Fibre Marketing

Tag: content

7 Ways to Give Your Business Blog a Boost

Posted on by Chloe

A business blog helps to drive traffic to your website, showcases your knowledge and authority, and can help convert those casual readers into paying customers.

But you know that because you’re already working hard to create new high-quality content that resonates with your audience, aren’t you?

If you’re averting your eyes and feeling slightly embarrassed at this point, don’t be. Many businesses just like yours aren’t using the power of their blog to get them real results, or they’re making many minor mistakes that could have a huge impact.

But don’t worry. Just by making a few minor changes, you can soon take your blog from average to outstanding. Here are our tips to help you do just that.

1. Focus on your audience

The first thing you need to do when creating content for your blog is to make sure that you’re writing about things that your audience genuinely care about and will find useful.

That way, you’ll know that your content is highly likely to be successful from the moment you hit that ‘publish’ button, and you won’t be just throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping that it sticks.

You’ll also be far more likely to get engagement in the form of comments, likes and, because you’re creating useful content, your audience is far more likely to like and trust you too.

To do this, you need to find out exactly who your audience is and what they want. The best ways to do this include:

  • Creating buyer personas
  • Gathering customer feedback
  • Doing surveys
  • Looking at your FAQs
  • Reviewing your website metrics
  • Researching keywords

From this data, you can narrow down those topics that they most want to learn and then create your content based on these ideas.

2. Create high quality content

These days, it’s not enough to sit down and fire off 500 words of content on a randomly chosen topic. If you want to make your content get results for your business, you need to make sure what you’re sharing is good.

Each piece of content you publish on the internet should be high quality, add maximum value, and showcase your expertise.

This is what Google is looking for when it ranks your website, it’s what your business needs when it comes to building a strong brand, and, most importantly, it’s one of the factors that will keep bringing customers to your (virtual) door.

Some tips you can use to do this include:

  • Choosing a topic your audience will love (see the last tip)
  • Make your writing interesting
  • Speak to your customers in their language
  • Check for spelling mistakes, typos and grammatical errors
  • Always write for readers, not search engines

3. Be consistent

How often do you currently post new content? If you’re like many businesses you aren’t posting as often as you could be.

Although this is completely understandable given the stressful few months we’ve just had, this sporadic posting isn’t doing your search rankings or the popularity of your business blog any favours.

Research has shown that posting new content on a regular basis is key to content marketing success. It’s what gets you noticed by the search engines, what helps you to stand out on social media, and what shows your customers that you care about your audience.

If you can commit to publishing on a certain day each week or month, you’re also more likely to find time in your schedule to get it done, or hire someone to do it for you.

How often you actually post is completely up to you. While the general rule of thumb is ‘the more often, the better’, this is unlikely to be sustainable if you’re a solopreneur or don’t have a large marketing team.

As content marketing experts, HubSpot say, “The frequency of blog posts depends on what’s best for your company. Smaller businesses have found comfort and success posting one to four times a week, while larger companies can push out daily and, sometimes, multiple daily posts.”

The key is to find out what works best for you, then stick to it.

4. Use keywords

Keywords are those words that a user types into the search box when they’re looking for information, and they can be extremely useful when you create blog content.

When the keywords searched match the words found on your website or blog post, Google is more likely to send this person your way.

So how do you know what keywords to include?

Luckily there are a variety of tools that can help you find the keywords that are relevant to your audience. You can then use these words to guide the topics you choose to write about, as well as including them in the posts themselves.

We can also help you research and optimise your keywords and other SEO assets – contact us for help.

But a word of warning – don’t overdo it. If you try to squeeze in too many keywords, you could get penalised by Google.

Instead, keep it natural, and don’t think you need to include the exact same words – synonyms are also effective.

5. Add meta descriptions

If you were to type the keywords ‘Fibre Marketing Cheltenham’ into your search engine, you’d get the following result:

 

 

 

 

As you can see from the screenshot, you’ll see the domain name at the top followed by a nice big title (meta title) then a short description (meta description).

Both the title and the description are known as meta tags.

Every page on your website should have them if you want to improve your online performance. They can substantially improve your SEO efforts, capture your user’s attention, and attract more readers when used correctly.

