6 SEO Strategies to Improve Your Webpage Ranking

Approximately 93% of all online experiences proceed towards accomplishment with the help of a search engine. Google is perhaps the most prominently used search engine today with around 40,000 search queries that surface its interface almost every second.

Most businesses rely on Google for lead generation and revenue through organic traffic to their websites. Most Google searches don’t make it past the first page – and quite possibly so, as there is one-third chance for the top result to receive more attention than any other. This means that if your website isn’t ranked on Google’s first page, then your brand might miss out the chance of getting discovered by a third of prospecting traffic.

With White Label SEO techniques, you can now opt for key online metrics and several rank-boosting strategies to increase your visibility on Google for your potential clients to see.

Mentioned below are 6 SEO strategies that will help to improve your webpage ranking by a notch.

Fast Page Loading Speed

Google has severe abandonment issues – thanks to its RankBrain algorithm that can detect slow webpages and push them lower to harm your ranking. Your content matters, but if your webpage’s taking more than 3 seconds to load, then approximately 40% of visitors will throw a tantrum and turn their backs on your brand. There is also a chance that 80% of those visitors wouldn’t even dare to visit you again.

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Slow page load time will not only affect and decrease your website’s traffic but will also diminish the number of sales. According to a study by Amazon, a business can lose as much as $1.6 billion in sales due to slow page load time.

In order to prevent this from happening, it is advisable to download a webpage speed detecting software or free online tool to assess your webpage’s load and response time in different locations around the globe.

Focus On Original and Quality Content

Quality and rich content is the main source of keeping viewers interested in your website. If your users like the content you’re posting on your website, then chances are that they will spend more time on your webpages. The time that a user spends on a website is known as dwell time. The more it is, the more progressive and higher your organic rankings are going to be.

Google Chrome is the most preferred web browser in the market with its server garnering around 58% of total shares. Due to this, most people will continue to bookmark your pages on their Google Chrome browser in order to revisit your website on personal demand.

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According to Ahrefs, it is advisable to update your webpages regularly since content that is older than 2 years doesn’t achieve higher rankings. Content that is 2 – 3 years old has a higher chance of getting ranked in the top ten results of Google since users demand fresh and updated content.

Promote Higher Readability of Content

In order to generate quality content for your website, you’ve to do what 72% of digital marketers do to promote optimum content creation for their webpages:

  • Promote originality of your content by sniffing out rehash, re-spun or plagiarized content through verification tools. Use optimum grammar and simple usage of words that maintain the flow of the content to keep the readers interested from top to bottom
  • Format your content in order to promote a smooth user experience. Clean typography, header tags, proper line spacing, bullet points, short paragraphs, grammatically correct sentences and formatted content size boosts organic ranking since it’s easier to incorporate SEO in a clean and uncluttered website
  • Clean and structured content also helps to boost readability, therefore, aiding towards user engagement and increased dwell time. High readability simply means that your content is digestible and interesting to the user’s attention; making it ultimately good for business

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Cater to Outbound Links

What do you do when you have to prove your brand’s worth to your customers? You add in testimonials of clients with valid experiences in order to build the trust of possible others, right? In order to prove your website’s credibility and relevance to Google, you’ve to think like your customer.

Google needs proof of your trustworthiness – it requires your presence and authority on different subdomains so that it can continue to rank you higher for people to discover you through and thorough.

Once Google notices your website’s popularity, it will ultimately rank you higher, causing an increase in your page’s traffic and sales. Make sure you don’t embed broken links to missing webpages with 404 errors since it can discourage visitors from turning up to your website.

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On-page Optimization

You have to give Google a little incentive to rank your page higher – the only way to do this is to opt for page titles and meta descriptions that are descriptive enough to be categorized within the required character limit.

Page titles and meta descriptions have a certain character limit that has to be adhered to in order to boost readability, user engagement and improved click-through rate.

Click-through rate is generated on-page with the help of content that is worth reading and clicking through. Therefore, in order to boost your click-through rate, you have to publish a compelling text as your content’s primary title with a little gist that explains what it is all about.

This little window can be promoted by inserting long-tail search keywords with higher search volume in meta descriptions and titles for better organic ranking.

Blog with Keywords

Approximately 53% of B2B and B2C marketers believe in catering to blog posts as their primary source of material for enticing users towards higher SEO ranking. According to digital marketing guru, Neil Patel, blogging has the opportunity to promote a brand’s viewership and ROI to 13 times than a website that doesn’t cater to any.

An average blog post should span from 2000-2500 words with long-tailed research keywords for higher ranking on the search engine. Detailed copy helps you to distribute your keywords subtly in content, allowing your page to rank higher for better conversion rates.

Keywords are therefore, essential tools and practically, the pillars of SEO – without relevant keywords, your content might have a hard time of ranking on Google which would diminish your website’s visibility and location as well.

Your website is on the brink of launching itself into the abyss of the worldwide web – it’s a crowded interface with hundreds of thousands of enterprises that desire to be number one but apparently, aren’t. In simpler words, your website is struggling through a crowded interface – they’re wading through competition every second, and in order to get discovered, you have to understand how to generate more traffic towards your website.


6 Most Effective SEO Tricks for Small Business Exposure

While a large number of businesses are still sticking to conventional marketing through TV ads, newspaper ads, or radio advertising, the statistics on the other end of the spectrum are happily optimizing SEO (search engine optimization) or organic search results.

In this article, we’re going to delve into the fascinating realm of SEO, why it’s currently the best marketing strategy to date, and the complete tips for ranking your small business in no time.

What is SEO?

We always turn to Google, Bing or Yahoo for just about anything under the sun these days. Checking reviews, gathering information, searching for products and services, watching tutorials; the list is endless.

While it may seem like a mundane routine, SEO specialists are behind every website that ranks first on any search engines.

SEO is the process of getting "free" traffic to your website. However, Google calls the shots as to which content (blogs, videos, infographics, images) gets displayed based on several factors which we'll get into later.

Why is SEO Important for Small Businesses?

Whether you’re a small business owner or a digital marketer, optimizing some SEO best practices will drive more traffic to websites. According to BrightEdge, 50 percent of website traffic is from organic searches, and over 40 percent of revenues come from organic searches as well. Because SEO...

  • Increases engagement, and builds trust and credibility
  • Creates better user experience
  • Is cheap compared to PPC (Pay-Per-Click ads)
  • Is trackable
  • Allows you to discover more opportunities in ranking your website
  • Gets more leads and conversions

To make the most out of your SEO campaign, it’s essential that you also plan out your strategy right from the beginning. Here’s a step by step guide on how to create an SEO marketing strategy from scratch.

