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The Strategy Driven Guide to Boosting Your Website’s Performance

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, The Strategy Driven Guide to Boosting Your Website’s PerformanceBoosting your website’s performance needs to be your number one priority. Without a great site, all of your digital marketing efforts will be for naught. Imagine, as a user, you see an ad on Instagram. You are interested, click it, and are directed to a website that fails to meet your trust factors. Perhaps it doesn’t work on mobile, or perhaps its design is old and outdated, making it difficult to navigate. There are many different trust factors that online users rely on nowadays before they buy from a new company online.

Boosting your website’s performance isn’t rocket science, but it does need to implemented well and to the best of your ability. You need to ensure your website is secure, that its information is correct, and that downtime is limited. Users do not want to be made a fool of, so ensure your website is up to code. To show them your site can be trusted you need to improve your site and its digital presence.

Understand How Users Are Interacting with It

Google analytics or other tracking tools can be incredibly useful in determining where the problem areas of your website are. A high bounce rate indicates that your homepage or perhaps your PPC marketing strategy are in some way failing. A less than impressive home page can have people click off before they even see your product lists, whereas a misguided PPC strategy can have people who don’t want your site click on your ads.

Conduct an SEO Audit

Understanding how users are engaging with your site will help you address the key problem areas first, but that doesn’t mean you should ever stop there. Go through and conduct a full website or SEO audit to clean up your website, ensure there are no broken links, unnecessary redirects, or now black-listed SEO tactics on your site.

Commit to a Strong Content Strategy

Content is king because it is how customers can engage your website in more ways than just scrolling through your product or services pages. It is how you can become a true resource to your customers, and how you can attract new, organic traffic streams.

Create content that is effective and useful to your audience. Post it on your company blog but also across social media. Keep to a consistent plan, such as uploading a weekly blog post every Tuesday, for instance, and make your content interactive.

Hire an SEO Agency

Auditing your website is step one. It is essential if you want any future digital marketing tactics to work well, because if your site isn’t looking great then getting people to your site will result in nothing more than a high bounce rate. If your site needs a huge overhaul, however, it is wise to hire an Austin SEO agency like Creatif Digital that can help improve your site’s design, SEO, and then work with you to bring more organic traffic to your site through search rankings and PPC marketing.

Your website needs to be perfect, because if there is any hitch in its performance, you can turn away a potential customer in a second. Go through and remove any problem areas, improve it with SEO and content in mind, and know your limits. If you don’t have the resources or skill needed to do this, hire a company who can make these improvements for you.

Simple SEO Strategies for Growing Your Business

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There is definitely no doubt about the fact that every business needs a thought-out SEO strategy, so the only question about it is whether you are willing to spend time or money on it? Speaking from personal experience, the latter option usually proves itself more beneficial than the first one, mostly due to the fact that not all of us are marketing gurus.

On the other hand, even if you are a marketing genius – and especially if you are, you already know that SEO can be quite time-consuming, which makes hiring someone to handle it for you all the more compelling!

However, whether you choose to take up SEO on yourself or you decide to a white label digital marketing agency to do it for you, you should still learn more about some of these simple SEO strategies that will help you grow your business!

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | SEO | Search Engine Optimization
 
That is why we prepared some tips regarding the whole process of search engine optimization, both what to and what not to do in order to grow your business!

Your vision of SEO

The first important thing regarding SEO is how you see it. What this means is that thinking of SEO as a tactic is a mistake most beginners tend to make, because the truth is quite different. SEO is actually more of a strategy that you have to plan out long before you take it up. So, it will take a lot more than just a few weeks to get your business to the top of Google.

Additionally, a lot of people tend to think that SEO is essentially a combination of titles and meta descriptions. Whatsmore, you have to understand that SEO “trends” tend to change from one year to another.

A few years back, search engine optimization was almost synonymous to keywords. Had you asked an SEO expert to give you some tips on the subject in 2014, they would have probably told you that your keyword density is something that will either make you or break you. However, as of 2018, this trend has changed.

Startups such as Yelp and Airbnb made sure to understand that these changes occur all the time, and to have a concrete strategy to drive their traffic through search and this is what brought their success about!

Now, lots of people tend to think that they can take up this task on their own. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to be an expert on the subject in order to create a good SEO strategy, but merely doing some reading and trying to implement what you read into the strategy just isn’t going to cut it.

