The world of websites is a minefield so watch where you put your feet!
Google is a fickle creature, what it loves one week it hates the next, so it’s important to keep on top of its likes and dislikes. The current trends that make Google happy are easily attainable, it’s all about keeping things fresh and interesting. Regular updates show Google that your website is still in use and maintained, but what you say needs to be relevant and useful to the visitor. The more you update it, the more often Google will index your site, so make sure the information you provide gives value to your visitors. Having a blog is a great way to keep things fresh and new, and continue adding articles that invite viewers to comment and interact, and even share! Guest bloggers give valuable links, so consider approaching others in your field to write for you.
Meta descriptions need to say exactly what your business is, pictures need written tags as Google can’t “read” images, and page links need to work. “Page not found” is really annoying, and stops the Google-bots from doing their job, which is to work out what your website is all about.
Make sure your website loads quickly too, frustration will take people elsewhere, and it goes without saying that your website needs to be responsive as over half of all internet searches are done on mobile devices. This is helped by the increase in 4G coverage. Smartphone users spent almost twice as long online as laptop users, though 50% will abandon a webpage if it takes longer than 10 seconds to load.
Social media links are essential in engaging your target market; although they may not directly affect your rankings it counts as a link and gives credibility to your site. Social profiles are often shown in searches, increasing your visibility across the web.
If all this sounds a bit daunting, we can help! Here at Holler Marketing we offer SEO, marketing and social media campaign management to ensure your website is Google friendly as well as visitor friendly!
Some great advice here for search engine optimisation, so in theory some of the things I should be doing to help my new website along would be optimising something like, watch my Pontefract Castle Documentary ? Using both keywords in the link and title attribute that are relevant to the links destination. It makes sense, thank you.
Hi Colin,
Glad you found some helpful stuff here. I had a look at your website, you get around a lot! Mind you, there’s so much in this great county to see and do! If you need any more help give me a shout 🙂