Dispelling SEO Myths – SEO in Lincolnshire

online content marketing SEO

Today’s blog and accompanying video is aimed at dispelling a few myths! We have been providing SEO in Lincolnshire for years and feel it’s time to forget these myths once and for all.

I often explain to clients that as far as we are aware, there is over 250 ranking factors in the google search engine. The purpose of explaining this is to demonstrate that SEO needs to be taken very seriously. Over the years people have often asked me to take care of ranking factors that do not exist. Often based on a misguided understanding of out of date SEO techniques, or perhaps assuming that Google Analytics metrics are all ranking factors.

Bounce Rate

A good example of these mythical ranking factors would be the bounce rate of a website. This An important metric for analysing visitor activity, however not a ranking factor. This is the percentage of visitors that leave a web page without taking an action such as clicking a link or ordering a product. If this were true that google had made this a ranking factor, we would have to believe that Google can analyse this data across all of the websites ranked in the search engine but we know this not to be the case. As an experiment I could build a website and attract many organic visitors and track their visitor on visitor data on the server but Google has no access to this data until provided it and even if we were then to provide access for google analytics, the search engine still wouldn’t be able to compare that data as a ranking factor against many other websites, because they simply won’t all use google analytics.

Website Visits & Visit Duration

Another example would be directly visiting the website to boost SEO or even spending longer periods of time on the website to boost SEO. This idea suggests that more people doing these things would increase the ranking of the website when of course again that information would only be available to google if we provided it. Even this, would still exclude most of the internet not using google analytics, and people accessing their websites directly.

SEO in Lincolnshire – It’s all local!

Now for a quick reminder of the REAL SEO ranking factors. For example mobile friendliness, good social media coverage and consistent optimised content updates. Many businesses will find it beneficial to write their content around a keyphrase that includes your service/product and location. This has often proved to be a helpful search term recipe for Lincolnshire based businesses. For a visual recap of some of the content above, watch the video below. If you aren’t sure where to start, contact us. I’ve got lots of tips and tools to help but also often the most important thing is just knowing who to speak to and where to get the right advice.

Get Competitive on your Website Homepage

homepage SEO impact

You probably already know that your website homepage gets the most views. That's why it is so fundamental to the success of your website. Making an impressive, speedy and competitive homepage might not be as tough as you think. We have made a few simple suggestions below to help you reimagine your homepage content.

For more information or help getting started with homepage improvements, please contact us.

The WooCommerce App – More Mobile Advancements

The WooCommerce App could allow you to save time and effort by allowing you to manage your online shop at any time while on the move. The app is powered by Jetpack and has a lot of useful features. If you don’t have an online shop yet, this could be enough to tempt anyone over to WooCommerce.

woocommerce appMonitor Your Online Shop

Find out which products are performing best

Check your total income

View order/visitor data by day, week, month and year

Mobile Sales Facilities

Filter through specific orders and order details

Expand on order information such as product(s), value, customer data, shipping details, and notes.

Simple order fulfilment

Mobile Order Notifications

Get notified about activity such as new orders and product reviews on your products (including a cha-ching sound!)

Drive By App Review

Effective across multiple types of devices. Quite a simplistic app overall but if you’re looking to be informed of orders as quickly as possible then this would be a great option. If you’re looking to replace the dashboard of your website completely, it’s not there yet in our opinion. I am happy to recommend an app that doesn’t do everything if it does what is claims to. Once the app evolves, we might need to revisit the review.

Connect Your Shop

We’re going to be testing out these new features with existing clients. If you’re not an existing customer and you’re interested in finding out if your website is compatible then call us on 01775 761 512.

Mobile-First Indexing For Lincolnshire Business Websites

Google Hosting

Mobile-first indexing is how Google crawls and indexes the web. Instead of indexing the desktop version of the page, Google looks at the mobile version of the page. Simply put, Google is indexing your web page based on how it renders on a mobile phone. Now over 50% of what Google indexes is indexed over mobile-first indexing. Any new websites that Google is crawling for the first time, will be indexed using mobile-first indexing by default. But older sites not yet migrated will continue to be indexed the old-fashion way until those sites are ready.

It’s now more important than ever to make sure your website goes live with a mobile ready design. Though we usually design the site with mobiles in mind, we do start by designing the desktop view first. Is this a sign that we may have to start working the other way in future?

At least for the time being that doesn’t seem to be necessary. Mainly because there is no demand for it. Clients rarely ever want to see their design on mobiles until it’s ready. Just as we urge our clients to be as critical as possible on their design and content, we now must start pushing them to consider their mobile design as a standalone from the desktop site.

You can read more about what this means for you and your websites by reading Google’s latest blog. You can continue to check for mobile-first indexing of your website by using the URL Inspection Tool in Search Console.