Best SEO Tricks for Small Business Exposure

1. Do Keyword Research

Incorporating the right keywords in your content is crucial. First, create a buyer persona. That means think about which audience you’re targeting and put yourself in their shoes. What type of keywords would they be typing?

To start keyword research, try to brainstorm for keyword ideas. You can open up an Excel sheet or Google Spreadsheet and put any keyword related to your niche. First, you can turn to good old Wikipedia for ideas and synonyms. Then you can try Google Autocomplete; this is when you open an incognito Google window and type in the keyword on the search box. Copy those automatic phrases that appear below your typed keyword. Or you can use any free extension like Keywords Everywhere to determine which keywords have high traffic volume. Then, build your content around those keywords.

2.  Enhance On-Page SEO

On-page SEO refers to your content’s title tags, meta descriptions, h1, h2 & h3 subheadings, internal links, content length, social sharing buttons, and more.

When creating your first content, aim to rank for long-tail keywords with a lower search volume. This way, you’ll have a higher chance of making it to the first page of SERPs. Utilize your title tags (blue clickable titles on Google). Include your keyword in the title tag and add some modifiers like “top,” “best,” “2019” to make it stand out. Ensure that the essential keywords will not go over 55 characters. Meta descriptions are the short phrases/paragraph that you see below the title tags. Make sure it’s short and sweet; letting the readers know immediately what they’re going to get once they click on your content. Make sure it’s 160 characters or less.

Also, Google ranks longer content. Why? The longer the content, the more the relevant keywords. Keep it 500 to 1,500 words.

3.  Maximize Link Building

One metric that Google looks for is your website’s credibility. And backlinks (a hyperlink from one site to another) with high page authority and domain authority levels will prove beneficial for your site. There are free tool extensions you can use to check this like MOZ. You can search for your target keywords on Google and use the MOZ extension to find the ones with higher authority. You can either link to their site or reach out to these sites to link to your latest blog.

4.  Prioritize Local SEO

Small businesses would probably start marketing their products or services in their area or its nearby areas which makes local SEO essential in your campaign. Why?

  • Because mobile gadgets and devices are everyone’s go-to
  • Local searchers are ready to visit or purchase
  • Building profiles and reviews are helpful for your business

The first step you can do is register your business in Google My Business Profile. This is extremely important because it has huge visibility in SERPs. Next is to gather feedback, testimonials or reviews on any platform (Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc.). In case you get bad reviews, handle them properly. I always find companies receptive to criticism endearing. Customers relate to businesses emotionally.

5.  Make It Mobile Friendly

This year, global mobile users are expected to increase to over five billion. If you don’t make your website mobile-friendly, you could be losing millions of prospective customers. It’s crucial to optimize your site, so it loads fast on mobile devices.

Google is also always updating its algorithm. To check if your site passes the mobile usability report, use the Google Search Console and take the mobile-friendly test regularly.

6.  Monitor Your SEO Campaigns

The great thing about SEO is that it’s quantifiable. That means you can track lucrative or non-lucrative campaigns through tools like Google Analytics. You can do a trial-and-error run by analyzing data-driven platforms, changing blog posts and backlinks from time to time, or improving social media strategies. You can even cut losses by knowing which keywords work and which don’t. Anything you can do to improve your SEO campaign will increase traffic tremendously.

SEO for Ranking Small Businesses

Now that you know the ins and outs of SEO and how to utilize every trick in the book, it’s time to put everything into action. Remember, quality content, and these effective SEO tricks will surely gain more small business exposure.

Author Bio: Sarah Brooks, an ardent blogger, loves to write about digital marketing and web development. She frequently blogs at Local SEO Rankings, one of the leading SEO agencies based in Jacksonville, Florida.


How to Build Your Website For The Mobile-First Experience in 2019

If 2019 is the year you satisfy all your customers, it’s time to go mobile. If your website isn’t up to scratch to the mobile experience, they will bail out - leaving you with lost leads, sales and potential long-term customers.

Although your website doesn’t need to undergo a drastic overhaul as you prime it for the mobile experience, there are a few niggling things you need to take care of. The good news? It’s nowhere near as hard as you might have feared.

As you bid to bring your website in line with what users expect in 2019, let’s take a look at how to get it ship-shape for the mobile experience.

Optimize For Site Speed

It’s essential that you run your website through a mobile site speed tester to make sure your page load time is acceptable. If your website takes too long to load, impatient mobile users will quickly exit.

One thing you really need to do is minimize server response time. To that end, It’s important that you choose a hosting provider that won’t let you down when you begin to build your website and attract more traffic. Things like first byte time - also known as ‘waiting time’ - are crucial when it comes to the mobile user experience. You can also improve your web server configuration or software to further minimize server response time.  Look for a site with a good reputation and support as well as speed, for example, companies like SiteGroundWPEngine for WordPress or Bluehost 

Work with an image compressor tool to ensure that your images are optimized for size, too. Oversized images are, after all, one of the biggest reasons a website is loading slowly.

Another thing you can do to speed up your mobile site speed is to reduce the amount of page redirects. According to research, redirects are “the single biggest source of wasted time in your code and can dramatically affect your page speed.”

Lastly, avoid Flash. Flash was all the rage a few years back, but it’s now bad for SEO and it can slow your website down. Moreover, there are some devices that don’t support it at all (including Android).

Prioritize The User Experience

Key to the success of your website on any device is its user experience. However, it’s even more important on mobile devices, with research showing that mobile users are more impatient than desktop users. This means they will exit your website pretty much straight away if it doesn’t conform to their expectations.

User experience refers to the usability of your website. For example, while on desktop your fonts can be quite small, they need to be bigger on mobile. This is because smaller fonts mean that a user has to zoom-in to see the text properly - which is super frustrating.

Essentially, it’s all about using common sense on your part and understanding what would make for a good user experience. Make your buttons larger and keep them at a fair distance from each other so that the user doesn’t tap the wrong one by mistake. Do the same with all your links. If two links are too close to each other, it’s really easy for the mobile user to tap the wrong link by mistake. This frustrates the user experience.

Switching autocorrect off for forms is a good idea. When filling out a form on their mobile device, the last thing a user wants is for their device to start automatically filling in each field with the wrong word.

Make sure to remove any unnecessary information from your screen, too. If information - or visuals - will only serve to distract or frustrate the user, eliminate them.

Another simple way to improve the user experience is by making it easy for the user to switch to desktop view. You’ll find that some users prefer this, so make sure you give them the option.

Produce Mobile Friendly Content

As mentioned, the way mobile users behave is different from desktop users. Research has shown that mobile users want fast, actionable information, and they don’t want any distractions. As such, you need to adapt your content accordingly.