So, if you haven’t already tweaked yours, now is the perfect time.

6. Format your blog post correctly

With the average attention span getting shorter, it’s more important than ever to make your blog posts as user-friendly as possible.

Fail to do this and your reader might just take a look at your website, find it hard to use, and then click away to your competitor’s website. They won’t bother to read your blog posts because it’s just too much work.

The good news is that it’s very easy to solve this problem. You just need to format your blog post correctly. Here are some tips:

  • Avoid using big blocks of text on your websites
  • Use short paragraphs
  • Split up your content using subheadings
  • Use bullet points and number lists
  • Use subheadings (H1, H2, etc)
  • Include plenty of white space.

7. Learn from your mistakes

It can often take time to see an improvement in search performance and customer engagement, so don’t get frustrated or give up if you don’t get the results you were hoping for.

Be patient and you will often see improvements. If not, simply take a look at your website metrics and see what feedback you can get on what you’ve been doing so far.

For example:

  • How many people are visiting your blog?
  • Are they engaging with it or just clicking away?
  • Which piece of content is performing the best and why do you think this is?
  • How about the worst performing?
  • What does customer feedback tell you?

By using this information, you can tweak your approach so you can start creating the right kind of content for your reader.

As Barack Obama said “The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won’t. It’s whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.”

Summary

With the coronavirus restrictions starting to ease, now is the perfect time to improve your business blog.

By consistently posting high quality content that you know your reader will find useful, including keywords, getting the formatting right, and tweaking your metadata, you can boost your search rankings and grow your customer base.

If this doesn’t work, continue to make improvements and your efforts will pay off in the long run.

How to Create Great Web Content for SEO

Posted on by Chloe

There is no doubt that the coronavirus pandemic that is going on at the moment is changing the ways that we are working and running our businesses – both temporarily and perhaps in the long-term. Although fewer businesses are able to operate as they normally would, it is important that we all prepare ourselves for when the outbreak is over and the world gets back to ‘normal’.

Despite the fact that you might not be able to do your ‘normal’ work, there is plenty that businesses can be doing in the meantime to be able to bounce back strongly from the impact of COVID-19. And one of those is content marketing and SEO.

This ‘downtime’ can give you the time that you need to create some great web content for your business, give your SEO a boost, and ensure that you are ready to take off again when this is all over.

When you are creating content, there are a few aspects that you should consider to ensure that your content to be as effective as possible:

Write for the User

To determine which web pages rank highly on the SERPs, search engines such as Google have algorithms that will find the pages most relevant to the searcher. The search engines want people to continue to use their services, and so the most important thing for them is to display the pages that are the most relevant and informative to their searchers.

This means that your pages should be written for users and NOT for the search engines. By putting out good quality, informative, and useful content you are more likely to be rewarded with a higher ranking in the SERPs.

Keyword Research

When you are planning a content marketing strategy it is important first to carry out some keyword research.  This means researching the terms that people are likely to use to be able to find your website. There are plenty of tools that you can use to help you to carry out this keyword research, or you can speak to an SEO consultant.

From this keyword research, you can then go on to plan your content, ensuring that these terms or questions are covered in it. It is important, however, that you don’t ‘keyword stuff’ your content – search engines don’t like this and will penalise you for it!

H1 and H2 Tags

It is important that, when you publish SEO copy, you use H1 and H2 tags to help your content to be organised. H1 tags are like the title of a book, and H2 tags are used to break up the content like subtitles. They can help to organise content and ensure that searchers can find what they are looking for quickly and easily – and this is always beneficial in terms of SEO.

You should have just one H1 tag per page and use H2 tags sparingly whilst being as descriptive as possible.

Your Pages

There are several different ways that you can work on your SEO content. You should first ensure that your website is properly optimised. This means making sure that you have up-to-date information, properly optimised product pages, a good ‘about’ page, and a blog section.

Once these pages are fully optimised, you can then go on to think about blog content. The golden rule here is to make your content interesting, informative, entertaining, or authoritative (or preferably all of them!). Some blog ideas include:

  • Articles
  • Interviews
  • Lists
  • Guides
  • Videos
  • Infographics

E-A-T for Good SEO

When it comes to creating the best content for SEO, you should try to comply with the E-A-T rules.