Knowing what your audience wants is of extreme importance!

At the end of the day, your audience is the most important variable in this equation. This is why you have to get to know your target audience and walk a mile in their shoes. What is it that they need? How will your product/service help them further on? Is there something that your competition can offer them that you can’t?

As you already know, 71 percent of consumers tend to discover new products/services through a search engine, and this search influences about 75 percent of total purchases.

Now, although keywords are not as important as they used to be, they still play a part in the whole process that is SEO. You will still have to do a proper keyword research that will help you in creating valuable content that your audience will appreciate, and that will encourage them to become one of your consumers!

Focus on your links’ quality, not quantity!

A few years back, Google’s algorithm was quite favorable of sites with lots of links, and it wasn’t all that important whether those links were valid and actually useful, content-wise. However, times have changed! Links are still as important as the used to be, but the focus has shifted from their quantity to their quality. The only thing you can do now regarding your links is to look for those that will be engaging and valuable to your audience!

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | SEO | Search Engine Optimization
 
Other things that you have to focus on as well are – your website’s structure (get it as organized and informative as you can!), your social media platforms, and mobile users! All three are of extreme importance for growing your business and are something you cannot succeed without.

Using these simple strategies, you can take your business from being one of the countless startups to becoming a household name, you just have to play your cards right! However, if you would rather play it safe and hire a great digital marketing agency to do this (and more!) for you, visit White Light Digital Marketing for more information!

Here’s Why Your SEO Strategy Isn’t Working

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Here’s Why Your SEO Strategy Isn’t Working

In modern business, there is one thing that can either make or break your business: marketing. More specifically, digital marketing.

If you don’t get it right – and a lot of businesses simply don’t – it can mean the loss of profit, poor brand exposure and ultimately stilted business growth. As simply put, people are more and more interested in what a business is doing online in the modern age. So failing to put forward an effective digital footprint can be a real hindrance to your business efforts.

At the top of these failures tends to be a business’s approach to SEO. They understand that good SEO can push their business website forward, but don’t particularly have the right approach to make it work and actually gain the benefit that SEO presents. It’s a big issue and one you want to prevent from Day One of your digital marketing exploits – or at least very early in your campaigns.

So, if you are frustrated with the SEO aspect of your digital marketing then here are some sure-fire ways you’re going wrong. And, more importantly, how to fix them!

Outdated Tactics

The best practice when it comes to SEO changes every day. Largely because Google will cotton on to a new technique, view it as ‘spammy’, and update their algorithms accordingly. Some of these tactics may even be considered to be Black Hat SEO. Take the recent August update, for example. It saw a big problem that many people were exploiting – long, advice based, content that may or may not has been actually helpful – and made it more sustainable. Ostensibly, to better both user experience and help legitimate advice sites prosper.

For this reason, it is very important to keep on track of Google’s and other search engines guidelines. Be aware of the different tactics and what may be considered ‘spammy’. Otherwise, you may find that your site faces punishment as a result of not actually following the right rules.

On the whole, SEO tactics vary from person to person. Some people swear by link building, others value content and even more think the technical side is where the future of SEO is heading. Test out what you think might work, but then don’t be afraid to change tactics if something isn’t working for you.

Technically Incompetent Website

Yes, the quality and ‘technical’ backdrop of your website actually have a big impact on your SEO and subsequent rankings. If you have a website that isn’t particularly good, has thin or weak, or poor user engagement then it simply won’t help to convert for your business. In fact, you could even find it more of a money drain and hindrance than anything else.

If your website is poor, then you’re going to struggle both in terms of ranking and conversions when users actually do go on site. Also, bad sites simply turn off users; so, having the right level of ‘polish’ to a site is simply necessary. Otherwise, you will find your site filtered out by the masses who simply expect better from their online experience.

Misunderstanding Data

A lot of SEO is incredibly data-driven. You have to understand the traffic your site is gaining, what this means about your acquisitions channels and ultimately how to generate more. All from a few numbers and line graphs that Google Analytics presents.

It’s easy to see all of the data presented by Google Analytics or other sites, then feel disheartened or as if your efforts aren’t quite there. However, it’s not necessarily about the data. It’s much more about your interpretation thereof. Interpret right and you could end up generating thousands of more users, better conversions and overall have a better website. Whereas interpret it wrong and it will simply sit there with very little views and traffic.