Not just this, but you also have to take into account the different screen size. Because mobile screens are much smaller than desktop screens, the way you present your content must be different.

For example, you will need to shorten your headlines. Consider the following headline, which would work really well on desktop:

‘5 Reasons Why Too Much Coffee Might Be Keeping You From Being Your Best’

On mobile, you could shorten that to this:

‘Why Coffee Might Be Bad For You’

The same rule applies with your sub-headings and your entire body copy. On mobile, you need to get to the point faster, because the end user wants you to be more direct and concise.

Don’t forget to optimize your call to action for mobile users, too. It can be really easy for it to get lost in the crowd. Turn it into a button so that it’s instantly recognizable as a CTA and use contrasting colors for the button and background.  

Use a Responsive Framework

Responsive frameworks such as Bootstrap and Foundation are essential for ensuring that your website adapts to the numerous screen sizes that are now available. A responsive framework basically means that everything on your website - from your text to your images - adapts according to the device it’s displayed on. This means the mobile experience is clean, seamless and professional.

The best thing is that you don’t really have to do much. All you need to do is work with a tool like the aforementioned Bootstrap and Foundation, and they’ll do all the hard work for you, automatically adjusting your design according to the device.

Perform A/B Tests

Lastly, testing is crucial to the success of your website. If you don’t perform A/B tests, you simply won’t be able to get the best out of your website or deliver the best possible version to your customers. Moreover, by performing A/B tests, you can really see how differently your mobile audience behaves from your desktop audience. Then, you can make the necessary adjustments.

You should separately test the following elements:

  • Headlines - Have you made your headlines concise enough? Moreover, have you made them concise and compelling? Experiment with different headlines - some with numbers, some without - to see what works best at engaging people.
  • Call to Action - Earlier, we mentioned making your CTA a button. However, you might find that an image-based CTA works best with mobile users. You might even find that a text-only CTA works best with conversions. You could also try a ‘stick’ call to action that ‘follows people around’ as they scroll up and down your website. Experiment and check your results. Not just this, but you need to figure out what your CTA ultimately needs to tell the user to do. Research has shown that conversion rates are far higher on desktop than they are on smartphones, which means your CTA might be better geared towards grabbing someone’s email address, as opposed to going for the sale.
  • Images - Image size is obviously crucial. But the positioning and amount of visuals on your mobile pages is also crucial. While images might not have much bearing on your conversion rates, they’re still important for engagement and the overall user experience.

You should also see what works best on which devices. Mobile isn’t just mobile. For example, 78% of mobile purchases are done on iPhones instead of Android.

Conclusion

Making the switch to mobile doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, it can be really easy if you follow the tips in this article. And once you’re website is all primed for the mobile experience, you’re then free to concentrate fully on making more sales.

Michelle Deery is a professional writer for Heroic Search. She has over eight years of marketing and copywriting experience. She develops content strategies that help businesses increase their bottom line. You can find her on Twitter.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-deery-ba7131123/
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/michwriting

Photo by William Iven on Unsplash


How SEO & Content Helped our Presentation Design Agency 4X New Customer Inquiries

My co-founder Holly and I started Purple Patch events group back in 2004. After spending many years working in the marketing and events industry, we felt there could be significant improvements made to the way events were organised and managed. Having established a successful event management business - Presentation Experts also quickly came into existence. In order for clients to deliver their services and products successfully to eager crowds during keynote speeches, they needed more support with the creation of professional presentations.

Presentation Experts specialises in presentation design services for businesses of all sizes. As a Presentation design agency we create content and designs for conferences, sales pitch decks, events and more. Over the course of 2018, our team put together over 200 bespoke presentations, while our sister events agency Purple Patch delivered more than 300 minutes of corporate film and in excess of 250 hours of exclusive events.

A presentation can often make or break the time and money put into building up a service or product. Whether it’s buyers, partners, investors or customers you are speaking to, they need to remain engaged with the concept. That’s where we can help, working closely with the client to understand their objectives to deliver a compelling and powerful presentation.

Our presentation design services extend beyond standard PowerPoint ideas and designs. We also incorporate animation, infographics, screen displays and even film if required. Our background in every aspect of events management – from exhibitors and delegates to buyers and sellers - enables us to see the bigger picture to support our clients in achieving the returns they are aiming for.

Were we missing opportunities?

Despite our initial success as a business, an area we hadn’t paid much attention to was our presence on search engines. SEO had become a ‘tick box’ exercise for us – something we knew we had to have – but never really focused on it.

Interestingly, Holly had just completed the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business course – and a straw poll of her cohort of SME owners regarding their attitude to SEO ranged from – “Its all smoke and mirrors but we do it anyway” through to “My business success is 100% down to our SEO and PPC efforts”. There surely had to be a middle ground.

My experience with our existing SEO agency was simple – we received a handful of calls each Month and a hugely complex incomprehensible report showing how the agency was doing.  Despite my protest that the phone wasn’t ringing enough – apparently, we were where we should have been in terms of ranking.

We held the belief that our target audience – comprised mainly of larger companies – would not actively be using search engines to find specialist presentation design services. At the same time, we were still receiving new enquiries and word of mouth referrals from some surprisingly large businesses. We were eager to continue expanding and started to conduct some research to see if any improvements could be made to boost our online presence.

We realised we were not maximising the full potential of our services and should be able to find more of the larger companies we were aiming to work with. Our existing client base already comprised of some substantial businesses already – Sainsbury’s, RBS, Schneider Electric etc. So we knew that we could exploit that heritage.

Our partnership with Brick Digital

Brick Digital, owned and run by Lorenzo Luiso was in its infancy as a digital agency and we were keen to appoint a new provider. Lorenzo was convinced that large organisations were using search engines to source new suppliers like Presentation Experts. We sat down together to map out a plan for 2018 that would concentrate on key areas of our website. The end goal was to find larger companies who were searching for presentation design services both in London and the UK as a whole.

Our challenge to Brick Digital was simple – quadruple our new customer contacts – and alongside that – improve the quality of them. And by the way, can we get a report at the end of each Month that is digestible in a few minutes by a non-SEO expert. No small task.

We understood that significant changes to our rankings was not going to occur overnight and would not alone bring more new business. It required a long-term plan that not only involved changing the existing content but also altering our mindset towards the website. Using it as an online portfolio to showcase existing work had proved very useful but we had not yet realised its full potential. To gain a strong foothold in our industry we needed to demonstrate our experience in a number of ways and with guidance from Brick Digital, we began to expand the content.