E-A-T stands for:

Expertise – You need to show that you are an expert in your field. You need to show that you know what you are talking about, and this is especially important for professional businesses as opposed to gossip or celebrity websites, for example.

Authoritative – You can use your expertise (or the expertise of your writer) to show that you are an authority in your area. From this, you will become the go-to person for your readers (and potential customers).

Trustworthy – You should make your readers feel that they can trust you – especially if you are hoping that they buy from you! Keep your website strong and clear, informative and secure.

Old Content

Re-purposing your old content is a great way to freshen up your website and help with SEO. You can update any out-of-date information, helping with SEO and making it more attractive to searchers. We also know that Google loves new content – even if it is just re-purposed old content! This also gives you the chance to correct spelling or grammatical errors, fix technical issues like broken backlinks – and add new ones, add other media, and add new keywords.

In this time when your other workload might be low, it is the ideal moment to get your website content perfect, to ensure that it is working efficiently for your business through SEO. By incorporating these fundamentals, you can ensure that you are ready to go again as soon as you need to.

Back to Basics: Building Your Content Marketing Strategy

Posted on by Chloe

Developing a rock-solid content marketing strategy is essential when it comes to marketing your business online. It helps you to focus on the unique needs of your customers, allows you to connect with them more effectively and get the results that you are looking for.

Without it, there’s simply no way you can be sure of success.

Even if your content is smoking hot and provides a ton of value to your target audience, there’ll be no way of knowing if you’ve invested your time and money wisely. It’s akin to playing roulette with the future of your business.

However, we understand that it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the mere thought of building a content marketing strategy. That’s why we’ve decided to put together this short guide for you. You’ll learn how to get the fundamentals of building a content marketing strategy so you can reap the rewards.

Here’s what’s we’ll cover:

Step 1: Outline your goals

Step 2: Decide how you will measure your performance

Step 3: Create buyer personas

Step 4: Assess your current position

Step 5: Decide on your content channels & content types

Step 6: Identify and allocate resources

Step 7: Create a content calendar

Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

Step 1: Outline your goals

Start by deciding what is most important to your business and developing a set of content marketing goals.

Do this and you’ll develop a laser-like focus on what matters most to your business and increase the chances of achieving what you set out to do. You won’t waste time. You won’t waste money. But you will get results.

Your goals depend entirely on the unique needs of your business and where you currently are in terms of growth. Startups, for example, will often develop a vastly different set of goals to an established business with a great reputation.

That’s why it’s so important to consider what matters to you at this point in time. Do you want to increase revenue? Drive more business to your website? Boost engagement? Build authority in your field?

Whilst doing this, it’s a good idea to consult your team for suggestions on how you can grow your business. They usually have insight into specific areas of your business that you might not.

Once you have put together a few ideas, also consider how these could potentially benefit your clients and your business.

Step 2: Decide how you will measure your performance

The only way to understand whether you are achieving your goals is to develop a series of KPIs (key performance indicators) that will tell you whether all that hard work is paying off. These usually include measuring things like:

  • Mentions, shares, likes and comments
  • Time on page
  • website/ webpage traffic
  • Newsletter sign ups
  • Lead magnet signups
  • Revenue targets

By tracking this data, you will also be able to better develop your content marketing strategy and display the right information if you need to develop regular reports.

Step 3: Create buyer personas

You’d never try to teach a 10-year-old kid about the water cycle by using the kind of language or even content you’d find in a university lecture hall for adults, would you?

The same goes for when you create your content.

You need to understand exactly who you’re talking to and what they need so you can create your content with them in mind and become more strategic. It also vastly improves your chances of getting results.

This idea is echoed by content marketing experts The Content Marketing Institute who say;

“In light of what your customers likely look for in the content they choose to consume — not to mention Google’s ever-changing algorithms that aim to keep online content relevant and of a high quality — you can’t go wrong if you follow this golden rule: Write compelling content about the things your target audience would be most interested in.”

In content marketing, you do this by creating something called a buyer persona or customer avatar.

By gathering data on a range of factors such as key demographics (age, gender, education, income, etc) and factors such as interests, problems, preferred social media channels and so on, you’ll be able to better understand your customer and create content for them. You can find this kind of information from any analytics your business currently uses. Customer feedback, reviews and surveys also play a big part in the process.

