Why is Page Load Speed Important For SEO?

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Google uses a variety of factors to rank search engine results. Normally, these factors are related to the site’s content or were measurements of the eligibility of the website. In 2010, Google surprised everyone by announcing that website speed will be a factor in search ranking.

Sadly, “site speed” is still defined mysteriously. Speculations of its exact definition became wider when Google’s Matt Cutts announced that mobile sites with slow performance would receive a penalty in search rankings. Clearly, it means that poor performing sites will be less promoted in search results as they often have poor user experiences.

What Is Page Speed Exactly?

Page speed can refer to page load time or the time it takes to fully show the content on a particular page. It can also be described as “time to first byte” or the time it takes for the first byte of information to enter your browser from the web server. Regardless of its measurement, a faster page is always preferred because it means better rank and conversion.

Page Speed As A Ranking Factor

With the rise of mobile users, it becomes crucial to focus on mobile sites if you want to compete with the big boys. One way to get a good ranking for your mobile site is page speed. While page speed is significant for your SEO, it’s even more significant for your user experience, conversion, and total customer satisfaction.

The average time it takes to load a mobile landing page is 22 seconds. Now imagine reducing it to three seconds. You’ll surely get the attention of more customers, including the impatient ones.

Rather than a ranking factor, page speed is considered more of an indicator at present. You can still receive decent rankings with average page speeds unless your mobile site is really very slow. But it has been proven that you’ll get better results with faster site speed.

How To Improve Page Load Speed

Everyone adores a fast site. Do everything in your power to improve the page load speed of your site. You can look at the size of your if its bloated and try to optimize images. Here are other ways you can increase the loading speed of your site.

Implement AMP

Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Project is a great tool to create mobile-friendly content and have it load quickly on all devices. This speed boost is not hard to implement so you can activate it on your pages.

Utilize HTTP2

Another way to optimize the performance of your site is to use HTTP2. Under this new protocol, a new request for every file is no longer needed. This speeds up the loading page and will benefit your users massively.

Enhance Server Response Time

Improve your server response time by fixing any performance bottlenecks. Such bottlenecks include slow database queries, insufficient memory, and slow routing. Ideally, the server response time should be less than 200ms.

Can’t action these strategies yourself? Don’t worry, we’re here to help. Reach out to day if you need help making your site quicker.

Our SEO Predictions For 2018

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The SEO landscape is constantly changing, and marketers have to adapt to this change if they want to stay ahead of the competition. Major Google updates have made some crafty SEO practices outdated. This makes it important that you know the recent trends so you can ensure that your website is still visible in search engine results.

Here are the top SEO predictions that you can expect in 2018.

The Knowledge Graph Will Rule

The return of the Google knowledge vault from Google and the Semantic Web will create more compelling featured snippets and structured snippets. People are going to advertise in knowledge graphs where entities and actions are the main focus of the campaign. The rise of knowledge graphs will offer better and more consistent answers to users.

Image And Video Search Will Greatly Improve

Little by little, online interactions have become more visual. Visual online interactions will surge in 2018 as internet speeds become faster, social media platforms become more visual-friendly, and more people prefer more images and videos. By this trend, search engines (like Google) will treat images and videos differently.

The Rise Of Voice Search

In 2017, the sales of smart speakers have grown rapidly and are predicted to still grow in 2018 as newer models begin to roll out. With the popularity of smart speakers, voice search is predicted to rise this year where you can interact with search engine results with your voice alone. This could extremely change the form of queries we see online.

Less Traffic For Most Websites

Expect clickthrough rates to decline as featured snippets and other SERP features are overhauled. This won’t be as bad as the decline in organic reach and Facebook’s CTR over the past years, but it will be the same. Twitter and LinkedIn are more likely to decrease the amount of traffic they refer out to other sites in 2018.

