Tag Archives: SEO Design

How Will SEO Change in the New Year

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Trends for SEO in the New YearEvery year we take a moment to review what the Trends for SEO in the New Year will be and building websites to make a living off the internet. This year there are two major trends that appear to become even more significant than they already are. If you have not been paying attention to them, it is time you did. They will affect everything we do in the future. These major trends are – focus on mobile everything and smarter more intuitive search. Google has stated that this is the direction they see the networks going. They believe that consumers will naturally follow. Anything Google has to say usually becomes reality since they are such a dominant force in the online environment.

Trends for SEO in the New Year

We will discuss both of these areas in more detail. They are also interwoven to some extent as well and we will discuss these issues too. Trends for SEO in the new year include mobile and long-tail keywords.

Focus on Mobile

Whether it is a smartphone or a tablet the world is clearly going in that direction. There are still lots of personal computers around and there will be for many years. They are needed to do the heavy lifting and prepare articles like this one. However, the vast amount of net surfing, email response, and messaging is now done on a smartphone or tablet. They are convenient and easy to carry around on your person. If your website is not mobile friendly, it will be quickly be passed over by the person surfing the net. Google will soon if not already not even present nonmobile friendly web pages to the mobile user.

If you are using a content management system to manage your website, converting to mobile should be pretty straightforward in most cases. Apps for most of the popular CMS systems are available that can be added to your installation. These apps detect what kind of device is being used by the visitor and then renders the appropriate content in the format that is friendliest to the device the visitor is using. These apps can be installed in a matter of minutes and then configured to meet your personal needs for your content. Don’t wait, get on this trend immediately if you haven’t already.

Smarter More Intuitive Search

Google still uses keywords to find whatever the user is looking for. The keywords and search activity is changing. Instead of entering a few relevant keywords for Google to try to figure out what the person is really looking for, many people are now posing full questions. They are using voice search commands and posing their questions accordingly as if they were talking to another person.

For example, if you wanted to know how old Pamela Anderson is, you might enter her name and the wordage. Goggle would figure out that what you really wanted to know was, how old is Pamela Anderson. Consumers with smartphones and voice recognition are using these tools to initiate a search by simply asking the question, how old is Pamela Anderson.

Web site managers and content administrators need to configure their content accordingly to help Google present the most relevant information and websites to address this sort of search instead of just focusing on keywords. The use of long-tail keywords is becoming even more popular than it already was.

Stay tuned for more posts about various trends in the new year. For more ideas about SEO, content, and web site design, click here.

How to Rate SEO tasks and Invest in High Return Work Items

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How to Rate SEO tasksThere are literally hundreds of SEO tasks that could be applied to your business web site. Your Website design team will ensure that the high profile tasks are considered during design and implementation. But How to Rate SEO tasks when some take more effort than others and if you have an older site, how do you rate the SEO task and invest in high return items? There are multiple approaches, however the standard approach of collecting ideas, requirements from all stakeholders and then ranking them based on an agreed set of priorities works well for most teams. You may have to convince managers who are not so SEO savvy and that is where it gets difficult.

How to Rate SEO tasks and Invest in High Return Work Items

The first task is to collect a list of all of the SEO tasks that your design team feels are needed. Next request input from stakeholders such as marketing, operations and customer support. Create a priority ranking scheme and rank all SEO tasks.

Your ranking scheme will be different the next company simply because there are different priorities within your company. Even departments will have different priorities than the design team etc.

Next an evaluation of what it will take to implement each task and what the expected gain will be once completed. Perhaps there are new products to be added to the website which will drive revenue. Perhaps there are new hires needed and human resources is really under the gun to acquire applicants. Maybe your older posts and pages need to be upgraded to reflect changing SEO guidelines. Which in turn will drive more traffic to your site.

Once you have completed the prioritization process, the next step is to estimate completion dates. Set targets and get on with the job. Note that management will want status reports on a regular basis. They want to know how well your team is doing on each SEO task. They will also want to be able to measure the results of any changes that are made. Measuring success is a key element of how to rate SEO tasks and invest in high return work items.

SEO Ranking Factors in the Future

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SEO Ranking Factors in the FutureThe best experts in the business every year try to identify the most important SEO Ranking Factors in the Future for webmasters, content writers, and advertising managers.  If you get it right, your site will be indexed on the 1st page of the search engine results. If you get it wrong, then you could be buried low on the SERP/s and never seen by your customers. There are however basic requirements that seem to stand the test of time and the ongoing changes that Google and other Search engines regularly make.

This is a very competitive industry on many different levels. We are all fighting to get on that first page of search results and then get picked by the reader. We are going to identify a few of the basics in this post that will withstand the test of time. As well as ongoing updates by the search engines.

SEO Ranking Factors in the Future

Relevant Content – find out what your customers are looking for and then make sure that the content is there to answer their questions.

Answer the Customers Questions – Show the customer where he or she can get the answer if you cannot answer it on your page. Give them alternatives and most of all do not point them to links pages that are unrelated.

Provide Value to the customer – value to the customer really depends on what they are looking for. Can they find the product they are looking for and can they order it seamlessly? Does the content answer a question? Does your website bring value to the customer’s life?

Mobile Adapted – The majority of searches are now being conducted using mobile devices. Your website must be readable. It must have all of the functionality your customer needs on a mobile device or tablet.

