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Apr 28
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SEO For Brighton Businesses: Penguin 3.0 is Coming, Will Your Site Survive?

By SEO, Website

Clean up your website’s backlink profile with a professional Link Detox before it’s too late

SEO Services in Brighton from Tyler ConsultantsMany SEO consultancies serving Brighton Business clients still shudder when they think back to the launch of Penguin 2.0. by Google.  Google’s Penguin 2.0 algorithm changed the rules as far as link building was concerned and as a result thousands of websites were penalized and fell rapidly down the rankings.

Website traffic dropped, as did sales revenues and for some online businesses it was the last straw. We all knew the link building algorithm changes would not stop there and we have seen many further tweaks, almost on a daily basis. However another major change is expected soon with the rollout of Penguin 3.0 this is expected top been even more severe penalising not just spammy or ‘toxic’ links but also marginal or ‘suspicious links’.   Our advice would be to ask a professional Brighton SEO firm such as ourselves to undertake a thorough analysis and ‘detox’ of the backlinks pointing to your website.

Have you done carried out a Link Risk Analysis?

An effective ongoing SEO strategy requires regular link audits of your backlink profile to find out id any new toxic or suspicious lonks have been created. Remember you cannot stop anyone creating a bad link to your website. All you can do is clean up those bad links, ie. Ask for them to be removed or proactively disavow them, just like Google recommends.

And you know what, even if some of those links are “nofollow” but look really spammy, we would go ahead and disavow them anyway. If they don’t help your organic search engine ranking there is no point in them being there so it doesn’t hurt to disavow them. And many links from previous spam blogs and articles or press release syndication sites are NOW nofollow, but might still be seen as problematic by Google. Anything that Google can categorise as an unnatural or artificial link is now a problem.

If you are not doing any Link Risk Management today, we suggest you at least contact us to run a backlink profile analysis to see what you need to do to clean up your site before the next game changing algorithm update becomes live. Please leave a comment below if you would like us to call you.

Apr 25
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oban less is more for your website

Less is more on your website

By Design, Website, Wordpress

Your home page is really important as it’s most likely going to be the first page a visitor see’s. When you first land on a page you have certain expectations. So how do you ensure your viewers find the goodies of your site? Cut the clutter.

Sleek websites not only look great but they minimise confusion and contribute to ensuring that you achieve targets like subscribers, sales and more signups. This gives your website a spring clean that can be just what you need to up those conversions, but how do you go about it?

Simplifying your website may seem daunting at first, it’s particularly painful after having worked on that useful content. Every step you take towards streamlining your website will make an impact. You shouldn’t look at simplifying your home page as a mammoth task which you could never have the time to finish, this is an ongoing process. Improvements will be possible each and every time you search, you can take it slow as long as you don’t neglect this process. Persistence is key.

Finding the Focus of your Website

What is the necessity on your page? Most likely there will be one fundamental aspect of each page you have which you cannot go without. Perhaps it’s a Call to Action, a subscription to your newsletter, a download to your latest eBook. What ever your page’s aim is you have to narrow it down to this point as much as possible. Any distractions are only giving the visitor an excuse to leave. Don’t give them that excuse.

Minimise your page count

This doesn’t always mean deleting all your content. Merging two pages or even more into a single page can be much more user friendly than having to click through page after page. However there is almost definitely going to be at least some content which is unnecessary somewhere on your site, maybe it’s simply out of date. Then it simply has to go. When you have less places to visit on your site not only are you making content more coherent, but your navigation bar will be a lot less complicated.

Keep content above the fold

Many studies have been undertaken regarding the fold on a webpage, it is widely regarded that any content below the fold is largely ignored. Therefore it is very important that your website’s focal elements are not below the fold. While I would like to argue a gripping webpage will draw relevant users to go below the fold and that there are many irrelevant reasons which could be interfering with reading further. The evidence is there and statistically you would be much better off avoiding placing important pieces below the fold.

