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As the world becomes increasingly digital, you should always be looking for ways to improve your website.
Ways to improve your website right now include:
It’s not surprising that companies of all sizes already have some sort of online presence.
Websites, in particular, are a must-have for small businesses.
If you already have one, then you may be enjoying benefits like global reach, instant communication, and better marketing opportunities that help you reach your target audience.
However, there are some cases when websites aren’t as effective as you thought they would be.
You’re not receiving as much traffic as you expected, you’re not appearing on search engine results, or your customers are having a difficult time navigating your pages — just to name a few.
It may be time to implement some changes and make your site more optimized.
So, how do you go about it without having to spend lots of money on agency services?
Here are some ways to improve your website right now. Keep reading and apply this new knowledge to your company’s site.
If you’ve heard of Schema markup, you might be intimidated by it.
There’s a lot of technical jargon associated with it, and doing it entails tinkering with the back-end of your website. Many business owners don’t have the technical skills to do it themselves.
Others are too wary about trying it, thinking of the worst-case scenarios like messing up their entire website. But, that’s not likely to happen, and it’s much easier now to restore websites thanks to cloud servers.
Schema markup is a code you put onto your website to add context to the content for non-human readers.((https://schema.org/))
These non-human readers are search engines, like Google and Yahoo.
The search engine will then have information that it can analyze in a consistent way, allowing it to easily process and provide the content to users.
They’ll see a “rich snippet,” an enhanced description that will tell the searcher what the web page will contain before they click it.
Schema markup is immensely helpful in improving your search engine results page (SERP) ranking.
That way, your visibility is heightened, especially to your target audience.
So, how do you go about this?
Starting a blog is not about posting about a day in the life of a business owner — that’s what social media is for.
For companies, blog pages serve another purpose — several, in fact.
That’s why publishing blog articles remains a valuable part of every company’s marketing strategy.
In fact, while video is the leading format today, around 409 million people still view more than 20 billion web pages each month (source).
Written content still has a huge appeal to audiences, but blogs function as more than sources of information.
One of the biggest advantages of having blog posts is how you can organically introduce more keywords to your content.
Keywords and phrases are essential in what’s known as search engine optimization (SEO), which we’ll discuss more in a bit.
Well-written blogs will have these keywords, which are phrases that users typically type into search bars to find answers to their questions.
The more relevant keywords in your blog articles, the more people will visit your website.
That’s how you achieve increased organic traffic.
Having blog articles that talk about various aspects of your business gives your readers the impression that you’re highly knowledgeable about the field.
The more in-depth you discuss certain topics, the more authoritative you become in your industry.
That’s how you attract more customers and earn the respect of others in your field.
Backlinks are links on their websites that redirect to you.
Having long-form blog articles is one way to turn your website into a trustworthy resource for other businesses.
That way, they’ll reference your website via backlinks.
Not only do backlinks help in SEO, but they also add to your reputation as an authority in your industry.
Customers are now more meticulous than ever.
They perform in-depth research on businesses, products, and services before they finally make a purchase.
But with blogs, you can enhance your ideal client’s trust in your company.
Becoming an established authority through in-depth discussions will improve your appeal and make you one of their top choices.
Having good SERP rankings also contributes to this.
Many clients perceive the top websites on search engines as the most reputable ones, and they’re right in most cases.
If you already have a blog on your website, then the last recommendation isn’t very helpful for you.
So here’s what you can do instead: delete blog posts that aren’t adding value to your website.
It may be difficult to wrap your head around the idea of deleting blog posts, given how we just mentioned that these increase your search engine rankings and establish you as an authority in your industry.
What’s more, you also spent a lot of resources creating them in the hopes of improving your website.
While this tip may sound counterintuitive, it’s incredibly important
Cleaning up old blog posts is an important task that can help improve a website’s search engine optimization (SEO) and user experience. Here are a few steps that can be taken to clean up old blog posts:
By regularly cleaning up old blog posts, you can help improve your website’s SEO and user experience, while also ensuring that your website is providing the most relevant and up-to-date information to your visitors.
Before deleting a post, consider the potential impact on your website’s SEO, user experience, and overall performance.
It’s important to note that deleting a post should be a well-thought-out decision and not something done in haste.
There are several reasons why you may want to delete a blog post. Here are a few examples:
Old, outdated blog posts can actually hurt your website. Here’s why:
Everyone loves a freebie, and offering one can be a game-changer for your business.
At Samantha Digital, we offer a complete blog planner kit (above) as well as free professional website templates to help grow our community and connect with readers off of our website.
Here are some of the many benefits you can enjoy with this marketing approach:
Still, an item being free won’t guarantee engagement. You’ll want to create a freebie that website visitors want to download.
Here are a few steps you can take:
As we mentioned, SEO stands for search engine optimization.
It’s the process of optimizing your site for search engines such as Google.
To put it simply, having great SEO means your website will appear first in SERPs.
That’s considered prime real estate in the digital space, as websites on the first pages, get the highest engagements.
Not only that, but a good SERP ranking also helps build your reputation and make your brand recognizable.
So, how do you optimize your on-page SEO?
Check out our blog post: 12 Essential Steps To Make Your Website SEO Friendly.
Here are a few things you can do on your end as the website owner:
Keyword research is important when it comes to SEO. This is the process of finding the keyword phrases and clusters that your target customers are typing on search engines. Having these phrases in your content, whether in blog posts or website copy, will help improve your visibility. Don’t forget long-tail keywords, which are very specific phrases that customers typically use when they’re close to making a purchase.
