthly automatic testing
- Graphs for trend analysis
- Engagement metrics
- Speed visualization
- Structural audits
Pricing: Free to custom pricing
Free plan? Yes, limited to monitoring one page
Pingdom
Pingdom is designed to monitor and optimize the performance of your website or web application. It lets you conduct simulated-user and real-user tracking as well.
Features:
- Uptime monitoring
- Page speed analysis
- Transaction monitoring
- Usage metrics
- Customizable KPIs
- Real-time insights
Pricing: Starts at $15/month
Free plan? 30-day free trial
Google PageSpeed Insights
Google PageSpeed Insights analyzes the contents of your web page, measures its performance, and generates optimization suggestions on how to make that page faster.
Features:
- Real-user experience data
- Experience quality assessments (“Good,” “Needs Improvement,” or “Poor”)
- Core web vitals
- Lighthouse score, metrics, and audits
Pricing: Free
Free plan? Yes
SEO tools
The tools in this section will help you optimize your website for search, analyzing everything from on-page SEO to technical SEO.
Semrush
Semrush offers a suite of tools that tackle various aspects of SEO, ranging from keyword research to content marketing, tracking, and analytics.
Features:
- Keyword manager and organic traffic insights
- SEO content templates
- Content audits
- Traffic analytics
- Rank tracking
Pricing: $199.95/month to custom pricing
Free plan? 7-day free trial
Ahrefs
Ahrefs’ toolkit allows you to conduct SEO initiatives like backlink analysis, competitor research, and keyword research.
Features:
- Dashboard for tracking SEO performance
- Site Explorer analyzes competitor backlinks and keyword rankings
- Keywords Explorer acts as a keyword database
- Site Audit lets you scan your site for SEO issues
- Rank Tracker monitors your rankings
- Content Explorer lets you find ideas and linking opportunities
Pricing: $99/month to custom pricing
Free plan? Yes, for limited access to Site Explorer and Site Audit
Moz
Moz provides various SEO tools for businesses of all sizes. Those for smaller businesses cover the basics, while solutions for enterprises handle more advanced needs.
Features:
- Keyword research
- Ranking tracker
- Website crawling and auditing
- Page optimization scores
- Listing management
- Reporting and insights
Pricing: $14 to $720/month
Free plan? 30-day free trial and free SEO tools
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) tools
The tools below help you optimize your website and individual webpages for better conversions.
Crazy Egg
Crazy Egg offers multiple CRO solutions, including helping you understand how visitors interact with your website and testing optimizations.
Features:
- Snapshots composed of various reports (heatmaps, scrollmaps, and more)
- Recordings of website visits
- Easy-to-use A/B testing
- Website traffic analysis
- Error tracking for easy resolution
- Surveys for targeted feedback
Pricing: $29/month to custom pricing
Free plan? 30-day free trial
Unbounce
Unbounce is an AI-powered landing page builder and CRO tool. It lets you create higher-converting pages or optimize the ones you already have.
Features:
- Classic and Smart landing page builders
- Pop-ups and sticky bar builder
- Multiple apps and integrations
- AI copywriting and traffic optimization
- Templates
Pricing: $99/month to custom pricing
Free plan? 14-day free trial
Optimizely
The CRO platform Optimizely assists with three key aspects of your website optimization: content orchestration, experimentation, and monetization.
Features:
- Content marketing platform and management system
- AI-generated content recommendations
- WYSIWYG visual editor
- Feature experimentation
- Product information management and recommendations
- Mobile commerce capability
Pricing: Free to custom pricing
Free plan? Yes, for their Content Marketing Platform
User experience (UX) tools
These tools will help you figure out how to make your website easier and more intuitive for your visitors to use.
Hotjar
Hotjar is a tool geared toward refining UX. It provides features that uncover insights on how people use your website and how they feel about it.
Features:
- Heatmaps visualize visitor behavior
- Recordings show what users see
- Live feedback collection
- On-site and external surveys
- User interview scheduling
- Dashboard with analytics
Pricing: Free to custom pricing
Free plan? Yes
UserTesting
As the name implies, UserTesting provides user testing and feedback tools that identify areas in need of improvement so you make the right optimizations for your website’s UX.
Features:
- Test builder and templates
- Sentiment analysis
- Prototype testing
- Audience management
- Integrations with Slack, Jira, and Trello
Pricing: Custom pricing, must get in touch with UserTesting
Free plan? Free trial
GetFeedback
GetFeedback offers feedback and usability testing polls designed to pinpoint UX issues. It also comes with automations that let you act on them quickly.
Features:
- Insights for trend and sentiment analysis
- On-site, mobile, and email surveys and feedback requests
- Salesforce integration
- Centralized dashboard
- Task automations
Pricing: Custom pricing, must request a quote from sales
Free plan? 14-day free trial
Figma
Figma enables live collaborative prototyping, which allows your teams to co-edit in real time and strategize with ease through its online whiteboard.
Features:
- Auto layout
- Plugins and widgets
- All-in-one, interactive prototyping tool
- Online whiteboard
- Design systems
Pricing: Free to $75 per editor/month
Free plan? Yes
Mobile optimization tools
The tools in this section will help you ensure your website is easily accessible and usable for mobile users.
Google Mobile-Friendly Test
The Google Mobile-Friendly Test analyzes your web page to determine how easily visitors can use it on a mobile device.
Features:
- Mobile usability test
- Crawl details
- Shareable link
Pricing: Free
Free plan? Yes
MobileMoxie
MobileMoxie’s tools enable mobile SERP testing and mobile-first indexing optimization. It even measures mobile app performance (if you have one).