WordPress Will Keep On Dominating

WordPress has dominated each other CMS in the market among most famous few million sites on it. In 2018, expect WordPress to increase their lead as they get more aggressive about growing their investment and no suitable alternative has yet appeared. A 25% to 35% growth rate might be expected as more people move to WordPress for its flexibility and security options.

More Individualized Customization

The personalization of search results will likely rise further in 2018 due to the popularity of smart speakers, the ease of search, and greater technological style. This individual customization might make harder to predict how your company will rank or how rankings are calculated.

Maximized Quality Of Content

The customer journey is more significant so it’s predicted that most sites will use anything to maximize the quality of their content. They might achieve this by using content analytics, user metrics, and heat maps. They won’t rely on Google alone but use 10-30 touchpoints for every business.

SEO will still be vital in 2018 as SEOs know the whole journey on how to drive sales. Need someone to hold your hand on the journey? Our team are here to help.

Inbound Marketing Vs. Outbound Marketing: Which is Better?

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In the marketing world, the debate between inbound marketing and outbound marketing is still ongoing. Both sides both have their ups and downs.

However, for someone who is not yet familiar with these two, deciding on what to prefer could be challenging. But there is no need to fret if you are caught in this dilemma. We have written down below a simple guide in understanding the two, which will ultimately help you choose.

What is Inbound Marketing?

Let us begin by defining the two terms.

Inbound marketing is a new marketing approach that attempts to entice potential customers with interesting content. In here, you can safely call on content marketing as part of it. Some examples are the following:

  • Blog posts
  • Social media
  • Infographics
  • Whitepapers
  • Email newsletters

Simply put, inbound marketing aims at the modern buyer who, on average, do 70% of their own research about a product before buying or contacting the company. It is, therefore, letting your product be naturally discovered when customers are looking, not forcing them even if they are not interested. It follows the Buyers’ Journey, which is a natural process a modern buyer goes through when searching online for a solution.

What is Outbound Marketing?

On the other hand, outbound marketing is a more traditional marketing approach. It is basically just another term for “traditional advertising methods”. Therefore, you can expect to see the following:

  • Television and radio advertising
  • Print advertising
  • Telemarketing
  • Direct mail
  • Outdoor advertising
  • Cold calling

As you may have noticed, outbound marketing is an interruptive kind of marketing. It tends to push itself to the audience no matter if the audience wants it or not. The aim of outbound marketing is trying to reach as many people as possible. Instead of people to naturally come to the business, it goes and presents itself to them.

The rise of the Internet has obviously lessened the impact of outbound marketing.

Which of the Two is Better?

The question begs to find which between inbound and outbound marketing is better. The answer to this may sound disappointing. But we are going to say it anyway: it depends.

Both marketing approach has its own advantages and disadvantages. This also greatly depends on the situation and environment of the marketer. And it would be unfair to cancel one out for the other.

So to give both their credits, let us learn both of their strengths

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is best because it provides value to your prospects. It is educational and often non-promotional. Inbound marketing is best in how it respects the Buyer’s Journey.

Therefore, if you aim to make a good impression on potential customers, then inbound marketing is the one for you.

Outbound Marketing

For outbound marketing, the good thing about it is that it has the ability to promote the business to a large number of people quickly. It definitely could gain the business its much-wanted visibility.

However, marketers have to be cautious not to overwhelm and turn people off. Also, outbound marketing could ask you to spend more.

For many small businesses, we recommend starting off with an inbound marketing approach as it is cheaper and tends to be more effective in the long run. To find out how our strategies can help your business, get in touch today.

How To Optimize Your GMB Listing

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Claiming and verifying your local business’ Google My Business (GMB) listing is a vital step in any local SEO strategy if you want to achieve digital marketing success. Generally, GMB can help your local business create a public identity and presence on Google. You can increase your prospects of appearing in Google’s Local Pack, Local Finder, and Google Maps when you get on Google My Business.