Step 4: Assess your current position

By now you’ve figured out your goals, key metrics you want to track and who your customers are. Your next step is figuring out where you’re starting from.

Conduct a content audit, looking at what you already have including blog posts, guest posts, videos, and so on. Then consider how effective this content is by asking yourself:

This will enable you to better understand what improvements need to be made and help you identify your strategy moving forward.

Step 5: Decide on your content channels & content types

By doing this research, you should now understand who your audience is and what their needs are better. This will help you develop your content marketing strategy further and decide what type of content you should create and where.

Technology is continually developing, so trends are likely to come and go. However, blogging should remain a core part of your content marketing strategy, provided that you’re always creating highly actionable, high-quality and very useful content.

It’s also worth considering video marketing and live streaming as these look set to grow over the coming months and years.

Step 6: Identify and allocate resources

There’s no point creating a rockstar content marketing strategy if you don’t end up delivering the goods. That’s why you should make sure you plan the delivery phase as much as building your content marketing blueprint.

Yes, it might be dull, we know. But it’s the only way you can ensure you achieve those content marketing goals and continue to grow your business. Consider the following:

  • Who will be in charge of producing and maintaining the content?
  • What tools and resources will you need?
  • What will the workflow look like?
  • Are there any tools that you could use to simplify and streamline your workflow?

Step 7: Create a content calendar

The final step in building a content marketing strategy is planning the content itself. But beware- it’s not enough just to throw a few content ideas onto a spreadsheet and be done with it all. You need to be strategic.

Decide first how often you want to publish this new content and what channels you will be using to market this content. Once you’ve done this, you can plan exactly what to plan and when.

Many businesses are tempted to skip this step and end up struggling when they realise that they have just a day or two to come up with an idea and to create it. Don’t let this happen to you!

First gather your content ideas by brainstorming, looking at customer feedback, reviewing your FAQs, looking at keyword search terms and asking your colleagues. Then you can slot them into your content calendar and stay ahead, reduce your stress and be more likely to crush those content marketing goals.

Building a content marketing strategy can be complex and time-consuming. But any investment you make at this stage pays off significantly in the long term. Work through these steps and you will create a robust content marketing strategy that gets you results.

If you’d prefer to hire an expert, reach out to our team here at Fibre Marketing. We’d love to help.

Reviving Blog Posts: How To Use Old Content For New Results

Posted on by Chloe

Producing great content is vital if you want people to be attracted to your brand and engage with it. Around 84% of buyers frequently or occasionally access business related content on their phones, while B2B marketers rated blog articles as the most effective content format in the awareness stage. These statistics can confirm that, right now, content is a vital for your marketing strategy.

It’s also important to remember that Google pays attention to the quality of the content that you produce. If the quality is high, your business is more likely to feature highly in search results. This helps to attract more traffic to your business website or blog.

The problem with creating great content is that it can involve the investment of a lot of time and effort. Reusing blog content that has been produced previously can help to reduce this investment without having an adverse effect on your overall content quality. However, you need to make sure that you reuse content in the right way.

How reusing blog content can work for business

Let’s start by looking at how reusing blog content can be good for your business. The fact is that a good piece of content can help you attract more traffic, strengthen your brand and improve your conversion rates, even if you use it more than once.

Getting this to work is all about repackaging the content in the right way. Doing so means that it can appear as something fresh and new to both current customers and potential customers that you are trying to attract. After all, everyone loves a good story or appreciates being provided with valuable information.

If your business has produced a blog post that has done either of these things well, there is a good chance that it still has a lot of life left. This is why you should always revisit your blog posts and not just consign them to the archives for good.

Which content should you reuse?

If you want to revive blog posts effectively, you need to understand which content you can reuse and which you should leave where it is. The two main criteria to use when deciding this are evergreen content and popular content.

Evergreen content is content that is not time bound. This means it continues to work well year-on-year. For instance, the advice in this article is evergreen. The basics of reviving blog posts do not change.

Popular content is time, season or statistic-heavy content that which has attracted a lot of interest. You can check the Google analytics stats for your business, to see which of your blog posts this applies to.