If you’re confused about analytics, there are plenty of resources to help you become a Google Analytics expert.

Terrible Keyword Targeting

You understand keywords. Which means that you know how to research them, implement them on your site and the supposed results that this should bring. However, it simply doesn’t. Your rankings remain a flop, even with the ‘right’ implementation of keywords. Chances are you have really miscalculated your keyword targeting.

This miscalculation can come from a number of different issues. Targeting keywords with too much search volume, targeting those with too little and sometimes you may target the wrong keyword altogether. It really is a mixed bag of reasons on a good day.

Try changing your tactics. Pick two targets; one long-term and one short-term. From there, you can decide whether your strategy is working in the short term, then make adjustments to ensure it continues or begins to do so in the long term. Thus, hopefully, removing the issue of wasted time potentially.

Impatience

One of the worst things, in terms of your SEO campaigns, can be a level of impatience on your part. By no means is SEO a get rich fast tactic. In fact, when done right SEO is a slowly building organic process and gradually improves over a long period of time (though this differs from business to business, good SEO can take up to a year or more). It’s all about sustainability and not appearing ‘unnatural’.

This level of impatience is why many clients and marketing agencies fall out, as the client is often impatient for quick results. Some of these situations even lead to the involvement of mediation solicitors. However, this is unfair in many cases as SEO is a slow method for achieving great results.

For that reason, even when your SEO strategy doesn’t seem to be working the best thing to do is to not panic. Simply look at what you’re actually doing and look to adjust. Make beneficial, smart, changes and you can easily find a strategy that does actually work for your website and business.

Three SEO Considerations When Choosing Your Next Hosting Company

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Let’s start with a couple of statements about hosting. True: hosting companies do not generally affect your organic ranking. False: hosting companies have no bearing on your SEO.

Many business owners aren’t aware that cost and convenience aren’t the only consideration to make when opting for a new hosting company. While these two points are valid and extremely important to growing organisations, what can’t be underestimated is the impact on website SEO that the correct – or incorrect – provider can bring to your site.

Whether your company is trampling the competition, or you’re looking for ways to save money while maintaining a great service, there are many reasons why you may wish to switch your hosting company.

For some businesses, loyalty means ease and convenience – and that works for them, but it’s not always the best option. For one thing, you could end up improving your services dramatically – and at no extra cost. Some brands may even find their hosting costs reduce when they switch, because plenty of operators are looking for new business and offer attractive incentives to the right customers.

So what should you look out for in a service provider? And what could the pitfalls be? Read on to find out the three major considerations you should make before making the commitment to change your hosting company this year.

Speed

Site speed is a huge ranking factor – and it may well be the case that you are considering a hosting move in order to create a more rapid site with better performance. Ranking improvements are definitely seen when a website greatly increases its speed and useability – and that’s simply due to the fact that Google loves to see websites that are slick and ready for customers to use as soon as they click.

Of course, there are ways you can control some of the factors that slow websites down, such as the content, coding and application of imagery and widgets, but a lot of the blame can often be portioned off to your host. So, you can rest easy that you’ve done nothing at all wrong.

The speed of your website can fluctuate normally, so the best and most accurate way to measure your current site speed is to take a look at it, as often as you can, to observe any changes or stalling points that concern you.

Once you’ve double-checked your site’s speed and you still feel it could benefit from being faster, start shopping around to see if your host (or a competitor) can offer you a better service.

The best results for a speedy website will come from migrating a website to a server that’s closer to you and your customer base. This doesn’t necessarily mean in the same town, but swapping a stateside server for one in the UK (if you’re based in England) could make a huge difference. Other host-related factors you can look into are the availability of a Content Delivery Network (CDN), or simply the type of hard drive technology used. It may also be worth asking if the server you’re being linked to is optimised to your content management system – such as WordPress or DNN.

Security

The safety of your site is a huge consideration, and should be taken seriously from initial build to the development of further mini-sites, as and when your business grows. SEO can take a huge hit if your website ranks low on the secure rating, and can end up being hugely damaging if left to deteriorate.