This involved publishing content that highlighted our experience and knowledge as a PowerPoint design agency. Through the development of our blog content, our aim was to not only increase our credibility within the events and presentation sectors but also to expand our keyword footprint across the site. Offering guidance about presentations to key decision makers within target businesses has now become a regular part of our online strategy.

In only nine months we had experienced a dramatic turnaround in terms of search traffic and the number of enquiries being received through our website. People searching for presentation design services were able to find us much easier, which led to a 300% increase in organic searches. Warm qualified leads arriving through our website was now four times higher, with a number of extremely large organisations getting in touch after finding us on Google.

We have transformed our new business strategy for Presentation Services with SEO from Brick Digital

Presentation Experts are proof that having a great product and exciting website is a good starting point, but without strong SEO marketing to support it, there will be a limit to what you can achieve.

Some business owners may think it takes too much time and money to get the desired results online. We would agree to a point, however, even with a limited budget and time constraints, B2B businesses can still increase the number of leads and opportunities they receive within their respective industries.

We’ve come a long way in a short amount of time and are now reaping the benefits of implementing a clear SEO plan with Brick Digital that connects us with new clients searching for our services every day of the week. At the start of 2018, we would never have dreamt of adding some very substantial names to our customer base. Deutsche Bank, Last Minute.com, City & Guilds, Grayling PR and Ricoh to name a few.

So what’s next – an even closer relationship with Brick Digital in 2019. We will be working hard to supply them with the content that they need to make our sites a continuing success.

Paul Campbell is the founder and director of Presentation Experts.


2018 SEO Roundup: All the major developments that happened in the world of SEO over the past 12 months and how to prepare for the year ahead

Search engine algorithms change hundreds of times each year. Most of these changes are minute, won’t affect your rankings, and therefore fly under the radar undetected. However, each year also brings larger updates with more impactful results. To ignore these more significant updates could lead to major issues for your site in the SERPS. It is therefore essential to stay aware of critical algorithm changes and SEO trends, in order to ensure your site is consistently optimized accordingly.

2018 saw some of the most notable changes in years. The following article sums up 2018’s top updates and SEO developments.

Google’s algorithm updates

  1. March 7, 2018: Google’s “Brackets” Core Update

This Google “core” update from early March was the first major update of the year and focused largely on content quality. The March 7 “Brackets” update benefited pages that were previously under-rewarded, and also lead to changes in which sites are displayed in rich snippets. Rich snippets have a much higher click-through rate, so these positions are highly coveted within the SERPS.

In order to succeed within this update, sites are encouraged to focus on killer content that will attract links from well-known sites, and drive forward with large, positive content changes in order to bounce back. Overcoming any negative effects won’t happen overnight, which is why the sooner and the more potent your positive content changes are, the better. 

  1. March 26, 2018– Google’s Mobile-First Index

After over a year of testing, Google launched its “mobile-first index.” This means that Google now uses the mobile version of a site’s content for crawling, indexing, and ranking. It’s therefore extremely important for brands to prioritize responsive web design. Ensure your website is just as functional on mobile as it is on a desktop, and work to optimize page load time, design, and navigation. If your mobile site isn’t operating efficiently, you’ll struggle in the rankings. 

  1. July 9, 2018– Google’s Mobile Speed Update 

The mobile speed update made page speed a ranking factor for mobile searches. This update only affected “the pages that deliver the slowest experience to users and will only affect a small percentage of queries.” Google encouraged sites to focus on the performance of their sites and its effects on user experience and to continue to work to improve their UX metrics.

  1. July 24, 2018—Google’s Chrome Security Update

In this update, Chrome 68 started labeling sites that aren’t HTTPS as “not secure.” Plain HTTP sites aren’t encrypted, which means that others on the network can potentially view your private information. HTTPS sites (which stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure) are encrypted, so all details— passwords, credit cards, etc— will be kept private. Obviously, in order to avoid penalties under this update, it’s essential for sites to obtain their SSL certificate so that their site can read HTTPS.

  1. August 1, 2018– Google’s “Medic” Core Update

This early August update was reportedly one of the largest updates in Google’s history, altering both the organic and local ranking algorithms. Though only a small percentage of sites saw changes, those that did were strongly affected. The sites that were most affected fell under the YMYL (Your Money Your Life) categories, and in particular, sites focusing on diet and nutrition.

Sites that were the most penalized are those that have issues of trustworthiness. This means sites with content by authors with negative reputations, sites publishing unreliable information (especially those writing on health issues without scientific backing), sites that are focused solely on selling a specific product, and sites that have a lack of a reputation. In order to thrive within this update, Google suggests focusing on creating strong, reliable content. Sites are advised to focus on their E-A-T, or their Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

General SEO updates to take away from 2018

  1. Optimize your SEO for voice searches

These days, with the use of voice applications such as Siri and Alexa, and smart devices such as Google Home and Amazon Echo, voice searching is growing in popularity. For businesses, this means it’s imperative to focus on SEO strategies that include the use of long-tail keywords in everyday syntax. 

  1. Provide instant answers to search questions within your content

Continuing on from the above, the increase in voice searches means it’s important to make it simple for voice applications to find answers in a timely manner. Siri and Alexa must locate and scan information in order to relay it back to the user. If you make your information, or answers, easily accessible, you will perform better in the voice searches. 

  1. Focus on relevance

It’s more difficult than ever to convince Google you have good content if you actually don’t.  Relevant content is vital for your rankings, and this means creating comprehensive content that fulfils the expectations of users. 

  1. Work on your EAT

Once again, content is king, and search engines place incredible importance on a site’s EAT factor, or its Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Forget content for the sake of content— show your knowledge through purposeful content that is helpful to users. Say goodbye to the fluff, and instead create thoughtful, science-backed content that will help establish your credibility— and, in turn, your ranking in the SERPS.

  1. There’s a need for speed

The luxury of high-speed internet and general overstimulation have made users impatient, so a speedy website is crucial. Visitors to your site will lose interest if they have to deal with slow loading pages. Speed remains the main factor in user experience, and user experience is one of the most important elements of SEO. Test your speeds, evaluate your site, and ensure your pages are optimized to ensure the quickest loading possible. 

How did your website perform in 2018? Did you benefit from the SEO updates, or were you penalized? One thing’s for sure—there’s usually always room for improvement, and the team at Adlibweb would love to help you succeed in the digital marketing arena. We’d love to hear from you and discuss just how we can assist your brand in reaching new heights. Get in touch today!