What many local businesses don’t realize is that there are a lot of things you can do to optimize your own Google My Business listing. Some basic but essential tips to optimize your listing:

Enter Complete And Accurate Information

Local search results prefer the most relevant results or searches. Local businesses that provide the most thorough and precise data are also simpler to serve in search. So when you want to optimize your GMB listing, don’t leave anything to be speculated: create a listing that tells your prospects about your business’ operation, location, and product offerings.

The local number that you listed should match to the number shown on the landing page that you link. It’s also important to utilize the actual business name and select the right categories as well. Rather than using general terms, like “Groceries”, select a specific category, like “Fresh grocery store”.

Incorporate Keywords

Google utilizes a lot of signals to serve search results just like the conventional website SEO. Since your business site is listed directly within your GMB listing it’s very helpful that you incorporate relevant keywords and search phrases to your business listing.

Always Update Your Business Operating Hours

It’s very important that you keep your business operating hours precise. Whenever there are any changes at the operating hours, don’t forget to update. During holidays and special events, Google allows you to customize the hours so you can keep your accurate and your customers satisfied.

Add Images

Images can boost the performance of your business listing more than you probably expect. According to Google, businesses tend to receive 42% more requests for driving directions on Google Maps and 35% more click-throughs to their websites when they post images on their listings.

The images that you may include in your business listing are a business logo, a cover photo that shows your brand’s personality, and images to highlight your business features. Also, consider using higher resolution images for a better appeal.

Interact With Your Customers

Communicate with your customers by responding to their reviews. This may show that you value your customers as well as their feedback. Positive reviews will bring a good reputation of your business to potential customers and increase your business’ presence in search results. You can ask your customers to give feedback by making a  link.

You can also manage the Q&A feature. As suggested by its name, Q&A allows visitors to ask questions and you can answer them too. However, this feature isn’t shown in the mobile GMP app. You can’t monitor the questions unless you have an Android phone.

If you need help optimizing your Google My Business Listing, get in touch today for a free consultation.

How To Optimize Your Blog Posts For Search Engines

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Search engine optimization (SEO) is incredibly important for marketers. When you optimize your blog posts, you’re making them more visible to people who are searching for keywords related to your product or service. But do you know how to optimize your blog posts?

Here are some easy SEO strategies to help you make your blog posts more search engine friendly.

Keyword Research

In every content strategy, you need to find keywords for on-page optimization. There are actually tools that can help you find keywords related to your topic which include Google Adwords Keyword Tool and semrush.com. Both of these tools can also spy on your competition to determine what words and phrases they’re using to bring traffic to their sites.

Optimizing your blog posts isn’t about using as many keywords as you can. Try to use 1-2 long tail keywords to help you get focused on your goal for your post.

Use The Keywords Throughout Your Post

Once you have determined a couple of keywords relevant to your blog post, you need to use them quite often in your content. That way, Google will realize that your content is about that particular keyword. Try to include the keywords in particular parts of your post, such as title, introduction, headers and body, URL, concluding paragraph, and meta descriptions.

A word of caution: Don’t overdo it because your blog post will be hard to read and you’ll get penalized by Google. A keyword density of 2% is ideal.

Optimize Your Images

Your blog post shouldn’t only contain text but it should also include pictures that will help elaborate your content. Each time you upload an image, make sure to incorporate keywords in the file name.

Don’t forget to fill out the alternate text field with a short, keyword rich description of the image. Adding keywords to your alternate text field may seem minor but it’s worth the extra time to change the name “IMG23456” to something more precise, like “cats-sleeping-in-basket:”

Link Your References

If you want your site to receive a high ranking in search engine results pages, use quality links. Always include a link to the information you’re referencing when you cite another article in your blog post. Not only is it good blogging decorum, but your blog post may receive a link back.

Call To Action

Give your readers the opportunity to subscribe to your posts via email whenever possible. This instantly notifies your blog followers of any new content without to constantly check your site.

