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6 Small Changes to Give Your Website A Big Facelift

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If you’re looking for a few quick ways to give your website a facelift without a complete overhaul – you’ve come to the right place.

As a web design and development agency, we work with many small businesses who don’t always have the resources or the desire to perform a complete makeover every single year. However, it’s important to keep your web presence current, and that’s where the minor functional adjustments below come in handy.

Here Are 6 Small Changes to Give Your Website A Big Facelift:

1. Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile Responsive

Having a mobile-friendly site is critical to business success in the digital age. If your site is not yet mobile responsive, it probably means that it has not been updated in quite some time It also means that you’re missing out on a massive potential market – all those people who use primarily their phones to research and buy products or services online.

Mobile responsive design will not only look good and function well across all platforms, but it will open your business up to more potential leads. Plus, Google tends to give ranking preference to sites that are mobile-friendly and function well at all screen sizes.

2. Update Your Widgets and Plugins

Developers regularly update their plugins or themes to meet the changing needs of the WordPress platform updates.

If you don’t update your widgets or plugins regularly, they will not always work as intended and may even compromise your site’s performance or security. This applies to social widgets, shopping carts, and all kinds of third-party plugins.

3. Align With Your Marketing Strategy

Just because you changed your marketing strategy does not necessarily mean you have to redesign your whole website. However, it’s a good idea to review your website objectively to ensure that it matches your new marketing strategy.

This means placing your latest promotion in a prominent spot on your website so that your visitors don’t have to struggle to find it.

4. Refresh Your Web Content

Great website content is the key to improving just about everything else on your site.

If you’re looking to make major content improvements to boost user-experience and conversion rates, it is a good idea to consider a website redesign or hiring a professional copywriter.

But, you can make small adjustments on your own to jazz up your current SEO rankings or website flow.

5. Review Your Analytics

Your website is beautiful and functional, but it’s not turning visitors into customers. Do you know where the disconnect is happening?

A quick look at your Google Analytics should give you a good idea of where you can improve. Here’s what you should consider, based on your website analytics, conversion statistics, and traffic:

  • How easy is it (for a visitor) no navigate your site?
  • Is your content of good quality, and compelling?
  • Do your landing pages incite enough curiosity in visitors?
  • Can you enhance your call-to-action to compel visitors to find out more?

When it comes to a website, there are a few crucial aspects to constantly tweak and improve:

  • site navigation
  • prominence of important content (promos, contact details)
  • up-to-date product and service pages

6. Refresh Your Branding

Finally, consider when last you updated your logo and color scheme. A small update can renew your branding image significantly.

The desire for a website facelift often goes hand-in-hand with the need to make it function better for your visitors. Take the time to implement these 6 small changes to give your website a big facelift or give us a call to discuss making bigger changes to your site.

Pros & Cons of Popular Website Design Platforms & How to Choose

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So, it’s time to invest in a website, but with so many different options available, which should you choose?

If you don’t have much time at your disposal and you don’t have technical or design knowledge, you may want to invest in professional web design. Unfortunately, some business owners have had bad experiences with developers.

Whether an unscrupulous designer deliberately set out to break a client’s trust, or whether there was a miscommunication over the terms of the agreement or simply undue expectations, these things happen.

That’s why it is important to consider your options carefully, ask all the questions you need answered, and deal with a professional with excellent references.

Here Are The Pros & Cons of Popular Website Design Platforms & How to Choose

It’s impossible to cover all the different design platforms and website builders available today, so we will just look at a few of the most popular options.

Wix

Arguably the most popular option at the moment, Wix is a free platform which hosts more than 109 million websites and almost 3 million paying subscribers. The platform offers 500+ professional looking templates and a drag and drop interface and helpful tutorials.

The free plan does show visible advertising to your visitors, but you can pay to upgrade.Upgraded plans range from $5-$25 a month. If you want to change your template, you will have to rebuild your content, which can become a hassle for a new business owner settling into their brand. Although the sites are indexable and crawlable by search engines, the page URL structure is not attractive.