 

Ellan Dineen is the Marketing Associate at Design Wizard. When she’s not hard at work in the Marketing Department, Ellan can be found en route to foreign lands with a book in her hand and a podcast in her ear. With a Master’s in English and Diploma in Social Media Marketing, she knows the importance of staying up-to-date with the industry’s latest trends and insights and is keen to pass these tips on to her readers.

6 Mistakes That Can Destroy Your Link Building Efforts

Are you trying to build your brand but struggling to get spotted above the noise of your more established competitors?

It’s a problem, isn’t it?

Developing authority on the web is essential for success, but how you go about it can spell the difference between victory and consignment to the infinite pit of internet abyss - like a bargain bucket of websites that not even the tumble-weeds stop to glance at.

Building visibility for your website is undeniably challenging. And link-building is one of the practices that many have used to raise their brand profile.

But tread lightly.

For there are a plethora of traps in waiting; ready to thwart our efforts.

We’re going to explore the six biggest mistakes that can destroy your link-building endeavours.

Mistake #1 - Not sweeping your own doorstep

Well, this isn’t really sweeping; it’s more taking a good, hard, long look at yourself (your website).

Source: Elegantthemes.com

Is it retro…?

Retro is cool, of course - but if your website looks like it was designed in the 1990s by a color-blind Gilbert & George fanatic, you're stumped at the first hurdle.

Harsh.

But think about it: whatever efforts you make to gain favor with high authority sites, the first thing they’re going to see when they follow up your introduction email is your clunky, old website.

And just think what your customers will think when they see your cluttered homepage and revolting color scheme!

Your site could have the most valuable and insightful content, primed to add genuine benefit to guest blog sites, but if your aesthetic looks like an early iteration of eBay, you’re unlikely to get anywhere.

Source: Backlinko.com

It might seem shallow, but when they receive forty-plus proposals a day for guest postings, your website is your calling card.

So, if you want higher rankings and keep people on your site, you need to get your website looking as good as it possibly can. And be proud of your calling card; fixed in the knowledge that it will serve you well in your link-building efforts.

Mistake #2 - Running before you can jump

If you’re hoping to get picked up by big websites that deal with bloggers every day of their working lives, make sure that you have a repertoire before you contact them.

The first thing they’ll do is look at your blog to determine the quality of your content.

But if your blog is less populated than Buford, Wyoming post-zombie apocalypse, your efforts to get spotted will go wasted.

Your existing blog offering should contain a combination of short- and long-form pieces, filled to the brim with value. Nobody keyword stuffs anymore - they want content that will hold the attention of an audience, and offer them genuine value.

Recognize that you’re not just writing a title that you’ve researched for high volume.

If your potential checks out your blog and it’s:

  • stuffed with keywords
  • repetitive
  • failing to get to the point

Then they’re not going to stick around for the duration. And they're absolutely not going to trust you to write them some decent copy.

Just having a blog isn’t enough. Having a quality blog with an authoritative voice, discussing subjects relevant to your website’s purpose. Make yourself an authority - even if you currently only have five readers (and two of those are your parents).

Avoid:

  • terrible grammar - use Grammarly to proof-read your copy
  • two thousand words when one-hundred-and-fifty would have sufficed
  • large blocks of content: break your text into easily consumed paragraphs; use subtitles and bucket brigades

Quality matters. Period.

If you’re not a great wordsmith, but you’re hoping to build your traffic by link-building through blogging, hire a copywriter. There are tons of copywriters out there, available through platforms such as Upwork.

Go through your existing blog content and delete anything that isn’t consistent with your mission.

If you’re struggling for ways of broadening your existing network or your blog content, consider engaging with recognised experts or influencers. Influencer marketing is a great way to broaden your traffic network.

Email service provider, Get Response, hired well-known influencers to create a series of guest blogs on their behalf. Of course, they recognised that relevancy was key, here - there’s no point in using a famous face just because they’re a famous face. It was all about adding value.

The influencers created a portfolio of quality content that Get Response could then tout to high-profile blog sites, embedding backlinks into the copy so that visitors would visit their site and learn about their service.

As a result of the project, Get Response’s social followings increased into the millions.

This process works on a number of levels -

  • by cross-pollinating audience from the influencer as well as the blog site
  • by associating Get Response with high-quality, value-driven content
  • all driving the association of quality towards Get Response.

Mistake #3 Being obvious

When you’re pitching a guest blog to an authority website, don’t just take a look at their blog and give them more of the same.

Give them something they haven’t already got.

Which, of course, doesn’t mean suggest a blog about infographic design if they focus only on web design. Send them a pitch for infographic design if their other blog content focuses on content marketing (and they don’t already have an article about this topic).

Explore angles that are directly relevant to your proposed site but haven’t already been covered.

It’s wasted effort if you’re approaching sites with suggestions for content they already have.

Create content that’s surprising and trending.

Mistake #4 Too Fast, Too Furious

It can be tempting to grab as many backlink locations as possible, but actually achieving them is a bad link building practice and it could be your downfall.

Receiving a sudden influx of backlinks could trigger a link velocity penalty. Link velocity is the rate at which new backlinks appear for your site around the web, and Google is on the lookout for suspicious growth (get yourself to the doctors!).

And the relevance of your backlinks counts as well.

Google’s Penguin algorithm was developed specifically to identify bad backlinks.

It looks for:

  • Link quality - links from low-quality websites are not worth your while
  • Link velocity - small sites suddenly receiving high volumes of backlinks will be identified. Space out your campaign.
  • Link diversity - make sure that your links are from relevant sources. Links that all appear, for example, from comments in discussion forums look suspicious. Aim for links from a variety of sources - contextual, blog comments, and forums.

Mistake #5 Over-optimizing your anchor text

Anchor text is important. But using anchor text that is plainly stuffed with keywords could likely work against you.

Google considers overly-optimized anchor text a “black hat” SEO approach, and are likely to penalize you for it.

Inbound links that point towards your site should use a variety of anchor texts, naturally embedded into the content of your blog piece to avoid suspicion.

If you want to beat the algorithms, you’ll have to tread lightly and plan your strategy for link-building so that links - both to and from your content - appear natural.

Getting penalized by a search engine for over-optimized back-linking could decimate your traffic by as much as 90%.

Mistake #6 Failing to adhere to guest blogging guidelines.

Most authority sites will have a clear policy for guest bloggers - and creating content that breaks their guidelines is an immediate waste of your time and effort.

Sites often provide clear guidelines for the type of content they’re likely to approve. They may describe their audience, their marketing strategies, and the rules about how you can mention your own website.

They’ll provide advice on the tone that they look for in their content, the ideal word count for their audience, and what type of images they require (if any).

These guidelines offer valuable information that you can directly use; ensuring that any link-building content you create hits their brief so that your brand gains visibility with their audience.