Make Your Blog Mobile-Friendly

Many people are now using their mobile phones to use search. That’s why Google tries to adapt to this new trend by showing mobile-friendly results first. If you’ve been trying to improve your mobile experience, you’d better do it now, or your search rankings could falter.

Make your website responsive so you can only use one URL instead of two. Cut back on heavy text and slow-loading flash animations.

Looking for more help with your blogging? Our team are experts at content creation and can help boost the SEO-effectiveness of your content. Get in touch today for a free consultation.

How To Come Up With Blog Post Ideas Whenever You Want

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If you write content on a regular basis, then chances are you have experienced having a writer’s block where you just run out of ideas to write. We’ve all been there. It can sometimes be unnerving to write fresh content because you don’t know how the people will react to it.

To combat this problem, here are few tested techniques you can do to come up with blog post ideas.

Keep A File Of Ideas

Sometimes you can’t predict when a blog post idea will hit you. A simple walk in the park might inspire you to write about gardening. To prepare for this sudden surge of creativity, keep a notebook and write it so you won’t forget.

You can transfer the contents of your notebook on a document or a spreadsheet. Keep this file with all the list of your blog post ideas in a place where you can access it easily, like Google Drive or Dropbox. When the time comes that you run out of blog post ideas, then refer to your file and choose any topic you want.

Ask Your Customers

Your customers can give you an idea of what to write on your blog. Ask them what they need help with and write a solution. It’s that simple.

You can gather blog post ideas by listening to your audience talk and reading your own comments section. You can also directly ask them on social media and in emails.

Stretch On Your Blockbuster Content

Check your analytics history and determine what your most popular posts are. These are called your blockbusters. Next, think about how you can expand the topic. You can write more detailed steps or simply do a follow-up.

You can also refresh the content in your post with an improved version. Just remember to edit the old post to incorporate a link at the end.

Look At Your Competition

Another way to get an inspiration on what to write is to look at your competition. You should know all of your competitors on social media and check their blogs to see what they’ve been posting. If you have the luxury of time, get deeper and cross-reference your topics with theirs.

Find out if there any popular topics they’ve posted that you didn’t do on your own blog. The idea here is not to copy your competition but to get inspiration for their work. If you’re friends with any of your competitors, you can brainstorm a topic or collaborate a blog post together.

Exercise Your Idea Muscle

Now, coming up ideas is like a muscle that needs training. Your muscle becomes stronger when you use it more often. Come up with blog posts every day and you’ll soon begin to realize that it becomes a habit.

You’ll get a lot of ideas in each situation you are in. Answer a question asked of you. Think out of the box when you at a meeting. If you need money, come with great ideas to earn them.

If you want help creating killer content for your site, our team are on-hand to blog for you. Get in touch today to find out more.

Five Best Practices For SMB Web Design

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If you have no dedicated website for your small business, then you’re more likely to lose business to the competition. It’s not enough to rely on social media alone because it doesn’t engage and connect with your customers more effectively than a dedicated site does. Ultimately, a dedicated website will help your customers know more about your business’s products and services.

In this article, we’ll help you create an incredible website design for your small and midsize business (SMB). Here are our five best practices for web design in 2017.

Keep It Simple And Unique

A simple, easy to navigate website is going to turn more prospects into customers. People prefer accessibility and clarity over flashy design features. For example, sliders don’t work effectively because they restrict load time and aren’t mobile friendly.

Also, make sure you make a unique impression on your website. Avoid using off-the-shelf templates because they make your website look similar to thousands of other sites online. Focus on your homepage and don’t overload it with too much text and pictures.

Be Mobile Friendly

A great number of users are now using mobile phones to access sites. For this reason, your website should be mobile friendly to adapt to this new trend. Load time is significant so make sure that you don’t use more complicated features, like flash animation.

Your website design should adapt not only to mobile phones but to all variety of devices. This offers optimal user experience and improves SEO ranking as more users access your site.