Features:
- Automatic screenshots of historical SERP results
- Automatic results graphs
- Track page changes over time
- Code-level page view
- App rank tracking
Pricing: $99 to $879/month
Free plan? Free tools, 30-day free trial for full suite
mobiReady
mobiReady is a free tool that checks if your website is mobile-friendly and provides suggestions on how to improve if it isn’t.
Features:
- Interactive visualizations show how your website appears on various devices
- Test scoring gives you an idea about which aspects of your website perform poorly
- Actionable tips for resolving identified issues
Pricing: Free
Free plan? Yes
Accessibility tools
These tools help you ensure your website is usable for any visitors with disabilities.
WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool
WAVE offers three tools that analyze your website’s accessibility, check for errors or issues, and give recommended fixes. These include browser extensions, a subscription or standalone API and testing engine, and an Accessibility IMpact (AIM) report.
Features:
- Secure, browser-based accessibility reporting
- API-based, automatic, remote accessibility analysis
- Comprehensive WAVE test data
- Your website’s AIM score
- Expert manual test results
Pricing:
- Browser extensions: Free
- Subscription API and testing engine: 250-credit minimum purchase, $0.025 to $0.4/credit
- Standalone API and testing engine: $4,000 to $12K annual licensing fee
- AIM report: $500 to custom pricing (based on the number of pages)
Free plan? Yes, for browser extensions
Web Accessibility Checker by Monsido
Monsido’s intuitive Web Accessibility Checker scans your web pages for errors, recommends fixes, and instantly addresses repetitive issues across your website.
Features:
- Accessibility Fast Track®, which locates and addresses accessibility issues in bulk
- PDF accessibility, which scans PDFs for accessibility errors and offers resolution services
- PageCorrect™, which fixes accessibility errors via Monsido without logging in to your content management system (CMS)
- Accessibility support, which provides a help center, training, webinars, and one-on-one support for you and your team
Pricing: Custom pricing, need to get in touch with Monsido’s team
Free plan? No
AccessiBe
AccessiBe boasts AI-powered accessibility tools and services that enable those who are blind, motor-impaired, vision-impaired, or have other disabilities to use your website more easily.
Features:
- Assistive technology and screen reader optimization
- Keyboard navigation optimization
- Comprehension adjustments
- Stops flashing animations
- UI and design adjustments
- Closed captions
- Expert services for manual accessibility optimizations
Pricing: $49/month to custom pricing
Free plan? 7-day free trial
Siteimprove
Siteimprove offers automated website accessibility checks and content accessibility analysis, which allow you to provide inclusive user experiences.
Features:
- Digital Certainty Index (DCI) gauges how your website’s accessibility measures up to industry standards
- Prioritization of accessibility issues
- Historical graphs
- Content quality assurance
- Content experience solution
Pricing: Custom pricing, have to get in touch with Siteimprove’s team
Free plan? No
6 Tips to optimize your website
Having covered some of the best website optimization tools at your disposal, your next objective is to make them work to your advantage. To help you out, here are six tips to apply when optimizing your website.
1) Improve website speed
Website speed is crucial for both UX and SEO. After employing the tools listed above and identifying areas for improvement, take these steps to make your pages load quicker:
- Adopt a content delivery network (CDN)
- Compress your image sizes
- Optimize your code
- Reduce your number of plugins
2) Streamline mobile experiences
I discussed the growth of mobile commerce and why you should make your website compatible with those devices to attract mobile shoppers. To do so, start by testing your site, pinpointing any issues, and addressing them. Other actions you can take are:
- Use custom CSS for a more responsive website
- Choose the right themes and plugins
- Develop your own mobile application (if you have the budget)
3) Keyword research is key
Comprehensive keyword research pinpoints queries your website content should target and can improve your search engine rankings.
Identify high-purchase-intent keywords to reach the right people, and consider the domain authority of your backlinks as well. To help you take your SEO to the next level, be sure to give this checklist a look.
4) Craft content for each stage of your funnel
High-quality website content is crucial for UX, search engine rankings, and compelling your audience to take desired actions. To ensure its success, tailor your content to every stage of your funnel:
- For visitors at the top – Create educational content that introduces them to your brand.
- For those in the middle – Start mentioning your product or service in your educational content to arouse curiosity.
- For those at the bottom – Opt for hard sells, using your product pages to show how you can solve the customer’s problem. CTAs come into play here as well.
5) Conduct A/B tests
A/B testing involves creating variants of your pages by altering aspects of your design, messaging, or other elements. You experiment throughout the process, showing each version to different audience segments at random intervals.
From there, you pinpoint which specific website alteration performs the best at increasing traffic, conversions, engagement, or some other metric.
6) Track your website’s performance
Finally, to monitor your website’s performance properly and gauge how well your optimizations fare, embrace Google Analytics tracking and look at relevant metrics such as:
- Sessions
- Users
- Average session duration
- Bounce rate
- Engagement numbers
These tell you whether or not your changes are working and indicate whether further tweaking is necessary. If you want deeper insights and to uncover metrics that Google Analytics may not have, consider adopting one of its alternatives.
Wrapping up – Leverage website optimization tools to improve every aspect of your site
Optimizing your website improves your overall UX, SEO, and conversion rates. In turn, these produce larger benefits in the long run, including greater accessibility to attract new customers and increase conversions.
Remember to test and modify your optimizations regularly to measure the performance of your efforts and continuously push your advantage. Equip yourself with the right combination of tools and follow the tips I’ve provided, and success is sure to follow.