Weebly

Weebly has more than forty million users, and the website builder is minimalistic and easy to use. They regularly add new mobile responsive templates and offer 40+ pre-designed web page layouts. Although their designs have not been as sophisticated as Wix, they are certainly improving. If you have coding experience, you can modify the code to enable more styling options.

Plans start from $8 a month to $49 a month.

WordPress.org

If you’re a confident coder/designer, you can host your own site using WordPress.org software. All you need is to buy a domain (approximately $10) and hosting (from $3 a month). You can use one of the dozens of free themes provided, or buy a premium theme. You will also have access to thousands of different free and premium plugins to customize your site to suit your exact requirements.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com offers a range of options that must not be confused with WordPress.org.

You can get a free website (yourdomain.wordpress.com) with free limited templates, or you can opt for one of the paid options ranging from $4-$24.92 a month, billed annually. The free package is fine for a personal blog, but if you run a business, you should definitely opt for a paid option instead.

The paid packages offer a range of benefits, such as custom domain names, essential Jetpack features, support, different levels of themes and customization options, storage, and the ability to remove ads. The two bigger packages allow you to monetize your site, which is crucial for any serious business owner.

The Business package is ideal for business sites, as it allows you to:

  • Install third-party themes and plugins.
  • Integrate Google Analytics.
  • Attend live courses.
  • Access SEO tools.

In addition, you can remove all WordPress.com branding.

Yes, you can get a decent-looking site for cheap or even free. But there’s more to a website than just a beautiful design.

  • Functionality
  • Quality content
  • Security
  • Storage
  • Backups
  • Premium features
  • Customization
  • Integration

All of these are crucial elements of a quality, functional website.

If you want a professional business website, we highly recommend that you opt for one of the premium WordPress.com options that allow for maximum customization and design flexibility. Working with a professional will ensure that you receive a site that meets current best practices, and it will give you peace of mind, knowing that you have a secure site.

Need help choosing a web design platform? Get in touch with us today.

A Beginner’s Guide to Navigating Landing Page Design & Development

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Landing pages have arguably the biggest trend in web design for the last year and a bit. If you’ve been a bit slow on the uptake, you’re not yet too late, because landing pages are not going anywhere. Now you may be wondering how to go about creating your landing pages. There are three options:

  • Designing your own pages from scratch (DIY).
  • Using a web-based landing page editor.
  • Hiring an outside agency to create it for you.

Navigating the Virtues of Landing Page Design & Development…

Each of these options offers its own unique features, along with advantages and disadvantages. It’s up to you to weigh up the options and choosing the one that fits your needs best. Let’s look at the differences.

DIY Landing Page Design

Foundation and Bootstrap are the two most common options for businesses who wish to design their own landing pages. Since these online landing page builders don’t have drag-and-drop or point-and-click interfaces, you will have to code it yourself.

The fact that DIY frameworks are usually free is a huge selling point and since you’ll be doing the coding yourself, your options are limitless.

The only disadvantage is that you need major skills. You need to know how to code or how to borrow snippets of other people’s code. Of course, you could learn how to do it, but there’s no instruction manual. It will take time to figure it all out, unless you have a team of designers who can code your landing page, do split-testing and make all the necessary changes.

Online Landing Page Builder

This option is a hybrid between the first and last option. It is half-DIY and half similar to hiring an agency to design your landing pages.

An online landing page builder is created by coders and designers to provide a ‘what-you-see-is-what-you-get’ editor. It features design templates and plenty of pre-made code, and it is editable and mobile ready.

These online landing page builders typically integrate with popular site builders, email marketing platforms, social media networks and payment gateways.

Templates mean that you give up some of your flexibility, so if you have very specific design requirements, an online landing page builder may not be for you. Most online builders also require a monthly subscription fee.

If that’s not an option for you, you may want to consider the last option…

Hiring an Agency to Design Your Landing Pages

We’re not biased when we say that hiring a skilled agency with professional designers and programmers will more than likely result in the best possible landing page. Professional design agencies have the skills and the tools to deliver the exact landing page you desire.