Exhibit Your Products And Services

Your aim in making a website is to sell your product or service to potential and existing customers. What better way to do it than to emphasize the good qualities of your product or service on your homepage. You only have a few seconds to create a good first impression so you better make it short and sweet.

Post clean and crisp photos of your product. If your product is web-based, consider embedding pictures of computers or phones to help users anticipate their engagement. Again, don’t go overboard in posting too many photos or graphics because it will affect the loading time.

Lead Acquisition

Your website should use relevant lead acquisition forms. The forms should be attractive and not overly cluttered to make the process of sharing information neater and simpler. Always ask the proper questions to help isolate the spam submissions and qualify leads.

Proper attention to web form design can lead to better lead scoring, hence better sales opportunities. Of course, you should use an effective lead management system to track the development of your acquired leads.

Call To Action

Now, don’t be shy to put incessant calls-to-action to guide users to a data capture form or an offer. Edit the language and position of the buttons on your website. Install a tracking code so you can measure the engagement and effectiveness of your calls-to-action.

If you’re looking for a new website in 2018, we’re here to help. Get in touch today for a free consultation.

The Five Most Common Web Design Problems

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With the recent popularity of mobile browsing and trendy design options like parallax scrolling, many websites have received upgrades over the past couple of years. It also caused a lot of web design problems that keep the brands from connecting with their consumers. From weak content to poor user experience, outdated homepages, and limitless mistakes, there are five most common web design problems that you should know.

Your Site Doesn’t Work On All Devices

With the surge of smartphones and tablets, it’s important that your site is designed to display properly on these devices. However, only a few websites have taken heed of this call. Your visitors are more likely to find a better site if they have to constantly pinch and stretch to read your content.

You need to make your site responsive to all mobile devices because it can generate more leads and Google penalizes poor performing sites. To make your website seamlessly work on all devices, make a responsive web design that responds to the device and size of your screen.

Using A Free Website Builder

A lot of companies offer templates for website building. Yes, they’re convenient but the problem is they can make the site load slower because of too many lines of code. This can lead to serious performance issues over time.

If you have no budget to create your own website design, you can buy a premium theme that offers the look and style that you want. You can ask the service of some talented developers on online job sites.

Outdated Design

If you’ve got a header, several sidebars, and a large lump of information moving down the center, then your site is pretty much outdated. Time to update with the recent design thinking. Lately, the best sites disintegrate content into smaller, comprehensible bits.

Using an outdated website design may hurt your reputation because people might assume that your business must be slow that’s why you haven’t touched your site in decades. This could also make your products or services look questionable and make your competition look great.

Designing For The Wrong Purposes

Always start by determining your target audience and customize your website design and content according to their needs. You may want a modern looking site or follow the design of another site, but if you fail to recognize your target audience needs and wants, then you can fail tragically.

No User Engagement

User engagement is vital to the success of your website and social Web apps. It can help build loyal customers by answering queries and fixing problems. Not only that, getting in touch with your customers and visitors means you care for them.

However, a lot of websites still don’t provide visitors an easy channel for communicating with the company. Many websites don’t even provide an email address, only an automated FAQ. If you’re afraid that putting your email address will attract spam, use contact forms.

If you think your website design isn’t working, get in touch with us today for a free consultation on how we can improve it!

4 Must-Haves For Your Landing Page

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A landing page is a vital must-have for any website because it offers a targeted platform for turning higher rates of visitors into leads. In fact, landing pages have an average conversion rate of 5-15%, higher than focusing on your website’s homepage. While landing pages work better than main site pages, they can do much better if they contain these four elements.

Captivating Headlines

Your visitors will first see and read the headline of your landing page. So it’s only practical that you make a compelling headline that will affect them immediately.

Take Basecamp for example. The web application company post an image of a real customer and turn the headline into a quote that enumerated benefits that a customer can receive. The outcome was a great increase in the conversion rate by more than 100%.