Non-Obtrusive Design

When reading through content the most distracting aspect of a website tends to be colour. If you want a safe bet most designers stick with the 60-30-10 Rule, suggesting that you use three colours in a ratio of 60%, 30% & 10%. Not only is this minimising interferences with your visitors but you will give a thoughtful and professional impression. You can take this one step further by understanding the demographics of your audience. Analyzing the competition will allow you to either stick to trends or stand out without alienating your audience. Highlight your focal elements with primary colours which contrast with the rest of your design so that your visitors can’t help but consider them.

Hopefully this article has informed you of the importance of simplicity. If you would like to learn more about web design and how it can help your business please leave a comment below or call us on 01273 328877

Apr 10
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Navigation Bar

Should you use a fixed navigation bar?

By Design, Website

In 2014 the fixed navigation bar or sticky menu’s are quickly becoming a typical trend in web design. The concept behind the fixed navigation bar is that it improves the user experience, providing easy access to the prominent pages throughout your browsing. While there is no questioning the functionality of this feature there are many who would criticise the fixed bar. Complaints tend to penalise the navigation bar for misleading a reader’s attention. As many of you will know immediately drawing attention to certain aspects of a site is paramount to it’s success.

Therefore it is easy to see that the dilemma here is not quite as simple as it may have seemed. The impact a fixed navigation bar will have on your user’s experience is perhaps mostly based on preference then? I would argue that in fact the answer to whether you should use the fixed navigation bar or not depends on the website you are tailoring for. So then, to be able to discern whether the navigation bar is for you we’ll have to look more closely at the pros and cons for this matter.

Navigation Bar Pros

User Experience

…or UX Design, when plowing through vast amounts of information it becomes easy to see why a fixed navigation tool can save your web visitors much needed time. When finding websites for the first time people are not afraid of making the decision they would rather read about this topic elsewhere within seconds of finding the page. We all know this however the user experience is almost as important if your site has clunky or unclear design people will not hesitate to search elsewhere. With this in mind the value of a fixed navigation bar is clear.

Record browse times

You may not think that access to various sites at all times would save you much browsing time but in a recent study by Smashing Magazine reported on average people browse 22% faster. That’s an extra 22% of time spent of people actually looking at your content rather than digging through your site. When pages are packed with content you can bet that a fixed navigation bar will earn you those brownie points from your users.

This is particularly true with the rise of flat design in 2014, when long empty space is so prevalent on the internet a fixed navigation bar can save your users a lot of time.

Navigation Bar Cons

Overcrowding hurts UX

If your site is overflowing with content in a relatively small space you may want to reconsider whether a fixed navigation bar is for you. While having easy access to the rest of your site is typically useful in certain circumstances it could be hurting your UX. Complicated websites may look visually impressive but nothing is worth making your website difficult to digest, especially when competing with the simplicity of flat design. Also when a website has minimal scrolling the fixed navigation bar may feel pointless and thus wasting space, possibly irritating visitors.

Development

There are a couple of other issues which can emerge from using a navigation bar unnecessarily besides aggravating your web traffic. While it is uncommonly seen a fixed navigation bar can be difficult to translate onto mobile format. Additionally implementing a fixed navigation bar will increase load times of your page thus it is very important to consider whether this will actually help the web traffic which you have worked hard to achieve.

All of these problems need to be considered for your website. Hopefully these points will help clear up whether a fixed navigation bar is for you.

Mar 12
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Is Your Website an Effective Sales & Marketing Tool for Your Brighton Business?

By Marketing, SEO, Website

In today’s ‘Digital Marketing’ world it is very easy to become obsessed or at least overly distracted by Social Media, Mobile Web, Video Marketing, Email Marketing and the like.

Even marketing professionals like us can fall in to this trap from time to time. We regularly need to remind ourselves of the fundamentals of online marketing, the foundation stones if you like. For most Brighton businesses the foundation stone of online marketing is and will always be your business website!

For many Brighton businesses your website will be your primary sales and marketing tool – your social media profiles, directory profiles and everything else are used to drive traffic to your website and help build your online profile.

Unfortunately not all business websites are effective sales and marketing tools – you would be surprised just how many websites fail to ask for the business!  Take an honest look at your company website and ask yourself “Is there any call to action on this page”, “Are we asking our customers for their business.”

