I have been on a blogging hiatus for some good 2 years, now that I’m back, I could say that some things never change. The cyber world still has a huge marketplace that business owners cannot ignore. Both large conglomerates and small business owners know the importance of having a good website to make their presence felt in the online market. An optimized website can be an edge against your competitor and can be a good tool for growing your trade.
Here are some areas that you can explore on how to better optimize your website, thereby your business.
Table of Contents
1. Site Design
Designing a site is much more complex than just deciding on how visually appealing it would be. From the right domain name, that would carry your business brand, to hosting and marketing, there are a number more factors to consider. It also involves choosing the programs that will enable site visitors to navigate the site with ease and convenience.
Those who intend to design their web pages from scratch need to familiarize themselves with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and RSS (Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) to help create an efficient site that is easy to manage. One can also get the services of web developers or web designers to make sure that they have the latest programs or tools available. For instance, businesses who would like to target smart phones and tablet users should also consider adding website configurations that are mobile phone friendly.
2. Logo
A logo equates to a company’s trademark/brand. It’s that unique image with certain colours that customers and clients recall when they see a company’s name and vice versa. Logos identify a company’s uniqueness, it differentiates one from its competitors. Logos, however, doesn’t come cheap, it entails a process of research, conceptualization, pitching in, editing, and finally, production. While it is best to hire the services of a logo designer, you can go ahead and gather ideas or learn how to make a logo from online tools such as Logojoy – it’s not only free, you get to visualize how your to-be logo matches your company. Logojoy also provide great resources regarding the ins and outs of logo making.
3. Tags and Keywords
Meta Tags, Title Tags, Image Tags, and Key Words or Key Phrases play an important role in getting your site in the search engine results and attracting your potential customers’ attention. These tags provide the search engine users with a description of what the website or content is all about. Accurate and relevant keywords or tags makes it easy for customers to find exactly what they need and helps you optimize your site.
4. Photos
Photos provide a website with character, they also make content a lot more intriguing and relatable. Photos on a website are the same for book illustrations, draws the reader’s attention. While providing your own photos is ideal, it isn’t always easy. It is greatly convenient that there are free stock photo websites one can download photos from. Otherwise, there are also stock photo websites where you can buy photos for a minimal fee. It is always better to pay beforehand than pay afterwards because of violating copyright, so always make sure that the use of photos on a website is legal.
5. Links
Backlinks are often used by search engines to determine a website’s search engine ranking and popularity. One SEO strategy is to increase backlinks to authoritative and relevant sites in order to increase a website’s search engine ranking. However, this strategy can also backfire on your site if you don’t check links regularly. Broken links can hurt your site by making it look unprofessional and frustrating to use if you have several broken links on your site. Check links on your site regularly to avoid this.
Yes, I am learning that broken links are pretty detrimental to the site. I’ve also noticed that including internal and external links helps my visibility in search engines. Question…how many internal links do you suggest per post? If there is certain ratio to external links that should be exercised?
These are all very good ways to optimize a site to be its best. We are currently back tracking and making sure we go through all old posts to improve SEO. I think organic traffic is super important these days.
I’ve heard of Logojoy before but have yet to check it out. My blog is in need of updating and I oh it to myself given how much heart and soul and time I’m invested in ti. There are some great stock photo sites and quality pictures really catch readers’ attention and peak their interest in your posts.
My site needs an overhaul. I have all these tasks on my list to update on my site. I especially need to learn about SEO and backlinks.
I cannot stress how important is is to choose the right domain name when I have create a few sites for a couple of clients. I use a lot of tags in my blog posts, image tags are also a great way of getting your business out there for people to see.
When I redesigned my website (well, forced to because my former hosting company set me in a nightmare tailspin of being down that I’m still recovering from), I made sure that I took better, larger photos, that are for the most part, the same width throughout the blog. My domain name is jacked up because I chose it many years ago and had no clue that it would matter so much in the future. I think that I will start paying more attention to tags now.
These are all good tips and ones I’m trying to work on myself right now. What a hiatus, 2 years! And then jumping back in with relevant info straight away- props to you!
I’ve got to go and check all of my backlinks again, although I think there’s a good plug in for that.
I’m so glad you mentioned site design. I think it’s critical, especially in today’s world where most people interact with websites on their mobile devices. Also, if I visit a site that’s been poorly designed, rarely do I stay more than a click or two. x
This is such a helpful post! Of course, other than having a great-looking blog, it helps to have quality content too. It’s been my golden rule and it worked wonders for my blog. Thanks for sharing these tips!
Thank you for sharing these tips! Ive been looking more into blogging as well as starting up a freelance makeup brand. I’m currently doing research to help with building the website and different marketing strategies!