If you have any questions or want to transfer, redesign or create your Lincolnshire Business Websites with us, call 01775 761512. You can also contact us on our website.

Click to Call – The Single Best Feature for Mobile Viewers

Click to Call Button

Remember, converting Smartphone visitors to a responsive website is very different from converting customers using desktop websites. Smartphone users are very unlikely to scroll down and read a whole load of content wording and then send you an email, more especially if there’s a lengthy form to complete. Because your mobile visitors are already holding their phone it will allow them to call you with one simple touch of the button. No more complicated copy-and-pasting or memorizing the phone number!

If you want to add some text to your button we can also do this, to help make it more obvious to viewers. However you would like it to look, a “click to call” button could make all the difference between getting a new client or losing them forever. We can even help demonstrate this by integrating the Click to Call button with Google Analytics in order to collect statistics on the button usage.

Mobile Vs Desktop in Spalding and Surrounding Areas

Spalding, Pinchbeck, Holbeach, Crowland, Long Sutton, Surfleet, Swineshead, Kirton, Donington and Boston

Drive By Websites’ choice of platform to use for mobile friendly websites is WordPress because:

  • ease of user – you can easily make updates.
  • sites can be managed from any computer or device
  • search engines love WordPress sites
  • there’s no HTML or FTP software required (for the end user)
  • websites are designed to be future-proofed and grow along with the development of the business.

Drive By Websites securely hosts and manages over 150 mobile friendly websites mainly around Spalding and South Lincolnshire but nationally too. Drive By Websites offer a fast turnaround, we are affordable and easy to get along with.  Please feel free to get in touch by calling us on 01775 761512.

If this isn’t for you, there are plenty of other simple enhancements you can make to your website. Don’t miss out on these easy next steps for your business:

SSL Certificate

It is inevitable that with enough time your website ranking will suffer without an SSL Certificate. These addresses technically start with https:// instead of http://.
Read More: Safer Websites and Higher Rankings

Fresh Content

Don’t be one of the many people that uses too few words in their website pages or blog posts. You can maximise your SEO potential by exceeding the recommended minimum of 300 words.

Read More: Writing Content For Your Website
Read More: Refreshing a Site with Content

Developing the Website of the Future – Web Development

future web development

There are some emerging technologies that are set to change Web Development in much the same way as mobile browsing has in recent years. We have named a few that we predict will be become more and more common in the coming years.

Domain Extensions

We can already see the rise of unconventional domain name extensions beginning. As traditional domains (.com and .co.uk) have been so widely used, people will need to adopt new domain extensions such as .limited, .shop or .events. There are a vast number of extensions now available but we still aren’t coming across them daily. As more people are forced to adopt them, the search engines will respond by putting them on an even playing field with more common extensions. A lot of industry experts are arguing that it’s important to start using them now to ride that wave when it comes. There are currently over 600 new extensions that you could potentially invest in over the next few years.

Cryptocurrency

It seems logical that before ‘cryptocurrency’ (such as Bitcoin) truly finds its place in the real world, it will first become as standard for future ecommerce websites as PayPal is today. With virtual currency growing in popularity there are already signs of this reality. Major websites such as Microsoft, Expedia and Shopify.com have already adopted this payment option. Benefits include anonymity, very low transaction fees and irreversible transactions (a third party such as a bank or PayPal can’t reverse the payment). We’re a long way off a cryptocurrency revolution but if it continues to grow as it has then there will undoubtedly be a market call for this in Ecommerce Web Development.

Online Security

With online security concerns still inhibiting a smooth browsing experience it seems logical that the market will lean towards account security being less troublesome and more secure. Three symbols, two numbers, one capital letter and ten minimum characters leaves users with a problem on their hands. Most of us will have experienced the difficulty of creating a password that has to be written down. This defeats the object of the security measures and ultimately makes the account less secure. The future will offer Web Development options beyond that. Examples of this can be seen with online banking and the technology available to enter your pin securely. Many smart phones are now capable of reading thumbprints therefore thumbprint entry is potentially already an option. Regardless of how this manifests itself, there is currently a need for a solution. With website apps being commonplace for social media, online banking and even ecommerce (such as Ebay and Amazon) it won’t be long before we are able to use the full potential of facial recognition, voice recognition and thumb recognition to solve this problem.

To discuss your own futuristic web development objectives, give us a call on 01775 761512 or contact us online.

What Are the Benefits of a Blog?

blogging

Continuous fresh content will mean Google needs to regularly index your site and is also a consideration when Google decides how to rank your website in search results. If your website doesn’t contain a lot of content, or any fresh content, a blog would be the perfect way to achieve this while also target specific keywords.

