Either as a web designer or a business owner, there are not enough hours in the day to work on your client’s or business website. As budgets get stretched and time becomes more valuable, larger projects can get put on hold. But this doesn’t mean there aren’t some affordable, high impact ways to boost your website and its search engine ranking.
Here are some quick tips to get you going.
Switch Domain Name Host
Are you paying $35/year to host your domain name? If you own 5 domain names, that can cost you $350 to renew them all for just 2 years! Why not switch to someone like Go Daddy, where domain names cost just $10/year? To renew those 5 domain names has just gone down to $100 for 2 years, saving you $250. And with the transfer fee of $8, you get one year free!
Switch Web Host
Again, are you paying too much money to host your website? A company like SiteGround (USA clients) or Island Hosting (Canadian clients) charges upwards of $4/month to host 20 external domains so you can have all your smaller websites on one package. We’ve been happy with their service to-date and they have an excellent Control Panel and customer service.
Start an Email Newsletter
With the cost of print and mail going up, it can be costly to run a campaign to your customer list. Let’s say you have 1,000 customers. To design, print and mail a postcard would cost $420 just to mail! Thrown in $1 per print at FedEx Kinko’s and you are looking at $1,500!
With an professional email newsletter, once the initial design and build fee is paid (which can be about $500), the cost of delivery has gone down and you get to see who opens it, when they open it, which links they click on and much more. Also, your list can grow on its own, which can be a powerful and affordable way to tweak your marketing strategy.
WordPress Templates
Sometimes, the cost of designing and building a website can run into 4 figures. Why not purchase a pre-designed WordPress template, adjust it to suit your brand then launch and start updating your own site? And Google LOVES WordPress!
Install Google Analytics
Start learning what your visitors are doing on your website. Now.
This is so crucial, we can’t stress this factor enough. Why have a website if you don’t know what it is doing? Is it harming your online reputation? Do you get very little traffic from Google? Are people typing in some keywords that you haven’t thought about? Are you getting traffic from one particular site? Or one particular region or country?
Google Analytics if free. We used to be skeptical but have grown to love this tool and what it can do to help your business.
LinkedIn Profile
Get yourself a free LinkedIn profile or update the one you have. Add some Applications; if you have a blog, add it in; if you have an Amazon reading list, add it in; if you have a slideshow of your products, add it in.
Google Ads
Are you paying too much for your pay-per-click advertising on Google Ads? Can you tweak some ads or remove some dead keywords? Maybe geo-target your ads so they only appear in specific regions or cities (you can get this from Google Analytics)?
Home and Key Landing Pages
Does your Home page speak to your visitor? Can you change it up so it sends people down the right funnel in your website? Does it have enough keyword-rich copy? Do you have a new line of products, which need promoting?
What about the main landing pages on your site? If someone landed on them directly from a search engine, are they good enough? Do they “say the right thing” then send people to your target pages?
A few tweaks here and there can have a dramatic boost in your rankings and traffic.
Review Title and Meta Tags
This one is often overlooked and underestimated. Are your too long? Do they say the right thing?
The Title tag is what appears as the 1st LINE link in a search engine results snippet. It isn’t actually visible on your web page; it is visible at the VERY TOP of your web browser. We recommend no more than 60 characters (otherwise the search engines cut it off with a …) and position your main keyword phrase at the beginning.
Title tag in a web browser
e.g. POOR: Paul Mycroft Design provides professional web design and email newsletter marketing (83 characters)
BETTER: Professional Web Design | Email Newsletter Design | SEO (55 characters)
This is what it looks like in Google:
Search engine result snippet
Secondly, adjust your Meta description tag, again not visible but still important as it can be displayed under the first line in the above snippet. Try to use 12-15 words and keep it short and sweet. Mention your company name too and keep it relevant to what is on the page.
Lastly, use the Meta Keywords tag to list 6 keyword phrases visible on the page.
Add More Pages
Take this opportunity to add more keyword-rich pages. Learn which are your strongest phrases from Google Analytics then write pages around them and link to them internally. Give your visitors what they want!
Use your Blog
Do you have a blog but don’t use it? Did you pay all that money to have a web designer install it on your website and you don’t have the time to write? Well, you need to find the time, my friend. This particular article took us 1.5 hours to write but we know that many of our customers will find it useful.
Home Page Now, Site Later
Is your web designer willing to build you a Home page only then add pages later? This can be a great way to affordably establish yourself on the Internet and service your customers at the same time.
Payment Plan?
Is your web designer willing to put you on a payment plan if the budget is too high? Have you asked? If he or she is willing, this can be a great way to get your website up now then pay for it later. And everyone wins.
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Please let us know if we can help you with any of these tips to boost your website.