Examine their guidelines and follow their advice.

To conclude…

Link-building is hard work and can take time, but it can genuinely improve your chances of significantly increasing your traffic.

But avoid short-cuts that are likely to be picked up by algorithms that are increasingly ahead of the game.

Focusing your time on effective and organic link-building is much more likely to help you grow your site authority over time.

Antonija Bozickovic

Antonija is an internet marketing specialist at Point Visible, a marketing agency providing link building and digital marketing services.  She has a great interest in digital marketing and a soft spot for graphic design. She’s never tired of searching for new inspirations, listening to her favorite music and creating digital illustrations.


So why is SEO so important for a Successful Business?

Are you a business owner? Did you ever hear about SEO? Chances are that you have. However, you probably didn’t pay much attention to it. You didn’t know how important it can be for the success of your business. Because the reality is that Search Engine Optimization can greatly help you get more customers and more orders. It can even help you drive people to your brick and mortar store. Everyone, including a thesis editor can take advantage of SEO and can grow his or her business in no time. Now that we have your attention, let’s talk about what SEO really is, its benefits, and about who can do it.

What Is SEO Exactly?

Search Engine Optimization (abbreviated SEO) is the process by which you make your web property (blog, website, social account, etc.) more appealing to search engines. Why is this important, you ask? Because organic traffic – traffic sent to you by search engines – is the best kind of traffic you can get. People are visiting your website or your blog and a portion of them are placing orders. The more visitors you get, the more orders you get. However, a search engine has limited space on its first page of search results. You need to help your web property get displayed on that first page. Why? Because people rarely go to the next search results pages. They find what they are looking for on the first page in 80% of the cases.

The Benefits of Search Engine Optimization for Your Business

There are many ways to perform search engine optimization on your web properties. The techniques used depend on the type of property and on the target you want to achieve. For example, you can focus on generating useful, interesting and valuable content that will draw in readers and will convince search engines that your website is valuable. You can work on building links to your web property so that search engines begin to consider you an authority in your field. You can use keywords and key phrases to target specific searches and bring your website or blog at the top of the search results page. No matter how you do it, SEO has some very important benefits:

  • It will improve your web property’s position on the search results page.
  • It will get you more organic traffic almost for free.
  • It will help you get more people to visit your brick and mortar business (this is called Local SEO).
  • It will make other websites and blogs link to you (if you have valuable content on your site).
  • It will increase the number of orders and will help you grow your business.
  • It will basically crush your competitors who are not taking advantage of SEO.

If you search for “<a href=”https://myhomeworkdone.com/statistics.html”>stats homework</a>”, you will most likely visit one of the first 3 to 5 results. This is how your potential customers think as well. This is why you need to position your web property right there at the top of the search results page!

Use Local SEO to Your Advantage

Local SEO can help you get customers into your brick and mortar store. Many people search on Google Maps or Google Places when they want to buy something. They are in the neighborhood and they want something you are selling. They may be 100 meters away from your store and may not know it’s there. But if your store pops up on their mobile device and if your business has great ratings and an awesome description, these people will flock to you to buy what they need. Don’t underestimate the importance of Local SEO unless you are only selling online. If you ever searched for “best pizza in New York City,” and followed Google’s recommendation, you know why Local SEO is so important. The best optimized businesses get the most customers, period!

Can You Do It Yourself?

You are most likely interested to apply SEO techniques to improve your web property’s ranking. You want to get all this extra visitors and make a lot of new sales. However, SEO is not as easy as it sounds. There are experts who do it, and these people have years of experience. Google does not make it easy for a website or blog to get onto its first page of results. In most cases, SEO specialists use a combination of methods and techniques to improve your ranking. And they know what they are doing.

Yes, you can start learning SEO techniques and can start applying them. However, you will work through trial and error. This means that you can easily make a mistake. And a mistake can cost you a lot. Did you know that Google penalizes websites it thinks are trying to artificially boost their ranking? Or that Google will penalize you if you use keywords and key phrases wrong? To make the most out of SEO and to ensure that your web property does not get penalized, you are advised to work with a SEO expert. You can find thousands of them online and there are even companies that specialize in providing SEO services to corporate clients.

In Conclusion

As you can easily realize, SEO is very important to any business owner who wants to grow his company and get new clients and new orders. The benefits are clear, especially if you also focus on Local SEO. If somebody searches for “write my paper” on Google, you want your website to rank among the first 3 to 5 results, right? SEO is the way to achieve this! However, you need to be very careful not to make mistakes that will get your web property penalized. This is why it is very important to work with a SEO specialist who knows what he is doing. If you take the right steps and work with a responsible, experienced professional, you will be able to take full advantage of all the benefits a good SEO strategy has to offer.


Ultimate Guide to SEO Strategies for Small Business

SEO strategies are always changing and being updated. And it is difficult to keep an eye on all of these changes and updates by yourself. Also, you should not rely on one set of SEO strategies constantly. You need to update and tweak your strategies every year.

Google also keeps introducing new algorithms, which will decide your website's rankings. There are now more than 200 ranking factors. And the algorithms are continuously being updated. So it is a must to always monitor, check, and learn about any new updates in SEO.

By monitoring the factors affecting the rankings of your website, you can optimize your website accordingly. And this will help you improve your search engine rankings.

In this post, you will learn about the most important SEO strategies that can positively impact your website's ranking.

1. Take Advantage of AMP

As the usage of mobile devices is increasing, there is a tremendous increase in the number of searches done from mobiles. In 2009, merely 0.7% of web traffic was generated from mobile devices. But within a decade, the percentage of web traffic from mobile has increased worldwide, and it is now more than 50%.

Image Source - Statista

So now is the time to enhance the mobile user experience even more by using Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). The use of AMP can also help your marketing strategies and SEO. Your SEO can be hugely improved because the Google News holder displays AMP. So, in comparison to other web pages, when you use AMP, it will get more traffic and views.

For example, let’s take the search term, “Avengers: Infinity War.” With the release of the latest Avengers movie, there is a wave of excitement among fans. The famous superhero movie has become a topic of discussion among Avengers fans. In the image shown below, you can see AMP sites like The Verge among the top results.

Image Source - Google

2. Prioritize UX

Other than SEO, there are other factors that also affect your website’s performance, such as user experience (UX). The new guidelines from Google have very clearly mentioned that all of your web pages should be user-friendly. When developing a web page, you must always keep in mind the experiences of your target users.

Focusing on UX can also impact your search engine optimization because the behavior of users on your website will surely impact the credibility of your website on the search engines. So you must guarantee that your website is easy to navigate and that users can easily find whatever they require.