If your website isn’t deterring hackers, they can easily create spam pages and generate fake backlinks that can swoop underneath the radar for months. Google hates this sort of activity as it can be damaging to users’ experience, and so guess what? It penalises without mercy. Poor security can be fixed manually, but often this takes time and the harsh penalties may already have taken effect.

If your website is not hosted on a truly secure server, your site may also be open to malware attacks, infecting your website and putting your visitors at risk. Not only is this a huge inconvenience to your visitors, it also opens you up to having a security warning shown by your results – a huge turn-off for potential customers – or even being blacklisted by search engines completely. And no one wants this for their website; trust us!

To avoid any of these potential headaches and heartbreaks, make sure you talk through the security options available with your web host and request information and costs for any malware removal support, and other hacker defenses they offer to protect your website from attacks.  Entrepreneur.com also suggests requesting information about data encryption, to ensure your information is being held and shared securely and CloudLiving.com recommends five additional steps to secure your website.

Technical Support

There will come a time that you will need the professional support of a web hosting specialist. Don’t get stung with a huge bill when you really need the help; make sure you’re prepared from the start with a package that includes support right from the off.

Web hosting comes with a variety of potential pitfalls and even if this isn’t your first time at the start of a big project like moving servers, there are many ways in which small things can be overlooked. And small issues will no doubt lead to bigger issues further down the line. The best advice – as with most things – is to seek out a professional’s opinion wherever you can. Or even better, seek more than one opinion to make sure the advice you’re getting is sound and relevant to your particular needs.

Should your website go down – heaven forbid – you need to know that the support is there to get you back up and running quickly and with minimum upheaval or stress. Make sure your web hosting company offers 24/7 technical support to get those issues fixed quickly and have your website back on track in as little time as possible.

To give yourself even more peace of mind, delve into the experience and qualifications of the staff you’ll be working with whenever you contact your web host. Will you have a specific team assigned to your website? Do you know their names and their credentials? All of these things will help you to gain a better relationship with the people who can fix any of your issues quickly and will give you a better idea of the expertise you are paying for, too.

Sometimes you get what you pay for. Often with web hosting, you’ll be better off paying more for a better service if it means keeping your SEO ranking high, your customers safe and your website up and running efficiently and quickly.

Driving Traffic To Your Ecommerce Site

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When you have a physical store gaining footfall is a huge influence on your advertising and how you design your store. And all of that is still valid with an ecommerce site. The only differences lie in the fact that you aren’t aiming to grab the attention of someone walking by, but to target your audience when they are browsing the internet – whether or not they are searching for you. An ecommerce site has so many advantages, as does a physical store, but it gives you the ability to reach so many more people than a fixed location does. You just have to know how to go about getting that attention in the right way. The saying ‘any press is good press’ is 100% wrong; you need to strive to have a good reputation while using the right tools and software to attract and retain your customers.

Design

The first thing to consider is the base of your operations; your website. An ecommerce site doesn’t need to be overly complicated. In fact, you can easily start one with a DIY web building platform. But making sure that it can be easily navigated by anyone is key. Keep things simple and uncluttered, with drop menus and different categories clearly found and all key contact information on both a contact page and at the bottom of each page. And make sure that you stay true to your style – if you are selling custom skateboards you need to stick to the cultural designs surrounding that to attract your main audience base.

Research

Do the research before and after you have launched your ecommerce site. You need to know who is searching for what you’re selling, what demographics are visiting your page and who is sticking around long enough to buy something. Look at Google Analytics to get you started, and look into applying applications and advice from Veon Consulting to increase your ecommerce statistics. The right software and tools are key here, and never think that doing the job once means completing the task.

SEO

Search Engine Optimisation are key words and phrases that increase your standing on a search engine results page. Use them well by wisely – Google do block pages that appear to dump a lot of phrases together in the hope of being first on that list. Keep it relevant- use Google AdWords to figure out the right phrases for you and check in regularly. As trends change as will the most commonly searched phrases. Integrating SEO phrases comes naturally to a content writer, so maybe you should look into hiring one for your web content, or you can give it a go yourself.

Deals

Just like a giant SALE banner in a window catches the eye, does a good deal encourage clicking. Use social media to advertise any deals or promotions you have going on. You can use cookies to target the right audience, but it can also help to interest people who otherwise wouldn’t think about visiting your ecommerce store.