It’s important to note that you should not necessarily disregard content simply because some of the facts and figures used need updating. Think about the overall message of the content and decide whether it would still work if some updating work was carried out.

How to revive content

There are several methods that you can use to revive blog content so that it can work for your business again. Having decided which content you may be able to reuse, here are some ideas that can inspire you.

Create A Series

Choose a listicle that was previously created and create a series of blog posts from it. In order to do this, you will probably need to expand on the content somewhat, using each point as the focus for each blog. Consider the titles you use – if they relate directly to user intent, e.g. ‘How to’ and ‘why should…’ searches that are popular (For example – this article you’re reading!)

When writing these blogs posts, you can then improve your internal linking structure, directing traffic to the original content and other relevant pages on your site.

Create Visual Content

Repurpose your content by turning it into an infographic or visual data, which can then be used for link building purposes if you wish. Infographics are liked and shared 3x more than other types of content, so you’d be missing out on something if you don’t try this tactic out.

You don’t even need a professional graphic designer to create an infographic. Apps like Canva are perfect for this strategy

Update The Statistics

Update the content of a blog post to include the latest industry and technical information.

Internal Links

Create new, more appropriate, links within the content. If you have created pieces of content recently that can relate to one of the points stated in an old post, go back and link that new content in. It shows that you keep your posts updated, and as they continue to relate to current trends, you can share them across social media to bring in even more traffic.

Ultimate Guide

Use the information that you have within one or more blog posts to create a comprehensive guide, also known as an ‘Ultimate Guide’ or ‘Beginner’s Guide,’ etc. to a specific subject, which you can then link to relevant blog posts and pages that you want ranking. You may want to create this guide as a guest posting in order to raise the profile of your brand.

Using one or more of these methods can help you take the content that you already have and create something fresh and exciting.

In summary

There is no doubt that reviving blog posts can provide many benefits for your business. Doing so gives you the opportunity to bring excellent content to a whole new audience, attracting new customers.

Using great content in this way can also help you to feature highly in search results, which is obviously essential if you want to optimise the amount of traffic that your business attracts.

It’s also important to remember that you get all of these benefits without having to invest as much time and effort as you do when creating new content. Even if the blog posts that you are revitalising need to be updated, this is still less resource intensive than having to start from scratch.

Hopefully, you can see the benefits of reviving blog posts and have been inspired to look for content that you can reuse.

Building your online brand

Posted on by Chloe

Many entrepreneurs focus on building a business, rather than a brand – this is a mistake. Developing an online brand can play an important role in helping you to build a long-lasting, successful business. Just look at Apple – whenever they release a new product, people line up outside their shops to get their hands on it. This is because they feel an emotional connection to the brand and trust in the quality of their items. An online brand is the ultimate way to give your business a competitive advantage and connect with your audience on a more personal level. With that in mind, here are our top ways to build your online brand.

Understand the importance

The first step to building your online brand, is to understand the important role that it plays in the success of your business. Some business owners are reluctant to invest in online branding, because they feel that it may be a waste of money and yield little results. However, building your online brand can have a number of significant benefits such as creating awareness and interest in your business, attracting new customers, growing your business online, and securing repeat customers. All of these are important factors in any successful business.

Research your target audience

Before you can build an online brand, it is also important to understand your target audience. Make sure you do thorough research and establish who your audience are and what will appeal to them – this includes things like their gender, age, and interests. You can use a number of online tools to help you identify your target audience. Some useful examples include Google Trends, Compete, and Comscore. These tools with provide you with valuable information on your target audience, and help you determine what they will want to see and hear. This will enable you can create an effective online brand strategy and develop your brands voice.

Use a range of media platforms

The most effective online branding strategies use a variety of different media platforms to capture their audience. For example, use content networks to develop your brand through repetition, then use behavioural marketing to get your advertisements seen by your target audience. You also need to consider what social media you are going to use. There are plenty of different social media platforms, so make sure you find the one that’s best for your business. Your market research should help you understand what social media your audience uses, and how to reach them. Remember that social media is a great tool for getting organic traffic and building your online brand, so make sure you take advantage of it! It’s also important to keep in mind that media platforms are constantly evolving, so make sure you are flexible and adapt your strategies to any new changes.

