Key Factors Affecting Websites Today: A Three-Level Website Diagnostic Test

If your website feels like it should be doing more than it is … you’re probably right. But it’s also probably not your fault.

A lot of businesses assume something is wrong with their website when the real issue is that the internet is changing. Search is changing. People are changing. And the way visitors decide whether to trust you (or click away) is faster and more unforgiving than it used to be.

It all boils down to just three key factors affecting websites: visibility, clarity, and usability.

Instead of treating this like a typical list of tips, let’s run your site through a Three-Level Website Diagnostic Test. Start by asking yourself:

1. Can people find me?
2. Will they stay long enough to understand me?
3. Can they actually use my site without getting confused?

Think of it like a quick checkup. Before you sink time into a redesign, this will help you pinpoint what’s actually causing people to bounce, so you can focus your efforts where they’ll make the biggest difference.

Level One: Visibility

One of the biggest things to understand about key factors affecting websites nowadays is that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) still matters … but it’s not the whole story anymore.

For years, SEO has been the process of helping people find your site through search. You research keywords, optimize your headlines, tweak your meta descriptions, and create content that answers what people are typing into that Google searchbar. The goal has been simple:

Show up higher in results → get more clicks → make more sales

But the search experience is changing fast.

Today, when someone types a question into Google, they often don’t get a list of links first — they get an AI Overview right at the top of the page. It’s quick, tidy, and genuinely helpful for readers who just want a straight answer. And because the overview gives them what they need immediately, a lot of people never click through to a website at all.

That’s great for the user … but less great for businesses that rely on those clicks to bring readers to their site and introduce them to their product.

This is where AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) comes in.

Instead of only asking, “How do I land on page one of Google search results?” (I mean, really, who even opens page two?), AEO asks a slightly different question:

“How do I make my content one of the sources AI pulls from — and cites — when it generates the answer?”

What AEO Means For Your Website In 2026

You’re probably feeling a little frustrated with AI right about now. It’s making your keywords feel irrelevant, your website harder to find, and your readers few and far between. It’s robbing you of the clicks you work for, right?

Before we go any further, I need you to adjust your mindset. AI isn’t the villain here. You shouldn’t be competing with it for clicks … you should be using it to earn them. Think of it like a tool (not an obstacle!).

Make your website the kind of source AI wants to pull from — clear, credible, and easy to understand. That means focusing on a few key areas that both readers and robots care about:

• EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness): Put simply, your site should instantly answer the question: “Should we believe you?” Show it by:
• Highlighting your team’s background and qualifications
• Improving your author bio
• Earning backlinks from reputable sites in your industry
• Featuring reviews and testimonials
• Meat: AI Overviews pull from pages that give specific answers, practical steps, and real insight — a.k.a., content that actually helps someone do the thing they came to Google for. Not filler. Not recycled fluff.
• Topical Authority: Content clusters (multiple interlinked posts around the same subject) tell Google you’re not just dabbling. You’re a reliable source with depth.
• Formatting: Google’s AI tends to choose pages it can easily scan, chop, and summarize. A few things that help:
• An answer to the reader’s question early on — ideally, in the first sentence
• Short paragraphs
• Clear tables
• Bulleted lists
• Freshness: AI wants accuracy, and one of the easiest ways it gauges that is by checking whether your site updates regularly. A post from three years ago might still be helpful, but a post updated for 2026 is far more likely to be pulled into an AI Overview.

Still confused? I don’t blame you — it’s a lot to keep track of! If you want the deep-dive version with more specific examples, you can read our full post on AEO here:

Blogging in 2026: It’s Not Dead, but It Has Evolved

(🚨Spoiler Alert🚨: there’s a handy-dandy downloadable cheat sheet at the end — I’d recommend keeping it on hand until AEO feels like second nature!)

But WAIT! Don’t Forget About SEO Entirely!

The AI Overview isn’t where every reader’s journey ends. Many people don’t trust the summary, and plenty prefer to read both the AI Overview and the traditional first page of Google search results. Others even go out of their way to bypass it entirely.

• 51.9% of Google users say they haven’t noticed their habits changing since the AI Overview rolled out (Press Gazette, 2024).
• 46% of Google users say they have little to no trust in the information in Google’s AI Overview (Pew Research Center, 2025).
• Just 6% of Google users say they trust the AI Overview “a lot” (Pew Research Center, 2025).

The takeaway? AEO is one of the key factors affecting websites today, but it’s still just a first impression — not the end-all.

You should still make SEO a priority when creating content for your website. It’s one of the most reliable ways to improve your visibility on Google and earn consistent, qualified traffic over time. The higher you rank, the more likely people are to click through to your site, explore your content, and take action.