While it isn’t easy to commit to a blog, keep in mind that it may only be a weekly or biweekly update that is all you need to start increasing visitors. If don’t know where to start, try creating a list of different content opportunities. We regularly suggest using testimonials as blog posts, as they usually contain excellent keywords but also don’t require any writing time for the blogger. You can also use events, industry news and business changes.

How does this bring a return in visitors? As well as ranking new pages into Google, a good blog psot can also receive social media shares and links from other websites. All of this will also increases your ‘Domain Authority’, where Google considers your site a higher authority than your competition.

If you would like more information or a quote to get set up with a blog, or for us to blog for you, give us a call on 01775 761512.

You NEED This App: Super easy site updates from phones and tablets

Mobile App

You’ve undoubtedly heard us say it a million times, “You MUST keep your website up to date”. It’s rule number one for gaining and maintaining a quality space in the Google search engine.

Even with the opportunity to update your website, we know that after a few busy weeks or even a holiday away, it’s not always easy to get back online and refreshing your content. But it should be a priority. We are periodically faced with this challenge, and with Christmas and New Year wrapped up we felt it was time we put forward an alternative.

Picture your website was as simple as Facebook – type in some text, attach an image and hit publish – would you update your website more?

This is essentially where we wanted to be. So that clients looking to make small updates wouldn’t need to refer to a guide to make them. Not to mention, we needed to get people updating their website while going about their business, not having to sit in front of a computer.

The answer lies in mobile technology. We needed the equivalent of a mobile app for users to make their website updates, in a way that would be comparable to the Twitter or Facebook app. While it’s not exactly a good idea to stick to rules like 140 characters or less, the general idea on a website is that 140 characters beats 0 characters. We began rolling out a Mobile App of this description to a handful of clients late last year. Not only has the App surpassed expectations from our clients perspectives, but it has also been intuitive enough to lead clients into new areas such as video blogs, or gallery pages.

So, how is this App so simple?

A mobile provides everything you need to publish your business updates. It has WiFi and data, a camera and a keyboard. Blogs or website updates made from a mobile or tablet are unlikely to be reaching the same quality as through traditional means, but your job is to look at your competition and ask, “Can I write more than them, on a more frequent basis?”. This App aims to help you achieve that, in the simplest way possible.

Contact us for set up and training to use the App for your website. If you are struggling to find the time to update your website or conquer the learning curve, the benefits to your business will be endless.

01775 761512

A Fresh Site For Blast Off!! Services – Responsive Website Design

homepage blastoff services

It's that time again when we pick one of our nice new sites and show them off to demonstrate what we can offer. Today we are proud to reveal the complete overhaul of the website for Blast Off!! Services (Spalding) LtdThe process of developing this website was a great example of how easy it can be to offer and develop new ideas when communication is prioritised. As a result, the design features a number of unique elements, such as the responsive homepage layout that would have likely left most responsive developers scratching their heads. So, as always the question is how do we go from an inventive idea such as the image on the left (desktop view), and make it a mobile friendly page of code. Our chosen solution was to order a new layout of the same elements one after the other, as demonstrated in the image on the right (tablet view).

Click the thumbnail below:
homepage blastoff services

Click the thumbnail below:

Mobile View

While this will no doubt reiterate the quality of responsive design we offer, this is not where the need for a revamp had come from. As it turned out, the Blast Off!! Services (Spalding) website had been in need of a refresh for a while and sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can make all the difference. Having a dedicated in house designer has allowed us to provide this exact service straight away and proceed to development with the assuring of a fresh, modern design. 

This website was a pleasure to produce and we are looking forward to hosting and supporting the site on behalf of our new client in future.

If you would like to get in touch to discuss refreshing your website, give us a call on 01775 761512 or contact us

Website Browsing With A Mobile Has Overtaken Desktop

christmasThe clocks have gone back and Christmas is just around the corner. Website browsing, which the writer of this blog can only imagine, is an activity which will be taking a lot more of your time right now.  With all those presents to buy, you will probably end up searching the internet for inspirational gift ideas on your Smart phone or tablet.

With the new figures just released demonstrate that it’s even more important to upgrade your website to a mobile friendly solution.  The new figures have revealed that Smartphones and tablets are now king as the share of desktop web browsing has shrunk to 48.7% (according to data provided by StatCounter – statcounter.com)

If you’re running your own business, it’s easy to start to rest on the year’s successes at this time of the year. But as you are reading this blog, your competitors maybe stepping it up a gear and boosting their sales. Perhaps even by going mobile-friendly.

If you are a regular reader of Drive By Websites’ blogs, you will know how much we’ve stressed the importance of transferring websites to a mobile friendly solution. Google has continued to remind businesses that mobile friendly websites are the future, and therefore favoured by the search engine.

Drive By Websites is continuing to offer an affordable solution with prices from only £499 plus VAT for an optimised mobile-friendly website.