Create a recognisable logo

Your brand logo is extremely important. It has the power to arouse interest in your audience and build awareness of your brand and business. Make sure you choose a unique logo, that is easily recognisable and reflects the story behind your business – brands like Apple and Nike are a good example. Keep in mind that people are likely to forget or confuse a logo that is too complicated, so it’s always best to keep it simple!

Remember that content is key

Posting regular quality and relevant content, is one of the best way to connect with your audience and build your online brand. We see content everywhere – from Google and Youtube, to Facebook and Instagram. Good quality content will attract more people and if they enjoy it, then they are going to associate the value of your content to your brand. Posting high quality content is also a great way to encourage similar reputable organisations to repost your content and include backlinks to your website. This will help to generate more traffic to your website and enhance your organic search presence. Remember, the more prevalent your brand becomes in the mind of your peers, the stronger your reputation will grow online.

Build your reputation online

Building your reputation online is extremely important. People aren’t going to buy from your business if they don’t know or trust it. Online reputation and brand authority is also an important factor in your search engine rankings, as more authoritative sites will appear higher in search engine result pages. This will help to drive more quality traffic to your website and generate more conversions for your business. It is important to remember that building an online reputation for your brand will take time and consistency is key. Keep posting quality, relevant content and eventually your brand will build a following and brand authority online.

What Makes a Good Blog?

Posted on by Chloe

What makes a good blog can be broken down into four segments. Firstly, there are the different forms success takes, secondly there is the marketing boost that all successful blogs need, thirdly there is surprise, and fourthly there is targeting. This post covers all four elements of a successful blog, and also offers a little bit of advice about trying to replicate the success of others.

Success Has Many Forms

Take YouTube as an example: Pewdiepie holds the record for the most total viewers on YouTube, and it is just one guy who used to upload every day; then, take Lemmino. He uploads once per month at the most, and he has the most loyal followers. Both are working alone, both are incredibly successful, and yet both use a very different method for achieving their success.

The key to blogging success seems to be “Experimenting.”  i.e. trying out a bunch of different ideas until you find the thing that works. Many times, you are surprised by what works and what does not.

For example, there was a blog aimed at teenage boys, and the web master tried everything from fight videos to hilarious comic strips. He tried every cliché in the book to attract teenage males. Yet, the web master had his biggest run of success when he posted opinion pieces on local issues, but he put a joke or funny comment in every third line of his blog. That simple format attracted more of his target demographic than all the gun-violence posts he ever uploaded.

Your Face on A Billboard

You may have the highest quality blog of all time, but if nobody sees it, then nobody interacts with it, which means Google ranks it as number 120,000 on its results. You will need to give your search ranking a boost from time-to-time with search engine optimization. Just like putting your face on a billboard, you need to draw a little attention from time-to-time if you want to generate sustained success for your blog. Get people interested by optimising your website and its content for Google, and then, if your blog is good, it will be carried by its own success.

Think of the keywords that you want to rank for. The headlines you’re creating. Do you need visual content? Remember, do not keyword spam and do not make your post too long. People have shorter attention spans – keep content between 500-1,000 words, and use subheadings (H2s) and bullet points if necessary.

What Makes A Good Blog?

Targeting and surprise. Sadly, these are two elements that are often confused by bloggers and people in the publishing industry.

Targeting means you need to produce content that your readers are actually interested in. Your blog needs to fit your niche, and thus needs to appeal to those who are interested in it, while pushing away everybody else. It is the “pushing away” part that most bloggers mess up – many try and create content that would appeal to anyone in the hopes that they gain more traffic. The fact is that if you wish to target certain people, then you have to alienate others. need to alienate some people if you want to target others.

This also means that you need to have a thorough understanding of what your target audience wants and write directly for them. If you’re stuck for ideas, type in some keywords that you’d like to rank for, and look at the questions from the ‘People Always Ask’ section on the search engine results page (SERP). That’s what your target audience are searching, so make sure your blog has the answers.

Secondly, surprise means “unexpected.” It doesn’t mean click-bait titles, it doesn’t mean shock news, and it doesn’t mean being unorthodox.

Examining the Success Of Strangers

You should do learn from your success because they offer the most powerful lessons.