✅ Mini Quiz: Did Your Website Pass Level One?

Ask yourself these questions to see if your website is on the right track:

1. If someone Googles the exact problem I solve, would my website show up anywhere on page one, or would I be invisible? Want To Know How You Rank on Google? Try These Helpful Tools!
2. Does at least one page on my site answer a common question so clearly that a reader could quote it in one to two sentences?
3. Do I have obvious “trust signals” (author bio, credentials, reviews, clear contact info, etc) that make a stranger instantly believe I’m legit?
4. Am I building topical authority, or do my posts feel random and disconnected?
5. Is my content easy to scan with a glance? Think clear headings, bulleted lists, and short paragraphs!

If you answered mostly yes: Great! People can find you.
If you answered mostly no: Your site might be invisible to the very people looking for you.

Level Two: Clarity (i.e., Will People Stay?)

If you’ve made it this far, you’re a statistical outlier.

In the early 2000s, the average global attention span was about 2.5 minutes. Then it dropped to 75 seconds by 2012, and the internet collectively lost its mind. Right about then, goldfish started getting dragged into the conversation.

Then over the past five to six years, it dropped again to around 47 seconds, which felt even more dramatic. That’s less than a minute. Are we nothing but slack-jawed, brainless zombies?

Now that crisis seems almost relaxing …

… because Gen Z decides in about 1.7 seconds whether they’re going to engage with social media content or scroll away. It’s hard not to wonder what that means for their attention span on websites.

At that rate, we can only imagine how long the following generations will stick around. Maybe just for a blink. That’s why website designers have to be more efficient than ever.

I mean — 1.7 seconds?!

That’s basically two heartbeats.

Why This Matters to You

In the past, you could ease into your messaging. You could start broad, build curiosity, and slowly reveal your offer.

Now, that approach often backfires. Most visitors arrive on your site already thinking:

“Does this answer my question?”

“Is this for me?”

“Do I care?”

“What’s next?”

They decide quickly — basically instantly. If your visitor has to hunt for the point, they simply won’t.

Because one of the key factors affecting websites today is that visitors aren’t browsing your site like it’s a magazine anymore. They’re scanning it like it’s a TikTok caption: quickly, skeptically, and already halfway to the back button.

A quick exit isn’t just a missed opportunity. It’s wasted effort and wasted budget. Whether someone found you through SEO, Google’s AI Overview, paid traffic, or a recommendation, the result is the same: you paid for the click, but your website didn’t make the sale.

What To Change So People Don’t Bounce

To design for shorter attention spans, you don’t need to strip your site down to nothing. If that were the case, you might as well just publish a plain word doc with a bulleted list of information. Boooring!

You can still have beautiful design, but beauty without clarity is a bounce waiting to happen. Just make your purpose obvious, and your value immediate.

That usually means:

• Leading with the payoff (not the backstory): Open with the outcome your visitor wants, in plain language. Your first lines should make it obvious they’re in the right place.
• Making the page easily scannable: Use clear headings, short paragraphs, and bolded key phrases so someone can “get it” while skimming.
• Add a strong visual hook: A compelling headline can only do so much heavy lifting. Pair it with a strong image or engaging graphic — this will give the brain something to latch onto immediately
• Plant “next questions” so the reader keeps rolling forward: Think of your page like a flywheel, or one of those old water wheels at a mill. Your job is to get the wheel turning, then keep giving it juuust enough momentum so that the reader naturally moves to the next section.

One Crystal-Clear Example:

Imagine you own a nail salon. Someone Googles, “What’s the best type of manicure?” They land on your page and get greeted with a clean, artsy illustration of a fresh manicure.

Boom. Strong visual hook. Their attention is snagged just long enough to at least glance further.

Next, instead of hiding the answer in the last paragraph (in an ill-fated attempt to force them to “read their way” to it), you give it to them immediately in the headline: On a Budget? GelX Is One of the Best Options

Boom. You lead with payoff. They know the answer they’re going to walk away with.

Now they’ve gotten what they came for … but you’ve also planted the next question: Why is GelX the best?

A few paragraphs later, you mention that GelX lasts longer than standard polish. You bold the line so it’s impossible to miss, even for a half-focused scanner.

Boom. You made your page easily scannable.

Now they’re thinking: Okay, how long does it last? What does it cost? Does it damage nails? Is it safe? Each answer pulls them one step further down the page, until they reach the end already convinced.

Boom. You planted the right questions in the right order, and the reader followed the trail all the way through.

And that’s where your CTA should be waiting — something simple, like a colorful button prompting the reader to book an appointment at your salon.