Your landing page will be feature-rich, easy to use and mobile responsive. Yes, it will cost you a bit more than buying your own online landing page builder, but the investment will be worth the customization options. It may well be cheaper than the time you will have to invest if you opt to build your own DIY landing page, though.

There really is no one-size-fits-all or one-option-beats-all landing page solution, but one may prove to be more valuable or sensible to you depending on your situation.

Which landing page design solution do you prefer and why? Let us know in the comments!

4 Reasons to Use a Premium Website SSL Certificate

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In 2014, Google announced a new ranking parameter that they wanted to implement in search engine results: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure or HTTPS for short.

Although subtle, you have probably noticed that some website addresses start with http:// and others with https://, which helps designate which website utilizes a new type of security encryptions. The “s” stands for “Secure” and is typically used on websites that ask for personal or financial information.

HTTPS websites are powered by Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology. In this post, we are going to explore this technology a bit further and explain the reasons to use a premium website SSL certificate.

First of all, what is Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology?

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology establishes an encrypted link between you and your web server. It keeps all data transferred between the browser and the server private.

Without SSL, a hacker can place a small, undetected program on the web server. This software is activated when a website visitor types information on the website, and it will record the information and send it to the hacker.

However, when a site is secured with SSL, a secure connection is instantly formed between the browser and the web server that no third party can access.

Here are 4 solid reasons to use a premium website SSL certificate for your business website:

1. It secures your data.

Google’s new Chrome v. 62 browser now indicates when a site has a form but is not SSL-enabled.

You may have noticed a “Not Secure” prefix on some websites already. If you are like 85% of people who were part of a recent HubSpot Research panel, you will probably navigate back to safety instead of continuing with the unsecured site.

You don’t want visitors to navigate away from your site to that of a competitor, so be sure your site has a premium SSL certificate.

2. It’s SEO friendly!

Google has stated in a public forum that when two sites are equal in search results, one that has SSL enabled will be given a slight rank boost which will outweigh the other.

3. It provides additional authentication.

An SSL certificate from a trusted provider delivers additional authentication. It uses a public key infrastructure (PKI) that ensures your information is sent only to the intended server. This information is not accessible from any other device on the same server.

4. Free SSL certificates are shared.

Free SSL certificates were initially created to provide security for admin dashboards, rather than for public sites. If your site collects private data, it is better to use a premium SSL certificate.

If the server’s private SSL keys land up in the wrong hands, it will compromise all the businesses sharing the certificate, potentially exposing all the financial information collected on those sites.

So, where do you go from here?

Does My Site Have an SSL certificate?

You can use HubSpot’s free SSL checker to see whether your site uses SSL. It might also display a lock icon in the address bar. However, even if your site seems to be SSL enabled, your certificate may have expired, which means that you don’t have protection.

Navigate to View -> Developer Tools in Google Chrome, and click on the Security tab to check on the status of your SSL certificate by clicking “View Certificate”.

How Do I Get an  SSL Certificate?

First, you need to figure out the type of certificate your site needs. Most web hosts can get away with a standard SSL certificate. However, if you’re in a regulated industry – such as insurance, health, or finance – it is best to speak to IT about it. If you host content on separate domains and subdomains on multiple platforms, you may need different SSL certificates.

If you’re unsure about which SSL certificate to use, or if you need help installing it, get in touch with Unbound Web Design.

Project Highlight: Azalfa (Arizona Assisted Living Federation of America)

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Industry: Non-Profit Organizations

Company: Azalfa (Arizona Assisted Living Federation of America)

Type of Work: Website Functionality Updates

Azalfa, or the Arizona Assisted Living Federation of America, is a non-profit, membership-based organization dedicated to enhancing the experience and quality of life of assisted living residents through support and education.

The Challenge

The wonderful people at Azalfa found themselves with an abundance of open career opportunities and needed a way to display them and make them easy to sift through.