Should you learn from the success of others? You probably shouldn’t. Most people have no idea why they succeeded because they spend too much time examining why they failed and not why they succeeded. Secondly, repeating somebody else’s success is often harder than building a successful blog using your own trial and error.

A wise person examines the success of strangers and takes its lessons on board, but maybe doesn’t try to replicate the success directly.

 

Can Website Design Affect Your SEO?

Posted on by Chloe

If you’re asking – “Can website design affect my SEO?” – then the simple answer is yes. Web design plays an integral role in SEO, and you should be aware of how your design decisions can affect your search rankings.

How bad design will affect your SEO

We’ve explained previously how most people use the internet when searching for a product or service and over 90% of those people start by using a search engine. So, someone goes online and searches for an answer, a product, or a service, and it leads them to your website – great! However, if a user doesn’t engage with your content because of poor design, then they’re likely to go back to the SERP to find a better answer to their query. PageCloud add that “this action is known as bouncing or “pogo sticking” and tells the search engines that the user was not satisfied – you weren’t the right answer or solution to their search.” Over time this will cause your rankings to drop, as a high bounce rate shows a low value for that page.

Poor design mistakes to avoid

Poor website design can be due to a number of factors. Here are a few of the main design mistakes you should avoid at all costs:

  • Illegible text – Users are unlikely to engage with your content if your font is too small or difficult to read. You also need to make sure that your content has enough spacing and does not appear crammed. Use a readability tool to make sure that your text can be read and understood easily.
  • Large files – This includes images and videos that may slow down your pages. Remember that not everyone has access to high speed internet, and users are likely to leave your site if pages take too long to download. You should therefore use online tools to check your page load speeds regularly.
  • Intrusive Pop ups – While they can be useful, pop ups can cause frustration for your online audience and affect user experience, especially if they haven’t even accessed any of your content yet. This can hurt your SEO. You should therefore use pop ups carefully, and never in a way that appears intrusive or irrelevant.
  • Distracting sounds / colours – Web Blog PunkChip explain that “autoplay of embedded audio and video clips causes interruption to browsing, and so you should avoid making audio tracks or videos play automatically on your website.” If you do have a clip playing automatically, ensure that it’s muted. Don’t forget that offensive or distracting colour schemes can also have a negative effect on usability and cause frustration for your visitors.

How a great design layout improves SEO

Your website design should be simple, easy, and minimalistic. This will allow users to navigate your website with ease, get the information that they need, and spend more time on your site. All of these will significantly impact on your SEO effects and will boost the usability of your site. Remember that search engines like Google like it when answers are easy to find, and so content at the top of a page will always have more value.

When considering layout, you should make sure that text and images are properly separated using whitespace so that your pages are easy to navigate. This will help focus your readers and increase engagement without overwhelming them. Functional navigation is another important factor. A consistent header and footer is a simple way to improve user accessibility and will help anyone visiting your site access your content with ease.

How the right content improves your SEO

Once you have the perfect layout, you need to fill it with amazing content that makes your site stand out! This awesome content not only increases engagement, but it’s also a great way to get backlinks, as other sites will link to you if they feel that your content will provide their users with additional quality information. Remember that the volume and quality (the latter more importantly) of the content on your website will directly affect your SEO rank.

Your website needs to look good on all devices

 In today’s modern world, most people use a variety of mobile devices for browsing the internet. It’s therefore important to have a responsive website that can consistently perform on all types of mobile devices. If your content isn’t properly designed for every screen size, then your user experience with suffer, and you will have trouble getting high rankings in search engine results. Forbes advise that “mobile-friendliness is an absolute must if you’re hoping to make gains in organic search visibility, and it should be a primary design focus.” Tools like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test can help you determine if your pages are accessible on mobile.

How to check the quality of your web design

To figure out if you have a good design, you can do some user testing. Using free services like Google Optimize is a great way to check accessibility and see where improvements can be made. You can also ask family and friends to visit your site and give feedback on what they liked, and if there were any frustrations or improvements they can suggest.

In summary, bad website design is bad for SEO. Good web design is therefore crucial to a successful SEO strategy, and when done well, the design of your website can help you to rank higher, which will lead to increased traffic, conversions, and profits.