SEO
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Should I be Scared of SEO?

If you’re new to the scary world of digital marketing, things like SEO (search engine marketing) can seem scary to begin with. There’s a lot of information to take in when you’re trying to learn the basics of SEO for the first time.

However, if you’re willing to take your time and learn the basics of SEO and other digital marketing techniques, it doesn’t have to be scary. If you’ve created your own website, you obviously have a few tech skills. Really, you just need to expand these and grow your skill set if you want to become a successful SEO marketer.

The reality is that you shouldn’t be scared of SEO, but you should still consider employing a professional SEO expert to take care of your expert if you have the budget. Learn from them, and discover the best ways to optimise your website.

Why Is SEO Scary For Some

Ultimately, search engine optimisation is a skill that’s quite technical and specialised. A lot of people look at it and become immediately confused, which leads to them ignoring it or just asking other people to look after it for them.

But, it really shouldn’t be something to be scared of. Rather, you should welcome the opportunity to learn new tech skills with open arms, even if it does take some time to figure out exactly how SEO works.

SEO Optimized Content
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How to Write Modern, SEO Optimized Content

Although Google’s search engine algorithms are constantly changing, there’s one constant in the world of SEO – high quality content. Creating engaging content that people actually want to read is one of the best things to do if you’re trying to build a successful website that ranks well on the search engine results pages.

With this in mind, I decided to put together a short guide outlining the best ways to write modern, SEO optimised content. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should help you get started.

  1. Make Sure You Do Keyword Research

A lot of people ignore this step, especially when they’re just starting their website. However, this is a bad idea. Ignoring keyword research will mean that you’re missing a lot of opportunities, especially if you’re working in a competitive niche.

Ultimately, you need to make sure that you’re using a reputable keyword research tool to identify low-competition keywords and phrases that you can incorporate in your content. Aim for phrases that have a decent search volume, but low competition – these will be the easiest to rank for.

  1. Focus On The User Experience

Nowadays, Google’s algorithms are smart enough to rank content based on its quality and the value that it brings to readers. Stuffing keywords isn’t enough to rank well anymore, and it’s therefore important to make sure that you focus on quality over quantity.

Once you’ve identified your keywords and phrases, sit down and think about the things that people are going to be trying to find out when they use these search terms. Then, when you’re writing, try and answer these questions in a clear, concise manner which is easy to read and engaging.

Drive New Traffic
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5 Great Ways To Drive New Traffic To Your Website

If you had to choose one key indicator of website success, it would be the number of visitors that the website has. There are literally millions of WordPress websites and blogs out there, but a lot of them receive few to no visitors, and can therefore be considered useless.

If you would like to get your content out there, drive sales income up, and increase the amount of money you make from advertising, then you simply have to get more people to visit and engage with your website. There are plenty of ways to do this, but some of the most common include:

  1. Target long-tailed keywords with low competition:

Unless you have a lot of money (think thousands of dollars) to spend on advertising, there is little point targeting short, popular keywords. Most of these will be dominated by larger websites, and it is extremely difficult to rank for them. This means that you will get very little traffic from them, even if you focus on them.

However, longer tailed keywords generally don’t have as much competition, which means that it is much easier to rank highly for them. Try and target keywords with little competition, but make sure that they are still relevant to you page and content, otherwise you will probably have a pretty high bounce rate.

  1. Use online directories:

If you have some sort of business website, then make use of an Online Business Directory and listing site. These sort of sites generally list a whole lot of businesses, and let people review and comment on them. If you can get yourself listed on one, and get people to leave good reviews for you, you will find that a lot more people start visiting your site.

Web Design Agreements
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The Importance Of Web Design Agreements

Having a professional taking care of your web design can release you from the pressure of having to do it all yourself, however, you need to ensure that the stress doesn’t manifest itself in a different way. What we mean is ensuring that the agreement you have with your web designer is more than just a handshake, because if it isn’t then you are potentially inviting all sorts of problems if anything goes wrong.

To ensure this doesn’t happen a simple written contract which both you and your designer agree to, means both of you know exactly what is required on both sides. There should be five basic sections included and here is an explanation of each one.

#1 Cost and Payment Method: Make sure both parties know what the agreed cost of the work is and what, if any, part payment agreement there is. You’ll also want to agree whether the amount is an hourly rate or a fixed price and the method of payment.

#2 Work Agreed To: This might seem strange but you do actually need to agree what services you are employing your designer for. For a website, this should be detailed and include the agreed process for edits and reworking of the design if it is not satisfactory. It is essential this part makes it clear that the designer is expected to make any changes you want to make as part of the work.

Apps for ECommerce Store
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Seven Apps Your ECommerce Store Should Have

If you have an eCommerce store using Shopify, Woo Commerce or another platform there are a multitude of extra functions you can add to enhance your store’s functionality. Better than that they will increase your profitability and improve your customers’ experience so that they are more likely to return and purchase from you again.

To list every single type of app would take an entire book, and to name specific apps without testing every single one wouldn’t be fair. Instead we are going to tell about what the main functions you want to add to your store so you can research which specific app or plug in to use for your eCommerce store.

#1 Abandoned Cart

We’ve all done it and so do your customers, and that’s go through the process of adding items to the online shopping cart, and then for whatever reason, fail to click the checkout button. An abandoned cart app will remind the customer, either through pop ups, or emails (and sometimes both) that they haven’t checked out. You won’t get everyone to return but those that do add to your sales and profits.

Web Design
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Making Your Web Design Easy On The Eye

There are many aspects of web design that relate to how user-friendly the site is going to be in terms of navigation and visitors being able to easily access all areas of the website easily. Whilst it is important to get this right, it is not the only major consideration you should factor into your website design.

Another very important matter of website design to think about carefully, is the visual impact of your site and in particular, those elements which will directly influence how a visitor uses their eyes to scan, read or view your website content on their screen. There are four main ones you should consider when designing your site, which are:

  • Text Arrangement
  • Colours
  • Reading Behaviour
  • Fonts

Text arrangement refers to how your text is arranged on the page and more especially on content pages which have a lot of text. One of the best practices is to utilise a grid system similar to how most newspapers arrange their newsprint text on their pages. The reason this is particularly relevant today is the huge upturn in handheld and mobile devices that people now use to access the internet.