Your concentration should be on the user if you want to enhance your UX and SEO. For this, you must develop helpful, valuable, and relevant content for your users. For both UX and SEO, the satisfaction of users is a vital aspect and a common objective. That is why you must create highly engaging and relevant content. Ensure the readability of the content is good. And to create a long-lasting impact, use visuals.

3. Develop Mobile-Friendly Websites

There is a huge popularity and increase in the usage of mobile, as mentioned earlier. On top of that, people have access to faster internet connections. So, the fact that the number of mobile searches is increasing and have even surpassed computer searches, should not surprise you.

An interesting fact, on Google, as of April 2018, nearly 90% of search traffic is generated from mobile. This latest data from Google emphasizes the importance of developing a mobile-friendly website.

Image Source - netmarketshare.com

If you want to be at the top of your SEO game, you must develop a mobile-friendly website. You must also ensure that your website is responsive to mobiles. Meaning, your website should be super compatible with and adaptable to any mobile screen size. Google has an easy to use option for testing your mobile version for adaptability.

Image Source - Google

 

Apart from checking the compatibility and adaptability of web pages, the tool will also give you some optimization suggestions. By following these suggestions, you can further improve and upgrade your website.

4. Optimize for Voice Search

With the increasing use of the internet, you have everything on your fingertips. When you want to learn about something, you have the luxury of the internet. Your questions and doubts get immediately answered when you search for them online. Every second, more than 65K queries are asked on Google.

Now with the introduction of voice search, you can imagine the increase in the number of search queries using voice search. With the new generation of smartphones, they gives the ability to ask queries by speaking directly into the phones. And when you have this ability, who would like to type in long searches?

Apple’s Siri, Windows’ Cortana, and Google Assistant are the famous voice search programs. And they have become very popular recently. These programs are evaluated, improved, and updated on a regular basis. This ensures that users enjoy a seamless experience and it also improves search accuracy. Voice searches have increased in a tremendous way. In fact, they have a experienced a 3400% increase since 2008.

So you must enhance your web pages and make them capable of catering to voice searches. Doing this will highlight your web pages in the answer box. These answer boxes are called “rich answers.” By making your webpages voice search friendly, you will be able to improve their visibility in search results.

ComScore reports that by 2020, 50% of web searches will be generated from voice searches. So, for SEO, you need to make your web pages voice search friendly. For voice searches, longtail+ keywords are used. Here the sign “+” indicates a conversation phrase. You must include conversational phrases when improving or developing your web pages for voice searches.

You have to consider the way people ask questions in real life. Let’s say, rather than just asking “best sightseeing in New York,” a voice search will frame it differently. It will use a full phrase like, “what are the best sightseeing places in New York?” Therefore, longtail+ keywords are crucial and play a vital role in voice searches.

Image Source - Google

Tools for SEO

SEMRush

Using SEMrush, you can keep a track of your competitor's keywords ranking. You can also see the landing page for each of the keywords. The tool allows you to keep a track of any domain from any corner of the globe. And the tool can also be used to search for your local competitors.

WhatsMySerp

WhatsMySerp is a quickly growing contender for anyone looking for great SEO tool options. The WMS rank tracker is quickly becoming sought out, as the tool is completely free for up to 10 keywords, and offers very budget-friendly pricing for larger keyword packages. Essentially the rank tracker gives you the opportunity to try the features out free of charge for as long as you would like until you are ready to expand your keyword list.  The tool provides features such as unlimited on-demand checks, unlimited URLs, CPC, volume metrics, customizable SERP and geo locations, exporting to CSV/pdf, historical ranking data and a user-friendly dashboard.

PRT

As it is important to keep an eye on the keywords that are being used. Tools like ProRankTracker (PRT) can help you discover potential longtail+ keywords. PRT can also help you out track the rankings of those longtail+ keywords. This will surely help you understand and select relevant longtail+ keywords.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is an all-round and quite popular SEO tool. The all-in-one Saas tool can provide data and help you to track your SEO efforts. The tool can be used for backlink analysis, keyword search, competitor analysis, link building or page optimization. The tool is also useful for ranking your keywords and doing traffic analysis.

Buzzstream

Buzzstream is an affordable and quite a popular link building tool. This is a great tool for streamlining link request process. The tool can manage your link building campaign efficiently.

Final Thoughts

The SEO industry is an ever-changing and complex industry to understand. The strategies mentioned above are the most important ways to boost your search rankings in 2018. Google will continue focusing on improving and enhancing user experience. For this, they will examine the importance of the content on your web pages.

In addition to this, experts are predicting that Google will also inspect if websites are mobile-friendly. This guide will help you to focus on and build stronger SEO strategies. If you know of any other important SEO strategies which can help you to improve website rankings, feel free to comment.

Photo by Alexa Mazzarello on Unsplash


Must-Have SEO Tips to Improve Your E-Commerce Store Visibility

Having a captivating design is only the first step to build an E-Commerce store to garner sales. However, to drive website traffic, it is vital to have effective digital marketing strategies in place. And Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is by far one of the best long-term techniques to reap the profits.

Wondering if SEO is really important for your E-Commerce business?

The Search Engine Journal clearly outlines SEO as an integral component of E-Commerce success, stating 93% of online experiences begin with a search. In a scenario where search engines have emerged as a ubiquitous element for millions of online users, overlooking SEO means failing to target a major share of the market. This can be lethal to your E-Commerce business.

The Numbers Say it All...

If you think you do not need Search Engine Optimisation to boost your E-Commerce business, here are some facts that you cannot afford to miss.

According to a study, an average of 39% of global E-Commerce traffic comes from search. Of this, 35% of traffic comes from organic search (SEO), while only 4% comes through paid search (PPC advertising). Additionally, 70 – 80% of online users focus on organic search results and ignores paid ads.

How could you expect to reach your target audience if you are not ‘visible’ on search engines?

Thus, it is a clear win-win situation for Search Engine Optimisation. With a growing proliferation of online shopping trend, there are millions of E-Commerce stores vying for the top ranks on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). If you sit back and relax thinking consumers will flow in automatically, you are wrong.

Be proactive and adopt these E-Commerce SEO tactics to improve visibility and drive traffic to your site.

7 Hands-on Tips to Boost Your E-Commerce Business

If you are looking to maximise exposure of your E-Commerce store, here are some ideas for you. With better visibility, you will attract more traffic and generate more sales.