Psst … if you’re looking for some CTA inspo, check out this blog post 👉 How To Design a Great Call To Action (CTA)

✅ Mini Quiz: Did Your Website Pass Level Two?

Ask yourself these questions to see if your website is on the right track:

1. Can someone understand what I do (and who it’s for) in two heartbeats?
2. If someone is only half-reading, can they still get the point?
3. Does each section naturally create a “next question” that keeps the visitor reading?

If you answered mostly yes: Great! You’re holding attention.
If you answered mostly no: You may be losing people in mere seconds.

Level Three: Usability

One of the most overlooked key factors affecting websites today is mental effort; the more effort it takes to move through your site, the less likely someone is to take action. If the experience feels confusing, slow, or messy, people won’t push through. They’ll leave.

At this point, your visitor has found you and stayed long enough to be interested. The last hurdle is usability — a.k.a., that thing that makes your site feel professional and trustworthy.

The reader should never have to pause to squint at the screen to try to make out a pixelated image or tricky font. They should never have to go out of their way to copy/paste embedded links into another browser; they should be able to just click the link and be whisked away.

Everything — from the words on the page to the contact information to the CTA — should feel intuitive. If your reader is confused, they’re frustrated.

What Usability Actually Looks Like (The Artsy Stuff)

An uncluttered layout:

• Keep pages simple and intentional, with plenty of white space
• Use clear headings and section breaks so content doesn’t feel overwhelming
• Avoid cramming too much information into one screen

A clean menu:

• Make your menu easy to spot and easy to use
• Keep main navigation to five or six top-level options
• Use clear labels and logical groupings so visitors don’t guess

Text people can read:

• Choose a font that’s easy on the eyes
• Use comfortable sizing
• Make sure text stands out from the background

Functional visuals:

• Use high-quality images and videos; avoid things that are pixelated or stretched
• Choose your color scheme with intention. Like everything else we’ve talked about, it’s a tool - not something you close your eyes and spin the color wheel for.
• Keep videos and graphics relevant to the point you’re making

What Usability Actually Looks Like (The Techy Stuff)

A mobile-first design:

• Build for phones first, then scale up to desktop
• Most traffic now comes from mobile devices
• Make buttons easy to tap and spacing comfortable

Clickable actions (not extra steps):

• Use buttons and links that take visitors exactly where they need to go
• Link email addresses, phone numbers, booking pages, and forms directly. For example, which prompt is more user-friendly?
  • “Need help with your marketing? Contact us by emailing info@wildfigmarketing.com!”
  • “Need help with your marketing? Contact us by emailing info@wildfigmarketing.com!”
    • Now you need to highlight and copy our email address, open a separate tab with your email, paste our email address in, and then type your message

• Reduce effort wherever possible … small friction adds up fast!

A bug-free experience:

• Fix broken links, glitchy menus, and forms that don’t submit
• Test on multiple devices and browsers

Optimize for fast loading times:

• A site that loads in one second has a conversion rate 3x higher than a site that loads in five seconds
• Your e-commerce conversion rate decreases by an average of 0.3% for every additional second it takes for your website to load

✅ Mini Quiz: Did Your Website Pass Level Three?

Ask yourself these questions to see if your website is on the right track:

1. Is my menu easy to spot, easy to understand, and limited to five to six clear options?
2. Can visitors read everything comfortably on both mobile and desktop without squinting or zooming in?
3. Do all buttons, links, and contact options work instantly (no copy/paste required)?
4. Does my site load fast and glitch-free?
5. Are any of my images pixelated?

If you answered mostly yes: Great! Your site is user-friendly.
If you answered mostly no: Your website may be creating friction and trust issues.

How Key Factors Affecting Websites Work Together

Alright. No more pop quizzes or lists of statistics. The takeaway is simple:

These three factors don’t work separately — they work like a chain.

Level One: Visibility brings people to your site.
Level Two: Clarity snags their attention and keeps them on your site
Level Three: Usability makes it easy for them to take action.

If one level is weak, the whole system leaks leads. Poor visibility means no traffic. A boring page that makes you work for an answer means people bounce in search of an easier source. Bugs and slow loading times mean people get frustrated and leave.

So if your site isn’t performing like it used to, don’t panic. It may just be playing by outdated rules.

Ready for a Website That Actually Passes the Test?

So … how did you score on the mini quizzes? 😳

If you had a few “mostly no” answers, don’t stress about it. The internet is a wild and constantly-evolving place — it feels like as soon as you’ve got one thing mastered, it all changes. We don’t blame you for falling a little behind.

If you want help identifying what’s holding your website back (and what to do about it), schedule a call with Wild Fig. We’ll walk through your results, pinpoint the biggest opportunities, and help you build a website that actually works.