To make killer headlines, make sure that you connect with the wants and issues of your visitors. Encourage your visitors to act urgently by offering a deadline or useful offers. Don’t forget to use words that will trigger the emotion of your users.

Convincing Subheadline

If the headline grabs the attention of users, the subheadline should make them linger. A subhead is a component of the one-two punch of a landing page’s ability. It should be convincing to lure your visitors to stay on the page.

You create the subheadline by pushing the concept of the headline a little bit further. Typically, the convincing subheadline is placed directly underneath the main headline. It can go slightly deeper and more detailed than the main headline.

Pictures And/Or Videos

The brain can process images way faster than text. A user will be impacted by the pictures on your landing page instantly. To give an impact, use large pictures.

The pictures should be related to your goods or service. If you’re selling a desktop, it’s necessary that your landing page contains a picture of a desktop. Use high-resolution pictures for a great visual appeal.

You can also use videos to tell your story. According to EyeView Digital, landing pages with videos can increase their conversion rate by 80%. Also, users tend to remember the messages in the videos.

When putting a video on your landing page, use a tempting thumbnail to captivate your audience. Place your video above the fold and keep it sufficiently meaty to be interesting.

Value Proposition

The value proposition is a feature meant to make a product or company appealing to customers. It basically answers the question, “What’s in it for the users?”

The best way to present your value proposition is to make a list of benefits. You can use a simple bullet point to list the benefits of a product or service. Benefits should be clearly directed on the user, not the company.

Think of how the user will benefit your product or service. Let’s say your selling makeup. Instead of saying “We have natural-based foundation”, say “Your face will be blemish-free.”

Need help with landing pages? Our team can help you create killer landing pages that convert customers. To find out more get in touch today.

3 Reasons To Redesign Your Website

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Nowadays, your users get the first impression of your business based on your website – that’s why it’s important that you redesign your website properly. You don’t need to change every detail. In fact, redesigns can be any functional modifications that will help make your website more accessible, nice-looking, and responsive.

While you may find some good reasons not to enhance your site, here are three reasons why you should begin redesigning your site.

Your Website Is Outdated

An old-looking site is perhaps the main reason why companies undergo a redesign process. I’ve seen many websites that look like they were made decades ago. Even ordinary people without any web design experience can tell that they’re old-fashioned.

An outdated website can hurt your business, especially if you face a lot of competitors in the market. Prospective and existing customers are more likely to switch to another company with a modern website because it assures that the company is on top of modern technologies.

For all you know, your embedded third-party tools are also outdated. This affects your website’s functionality. It’s time to update your third-party tools if they’re no longer working and slowing your site speed. Nothing discourages customers more than outdated third-party tools so make sure that you make an update when new versions are available.

Your Site Is Not Responsive And Doesn’t Work On All Devices

If a page on your website loads in more than two seconds, then it’s time to redesign. Most consumers expect a site to load in less than two seconds. More than two seconds, and you’ll surely miss out on leads and sales. Test your site speed on all devices and find areas to improve.

The rise of mobile devices also affects the responsiveness of a site. If your consumers can’t access your site on all mobile devices, then you’ll probably lose them to a competitor with a very responsive website. Mobile users have emphasized that they want a great user experience on their devices so this should be the main priority of your company.

Your Website Isn’t Giving The Results You Want

Your website may look beautiful and functional but if it’s not giving the results you want, then it’s useless. The main function of your website should be to increase sales and build your customer base. Examine the conversion rates of your website to get an idea of what needs to be modified.

Here are a few things you can ask to assist you in the redesign process:

  • Does your call-to-action turn visitors into consumers and leads?
  • Do your landing pages motivate users to know more about your product or service?
  • Is your website loaded with too much text or riddled with jargon?
  • Does your site speak directly to your target customers?

If you answer “no”, to any of these questions, then it’s time to get your redesign plans started. Get in contact now for a free consultation