  1. Leverage the Power of Content Marketing

Nothing can beat the impact of informative, unique and interesting content on the minds of your audiences. It is no secret that consumers READ before they buy. They read product information, customer reviews, influencer recommendations, prices, etc. to make an informed decision. If the product or category pages of your E-Commerce website only have images, no wonder the bounce rate will be higher. But in the first place, major search engines such as Google will nullify your website due to lack of content.

Search engines attribute high quality score and page ranking to sites that have unique, informative and well-optimised content. To leverage this opportunity, create dedicated pages for Home, About Us, Products & Categories, Privacy & Terms & Conditions, and Contact Us. For product descriptions, do not copy-paste manufacturer’s content. Rather, create fresh pages optimised with the right keywords to boost page ranking and visibility.

This is how the website of a popular E-Commerce store appears:

(Source)

Besides having dedicated product pages, the E-Commerce store also provides an array of other information to its customers. This helps build connectivity and credibility which goes a long way in boosting awareness of your E-Commerce business.

Off-site SEO strategies such as article directory submission, press release, blog posting, guest posting, etc. also helps build authority. If the content is one-of-a-kind and interesting, people will share on social media and other platforms, further boosting your visibility.

  1. Embed Unique Title and Meta Description for All Pages

Now you have hundreds of product pages and if you want to rank for all, it is important to have a unique title and Meta description for all the pages. This may be a time-consuming process but you can reap the benefits in the long run. Below is an example of how marketers make the mistake of having the same description for all related pages:

(Sourcehttps://moz.com/learn/seo/meta-description)

This is a BIG mistake!

Meta Title and Meta Description is what your potential customers would read on the search engine result pages when they search for products related to yours. If it is not convincing enough, they would not be inclined to click through the result.

Title and Meta tags also play an important role in search engine page ranking. Therefore, your page title, description and alt tag should be optimised with relevant keywords to help search engines crawl your page when someone uses the phrase to search for products.

So, how to simplify the process of having unique Meta descriptions for your pages, especially if there are thousands of products to cover? If you do not have the resources to write a fresh description for each page, you can use “Concatenation schemas.” It helps create a set of rules to automate the process of creating descriptions, while generating unique content each time.

For example, you can use the following rule for shoe retailer StyleNShoes:

  • Buy PRODUCT NAME at BRAND. BRAND provides SUBCATEGORY and CATEGORY for men, women and children at best prices.

The Meta description will look this originally:

  • Buy Catwalk Shoes at StyleNShoes. StyleNShoes provides leather shoes and fashionable shoes for men, women and children at best prices.

Integrating important keywords is important here to make it to the top SERP rankings.

  1. Add Pagination to Product Category Pages

For an E-Commerce store that has thousands of products under one category, making it to the top SERP rankings can be difficult. On one hand, you cannot force all the products in one page. On the other hand, if you break up the category page displaying 25-30 products per page, search engines may get confused as to display which category page in search results.

No matter what you do, both your search engine ranking and customer experience will be at stake.

To avoid this, add pagination elements such as “rel=next” and “rel=prev” tags. This tells the search engines how different category pages are related to each other.

You can also provide the option to view all the products on one page, provided you following Google’s canonical rules to avoid penalties by search engine algorithm. A great mix of pagination elements is one as shown below:

(Source)

  1. Improve Speed to Boost Mobile E-Commerce

Mobile E-Commerce market is expanding rapidly and poised for unprecedented growth. According to an estimate, E-Commerce sales garnered $2.3 trillion in 2017, which is a whopping 23.2% growth over the previous year. Of this, mobile E-Commerce stood at 58.9%, accounting for $1.4 trillion.

In 2021, revenues generated from E-Commerce sales via mobile phones could reach $3.5 trillion, making up to 72.9% of total sales. The following image indicates fast-paced growth & significance of mobile E-Commerce today.

(Source)

As more and more consumers prefer to search or buy through their mobile devices, it has become important to optimise E-Commerce sites for first page mobile search rankings. And to make it to Google’s top mobile search results, it is vital to speed up the site, indicates a market report.

Site speed plays an integral role in E-Commerce SEO as well as has a crucial impact on the user experience. A report reveals if your mobile site speed increases by one second, it can decrease conversion rate by 3.5% and increase bounce rate by 8.3%. Page views are likely to drop by 9.4%. Additionally, it can also affect search engine rankings.

Use free tools such as Web Page Tool to monitor page load time, bounce rate and time on page to determine site speed. There are several ways to improve site speed. These play an important role in Search Engine Optimisation, giving your E-Commerce site better visibility on search engines.

Here are some quick tips for you:

  • Optimise images & videos
  • Enable compression
  • Tweak server response time
  • Minimise redirects
  • Optimise JavaScript, HTML, CSS codes to boost site speed
  1. Optimise Your Site for Google’s Mobile-First Index

As discussed earlier, Google now gives more importance to a website’s mobile version than desktop edition to determine quality score and page rankings. If your E-Commerce site is not yet mobile-friendly or not optimised for mobile search, it can significantly hamper your page ranking and visibility.

Running two different websites for mobile and desktop respectively is complex and expensive. Rather, you can re-design or optimise your online store to be responsive and mobile-friendly. A responsive web design is one that delivers the same look and feel when viewed on multiple devices. It is built to seamlessly adapt to different screen sizes and resolutions.

Here are some tips to make your site mobile-friendly:

  • Create a mobile version of the desktop site using platforms such as Duda Mobile or bMobilized
  • Build responsive page designs
  • Improve site speed (as discussed previously)
  • Optimise page structure, headline and form, images & videos section, content structure and footer
  • Use mobile plugins on CMS platforms such as WPtouch & JetPack by WordPress, JoomlaShine & Responsivizer by Joomla and MobileTheme & ThemeKey by Drupal

Below is an example of mobile-optimised, responsive web design:

(Source)

Conclusion 

E-Commerce Search Engine Optimisation is one of the most powerful digital marketing tools when done right. It may take time for the results to come, but the above tips can help boost your visibility and reap the benefits in the long run.

Author BIO – Hello, I am Andrella Fehmi. I am a professional writer also expert in inbound marketing, content marketing, and lead generation. I write SEO articles for global business industries who want to see their SEO rankings on top. I love to write about the various digital marketing topics & trends, especially how internet marketing is affecting online market & ecommerce Businesses. All of my writing focuses on balancing informative with online marketing needs but never at the expense of providing a valuable read to users.

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash


Intro to an Ecommerce SEO guide

Struggling to get traffic that will actually convert into sales? Wondering why your store doesn’t even reach the first page of Google….

Well, the good news is there are plenty of things you can do to change this!

I can show you everything you need to change your store forever.

By following the 100% field tested e-commerce SEO strategies that my team and I use, your store will stand out from the crowd.