Meta titles and descriptions are HTML elements providing a brief summary of a page. It’s very much like the rich snippets you get from Schema markup, but it’s not generated by the search engine. It’s the website owner who’ll have to include the information via their CMS or source code.
You’ll also need your CMS for this task. Alt tags are short phrases you include on a photo to give search engines context about what’s in the image. Thanks to alt tags, search engines can easily crawl and index the images, boosting your SEO in the long run
Certain keywords will experience search surges periodically, especially ones associated with a season, personality, or global event.
It’s important for you to keep track of these trends and create content related to them.
That way, when users search for these keywords on Google or Yahoo, there’s a bigger chance for your website to appear.
If you want to have an idea of how your website is performing, you can track metrics on Google Analytics. This tool evaluates various aspects of your website, including SEO.
While the results can get technical, there are a few things you’ll easily understand, like how long a visitor stays on a page and what kind of users are visiting your website.
Want to learn more about SEO? Check out our guide: SEO for Beginners.
We’ve already mentioned market research when planning the kind of freebie to offer, but this practice goes way above that.
Market research is an effective method to find ways to improve your website.
It’s what helps you stay up to date with market trends — a critical component of business success.
In most cases, market research is something you can’t do alone as the business owner.
There are many aspects that will require a lot of time and effort, which you can use for more productive business operations.
Instead, you can work with your company’s marketing team or a third-party agency.
These people will have the skills to successfully conduct market research and provide the data you need.
But, if you have to lead the study yourself, here are the things you can do.
If you already know your rival businesses, then this step should be easy.
But, if you don’t, you’ll want to act like a customer yourself.
That means searching for your services in your area or geotargeting and seeing the top results.
You might also want to check out online directories for a more in-depth list of nearby competitors.
If your business is e-commerce or has a worldwide reach, narrow down your search to specific services or products instead of a geotarget.
So, what will you do with this list?
Visit each website and evaluate the common features appearing across them.
You’ll need to see what’s working well for each business based on reviews and your own perception during your visit.
Are there eye-catching promos that caught your attention? What are the recurring themes across your competitors? Are there new payment methods being implemented? What about extra features like chatbots or upgrades on the navigation panel?
You’ll want to take note of these features and see if there are any trends.
This is one way you can tell that there’s something customers are leaning towards.
Before you start applying what you learned during market research, remember that it’s not about copying your competitors.
It’s about understanding what’s working in the market and how you can provide your own solution for your ideal clients.
So, you don’t have to implement all the changes.
You can adjust them based on your target customer, making sure that the new additions address their pain points.
It shouldn’t be just you hopping onto the bandwagon.
Asking for feedback from your ideal customers is one of the best ways to improve your site.
They are the ones using the website, so insight into their experience will help you make more appropriate enhancements or corrections.
So, how do you ask for feedback?
The main way is by having customers answer a survey.
This is also a market research strategy that will help you understand what people are looking for in your web presence.
Here are a few steps you can follow to create an effective survey.
You’ll need to determine the goal of your survey, first and foremost.
This is how you create a cohesive project that will provide the data you’re looking for.
Which part of your website do you want feedback for? Is there a new process that you want to streamline or polish some more?
Is the new theme something the customers will enjoy?
By focusing on one or two main questions, you won’t be straying away too much from the feedback you need.
Make sure that the survey follows the same UX principles and brand messaging as your website.
According to Hubspot, there are three universal concepts you need to follow in a survey: it must be clear, concise, and communicative [5].
So, make sure that your surveys and questions aren’t overly long.
They must also be direct to the point and clear enough to avoid confusion.
You’ll need to include some features that will make your survey more engaging and easy to answer.
That means adding multiple choice questions, scales like the Likert scale, and blank text fields where they can type answers.
In addition, you can include media like images and short video clips to help explain concepts.
Customers will spend time and effort to answer your surveys, so make sure that they’re getting something out of it.
These incentives will entice them further and make them feel like their opinion matters.
From vouchers to limited-edition graphics, these rewards come in any shape or form.
Just make sure that they’re something your ideal customer would love.
You can include it as a pop-up on your website, send it to your email subscribers, or post them on social media pages.
To ensure maximum reach and the right kind of feedback, take advantage of all appropriate platforms and channels for your surveys.
Once you’ve gathered and analyzed the results, apply what you learned to your website.
Website audits are time-tested ways to evaluate the health of your website.
During the audit, we’ll evaluate all your pages to check visibility in Google’s search rankings, find any security risks, assess your content and design, and see that there are no technical issues hampering user experience.
Then, we’ll report the results so you’ll learn more about the current state of your website.
That way, you’ll know the specific kind of improvements you can make.
Fill out this form and we will conduct a 30-minute website audit for free and provide recommendations.
As a business owner, you want your channels and platforms to look up-to-date, authoritative, and engaging, but the digital landscape is ever-changing, and what might be working today will not be in the next few months or years.
That’s why you must constantly look for ways to improve your website.
From publishing keyword-rich blog posts to asking customers for feedback, there are many ways you can enhance your web presence and keep traffic flowing in.
Follow what we shared above to ensure that you grow and adapt to what customers demand.
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Here you will find services, resources, and a detailed blog all relating to web design, SEO, and digital marketing for small businesses.
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