Website Response – slow website response time will cause your customers to move on to another page or SERP result.

Titles that Attract Readers

Even if you are on the first page there are still at least 20 other titles and paid advertisers for the customer to click on. Make your title compelling. Provide a snippet of what the customer is looking for to attract them so they click on the SERPs for your website.

While there are many more ranking factors that can determine a post’s eventual page rank, if you do not get the above right, then you may as well not bother. Focus on quality content that addresses the customer’s needs, do it quickly, and do it on a mobile device. If you can do these parts, then you have a running start of having an excellent website that attracts customers and sells the product.

SEO – Strategic Design Change

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Strategic Design ChangeYou’re adding content, maintaining the basic design, a good balance of images, and crawlable text, yet you are not getting the traffic that you feel should be coming your way. What changes should you make, and how far should you go? Is there a light bulb moment, as shown in the diagram, that changes everything? What about the investment that has already been made in time, design, writing, etc? Do you just throw this out and start over? This is the Strategic Design Change that most, if not all, designers face.

There are so many questions, and most website owners as well as web site managers just do not have the time to deal with these kinds of issues. It is important to have a strategy for your web site – what are the objectives, what customers are you trying to reach, what is the best way to reach them and how much investment do you make in this aspect of your business compared to other possibilities.

Strategic Design Change – Decisions

These are hard decisions to make, and most people will just go on doing the same thing until something happens that forces them to change. Also, the search engines are constantly updating their search engines all of the time to try to deliver a better result to their customers who pay the bills.

We feel that the right strategy is to define the following attributes and then focus on delivering to your customers:

  • Who are your customers
  • What products are you offering them
  • What services are you providing
  • Have you described these well on your web page
  • Do you have high-quality quality well-written content that describes the above
  • Is your site responsive
  • Can your customers find the information they need and are looking for
  • Is there a way for your customers to provide feedback
  • The old principle – Apply the KISS principle – Keep it Simple ….. applies

Every customer will have a different strategy, but the point is that they need to have one before they even begin building a website. They need to have a strategy before they begin making serious changes to an existing website.

They also need to understand the changes that they will make to existing sites and what impact this will have on search results.

For building websites, SEO, and the strategy behind it, click here.

 

What Permalink Structure is the Best for Optimal SEO

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What permalink structure is the best for optimal SEOWhat permalink structure is the best for optimal SEO? In the opinion of most SEO experts, the permalink structure that is the best is “postname”. There are several reasons for this position. When you use your focus keyword for the post as part of the post name, it is then also listed in the SERP results pages. The search engines treat the post name as another SEO factor that contributes to the overall ranking. In addition, it is much easier for both readers and bloggers to navigate the post if the post name is being used.

What Permalink Structure is the Best for Optimal SEO

When WordPress is initially installed, the default used for permalinks is a numeric, which really contributes nothing for SERP results. Before adding any new posts, change the permalink setting to “postname”. Click on settings and then click on permalinks. Select the postname setting.  All new posts and new pages from that point forward will use the “postname” in the URL structure.

If you have already written a few posts with a numeric as a permalink, your webmaster should add 301 redirects to direct the old post to the new post using the post name convention.

Most bloggers don’t give this issue much thought. However, it is one more factor in SEO optimization to consider, and once implemented no more changes are needed.

Always select post names that are 5 to 6 words in length, avoid using stop words, and use your focus keyword in the post name so that it is also reflected in the permalink. As always, write excellent original content that is related to the post name to ensure your readers and visitors can find the information they are looking for.

Finally, we do not recommend the use of dates as part of your post name permalink. Using a date tells the reader how old your post is. They may tend to click on newer posts and bypass yours. Even though the content is up to date and current.

For a lot more SEO-related information, click here.

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SEO – Inconsistent URL Structures

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Inconsistent URL StructuresThroughout our posts, we have emphasized that the content on websites must be great content, interesting to readers, answers their questions, and generally solves their problems. After all, they have initiated a search to find the answer to some questions that they have and they do not want to be bothered by poor content and content that does not address their needs. This is the objective that the search engines have set for themselves. They want to meet the customer’s demands and present the best possible results to their customers each and every time. Search engines employ search and indexing algorithms that are complex, to say the least. They are kept very top-secret for the most part by Google, Bing, and Yahoo as well as others. Inconsistent URL Structures can make it difficult for search engines to do their jobs.

Webmasters are tasked with keeping their content up-to-date and meaningful for their customers. They also try to make sure that they place well on the search results. After all, if you cannot be found then no one is going to read your web page, blog, etc.

Inconsistent URL Structures

One attribute that we believe the search engines value is consistent URL structures. In other words, they see the same URLs each time they visit and index a site. They also see new content being added. Many webmasters will look at old content that is no longer relevant for whatever reason. They may simply delete that page. This action can be interpreted as Inconsistent URL Structures and cause the search engines to rank a site lower in search results.

Instead, webmasters would be better off updating the content of the page. They should make it more relevant to today’s issues and needs of the consumer etc and retain these older URLs. It spells longevity, commitment to content, and commitment to ensuring that a website’s information remains relevant.

This is part of the SEO activity that many webmasters need to address. We will be discussing further issues like this one in upcoming posts.