What is the user experience like?

Having worked hard to drive visitors (traffic) to your website, the last thing you want is for them to leave it quickly.  According to Google, you have just 7 seconds to grab and retain the attention of your visitors. If they cannot see what they want within that short timeframe they will be off to one of your competitors’ website’s, unlikely to ever return to yours.  As the old adage goes, “you only get one chance to make a first impression”.

Here are a few pointers to help you:

1. Making a good impression

The look and feel of your website and the ease of navigating between the pages are crucial components to good design and, of course, the page content must be 100% relevant to the page topic and written from your customer’s perspective.

2. Take an honest look at your website and ask yourself:

  • Has the site been designed to naturally lead your visitors to a sale
  • Are your calls to action clear, obvious and frequent throughout your sales process?
  • Is your web content presented both attractively and effectively?
  • Do your web pages include headlines, sub headings and short, succinct copy – e.g. bullet points to make it easy to read quickly?
  • Are you giving your visitors the opportunity to take the next step in the sales cycle in their preferred manner – people buy in different ways e.g. some prefer loads of detail, some prefer a video others know what they want and just want to buy it as quickly as possible.
  • Can you offer a performance guarantee to help remove any customer concerns that may hinder the sale?
  • How easy is it to buy from you?  Test your online sales process yourself by running through from start to finish – how pleasant was the experience? Now repeat the process on one of your competitors sites and compare
  • Check that all ‘contact us’ and all internal and external links actually work – we regularly find dead links (called 404 errors) and all this does is frustrate the customers

3. Keep your site up to date

A widely used Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) technique is to regularly update your website with good quality, fresh, relevant content.  When was your website last updated?

4. The Follow-Up

The ‘follow-up’) is the bridge between you, your customer and any future business they may send your way.   It is all about keeping in touch after the sale.  This could be by way of a regular newsletter, email marketing, e-zine or whatever you wish.

The point is you should have a system in place to put your new customers onto your mailing list immediately after their first purchase from you.

By consolidating your relationship with your customers through meaningful, targeted content marketing you will turn a single purchase buyer into a long-term customer – actively engaged for when you’re ready to launch your next offer.

5. Measure and monitor your website’s performance

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it!”

Measuring just how well your website is performing is not that difficult, there are many good web analytics packages available, mostly free, including Google Analytics.  All analytics software will help you to track visitor numbers, how they found you, which pages they looked at, how long they spent on the website, which page they came in at and most importantly which page they left at!

Having this information will help you to continually improve and refine your web page content and is a ‘must do’ if you are serious about internet marketing.
If you would like to review the effectiveness of your website, please leave a comment below or visit Tyler Consultants – Marketing, Design, Web Development & SEO Services for Brighton business.

Feb 13
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How to make WordPress secure

By Website, Wordpress

WordPress is the most popular CMS system with over 20% of the website CMS market. Not surprising considering it is open source, packed with features and very easy to use.

But with popularity it has become a target for hackers and so it is vitally important to make sure it is secure.  Our quick list outlines the 5 main areas you need to cover when running a WordPress website:

1. UPDATE your plugins and core WordPress files regularly.  There is a whole army of developers out there that constantly work to make their plugins more secure, so take advantage of it.  But remember to back up before doing this.

2. Make the LOGIN HARDER.  There are lots of things you can do to make it harder for hackers to login to your WordPress website; put a captcha on the login page, allow only 3 login attempts, delete the ‘admin’ account and use strong passwords.

3. Upload a SECURITY PLUGIN.  There are lots of Woprdpress security plugins, some are better than others, but make sure you have one that protects against people hacking into your files and database.

4. Try to avoid FREE THEMES AND PLUGINS. For the home blogger they are fine but for a business then they can come with too may vulnerabilities.

5. Take a regular BACKUP.  This speaks for itself and there are plugis that will do it automatically for you.

WordPress has its own article going through some common forms of vulnerabilities, and the things you can do to help keep your WordPress installation secure.

If you’need more professional help and advice with securing your WordPress website then please call us on 01273 328877.

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