The Unbound Solution

To help Azalfa bring great career opportunities to their readers, Unbound Web Design updated the overall look of the website and implemented a robust job search capability and the ability to upload user resumes into the Azalfa database.

The Results

The resulting website is a breath of fresh air for Azalfa and the people they serve. With the new functionality, finding qualified candidates is infinitely easier and will allow the assisted living community will thrive.

View The Live Project Now

4 Quick Tips to Boost Your Organic Website Traffic

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Looking For A Little Extra Website Love?

Online marketers will tell you that the key to online success is driving as much organic traffic as possible to your website. 

Being a household name makes marketing much easier for those companies to bring organic traffic. However, even as a small business, you can still drive organic traffic with the right strategies in place and a little elbow grease.

Here are 4 quick tips to boost your organic website traffic:

1. Optimize your site for search engines (SEO).

Search engines have caught on to black hat methods used to manipulate rankings, so don’t waste your time with that. Instead, make your site as relevant as possible to the robots. Use SEO audit tools, such as SEMrush to see what you can do to fix your site.

Choosing the right keywords is crucial to SEO success. Instead of choosing keywords that will only drive traffic, try to select keywords that will drive conversion.

Here are some SEO tips you could implement:

  • Use long-tail keywords.
  • Fix up your meta titles, URLs and descriptions.
  • Create cornerstone pages.
  • Use ALT tags smartly.
  • Mix up your anchor text.

2. Leverage your business blog.

Blogging is a fantastic tool for driving organic traffic to your site. The more you blog, the more traffic you will get. When you write content for your website and blog, target reader personas rather than search engines. Provide solutions to their needs. Quality copy that appeals to humans will ensure better search engine rankings.

Also, be sure to promote your blog posts on social media.

Facebook recently cut back on their organic reach, so you may have to run a campaign that continually features your posts to both your custom audience and remarketing audience.

3. Exchange guest posts with industry influencers.

Exchanging blog posts with others’ is an effective way to drive new traffic to your site. Reach out to non-competing blogs of a similar size in the same industry as yours, and approach the owner about exchanging blog posts, or taking turns to feature one another’s posts. Just be careful to avoid duplicating your content.

4. Make use of email marketing.

Email marketing is a highly effective tool for driving organic traffic to your site. Include an email newsletter opt-in form on your site to collect contacts using Drip or MailChimp.

Once you have collected a decent list of contacts, you can upload them to Facebook and capture the social accounts of those connections who have their email addresses linked to their social accounts. If you have more than 500 contacts on your list, you can use Twitter remarketing in the same way.

When it comes to driving organic traffic to your site, always think of creative ways to deliver valuable, evergreen content. How do you know what your audience wants to read? Create a quiz! Answer their questions or provide information via podcasts with interesting guests, or host a webcast or webinar. The possibilities are endless!

4 Steps to Get Your Small Business Ready for the Holiday Season

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Believe it or not, but the holiday season is upon us! You might still be basking in the afterglow of summer, but winter is upon us, and you know what that means: It’s time to start preparing your business for the holidays.

Overall, the holiday season brings the biggest amount of sales to large companies. As a small business owner, this is your season to beef up your own visibility. Don’t give shoppers a reason to overlook you this holiday season.

Use these tips to get your retail or e-commerce business ready for the holidays:

1. Ensure Your Website is Ready

When last did you update your brand? Now is the time to tidy up, freshen and prepare your website for the holiday rush. Depending on the type of website you use, you may need to:

  • Refine, adjust, and update product listings.
  • Check to ensure that your search function works as it should.
  • Clarify shipping costs and delivery deadlines.
  • Place contact details where it is easy to find (in the header or footer of each page).
  • Test the checkout process to ensure it is simple and functional.

If your business is e-commerce only, consider categorizing items into gift categories to make it easier for users to find what they are looking for. You may also want to consider selling gift cards, as that will help increase post-holiday sales.

Updating your website is important, whether you’re using your website as an e-commerce platform or as a marketing tool for your brick and mortar retail store. The following tips are especially important to the latter:

  • Update your Google Local Search information as well as on Local.com.
  • