‘website speed’

If you think that search engine optimization – or more commonly referred to as SEO – is all about keywords, then you might want to make yourself comfortable in front of the screen and continue reading this article. Although keywords have a very important role to play when optimizing a website, there are many other factors that have to be accounted for. This is especially true if you want to enjoy the monetary privileges websites holds in store for their owners.

If you are a business owner who are about to have a new website created from scratch, then you need to make sure that your website is ‘search engine friendly’. Suffice to say that the best way to go about creating a new website is by making use of the services of a company who has the proper know-how and experience in both website designing and SEO, such as iLead Online. If you have an existing website it can be used and optimized to your advantage. One factor that Google pays attention to though is the age of a website, which is why newer pages on an older website will definitely get faster recognition as a new website’s pages.

Now, say for instance that you are about to have your new website designed which will be optimized, the first thing you need to ask yourself is what it is that you want your website to achieve? Do you want readers to purchase your product, request your services, fill in an enquiry form, or simply contact your business directly? It’s only logical that you need to set up your goals at the very beginning so that you will know in which direction to steer your online marketing strategy. Once you have established your goals it will be necessary to evaluate your site, as well as your competition’s, to see what route should be taken to achieve the highest results.

Optimizing a website requires labour. So if you think about taking all kinds of short cuts you will learn that, although it may show some kind of success, the only way to achieve real results is by investing precious time. Moreover patience is a virtue when it comes to optimization as you may very well not see the fruits of your labour within weeks since you began. This is why you need to think of it this way – SEO is a long term investment. And seeing that more and more things are happening online, this is the place you want to be.

Apart from properly doing your research and planning for your website, the following factors will need to form part of your SEO campaign:

• Design – It is human nature that we use our senses in everything we do, which is why it is important that your website is visually appealing. Easy on the eye is always a good thing.
• Keywords – As mentioned before, keywords do play a significant role when it comes to search engine optimization. Be sure to find the keyword phrases that aren’t as sought after, but still attracts the right kind of readers to your site.
• Domain Name – Choosing the right domain name is vital as it can be used as part of your keyword strategy.
• Meta Tags – The Meta tags consists of the title-, description- and keyword tags. Properly optimized websites will always have Meta tags that are created (written) in a specific manner best suited for your website.
• Content Pages – This is where the services of specialised SEO Copywriters are needed. They will provide you with high quality, informative, optimized content pages. These pages can really make or break a website, as it will be bad for your business if the content is of no use to your reader, while good content can act as bait to achieve your goals.
• Navigation (Internal Links) – An efficient tree-like structure is a must.
• Link Building – Link to good sites with good rankings, and be sure to avoid link farms.
• Website Speed – Google recently decided to include ‘site speed’ into their search ranking algorithms.
• Freshness – It’s always good to keep on adding fresh content and changes to your website as Google likes fresh pages.

The abovementioned are merely a quick description of some of the things you need to do if you want your search engine optimization strategy to be successful. And as you can see this is not so much for dummies but will require a keen eye, passion, dedication, knowledge and experience – something we at iLead Online can proudly offer you. So without further ado be sure to begin your SEO process today by contacting us.

It is an obvious truth that in our day and age everything is rushed. We hasten from point A to B with the mission to get everything done as soon as possible. This might very well because of the belief that time is in fact money, and that every second wasted is as good as money down the drain. As such, one of the consequences of our accelerated lifestyle is the importance of speed. It is therefore no shocker that the average internet user takes approximately 30 seconds to decide whether or not the website they are on is what they are indeed looking for.

As can be expected Google was yet again at the forefront when it came to developing ways to speed things up and as a result they decided to add ‘site speed’ into their calculation, or search ranking algorithms. Yip, this means that if you want your website to do well within the search engine results, your website’s speed is a factor you need to consider.

Google is not the only reason why you should make sure that your website loads quickly. The fact of the matter is that it will not only benefit your website’s rankings but also your relationship with readers and potential clients. What many website owners fail to recognise is that the slowness of their website make such an impact on their customers that they may see it as part of the brand values associated with their website. Moreover recent tests done by Google proved that faster websites increased conversions and user satisfaction. In other words, the quicker version of the same websites actually sold more products, had more online forms submitted, higher rates of downloads, and so forth.

An added bonus of websites operating faster was a reduction in operating costs. You might therefore think that as a website owner your main focus should be on the speed of the website. The answer is no. Although this factor does now carry some weight within the Google search results, it mainly applies to those visitors doing their search in English and on Google.com. The main and most important aspect remains to be the relevance of a page, which is why we at iLead Online place such an emphasis on providing our clients with unique, well-written content.

By constantly developing and adding content to our clients’ websites we are able to ensure that they rank higher as well as achieve better conversion rates. Combine this with the expertise to design a website that is “friendly” towards online marketing, and you can be certain that your website will soon show a positive ROI. At the end of the day these websites not only achieve the goals they set out, but also provide their readers – or potential customers – with quick and informative content that is sure to add to customer satisfaction.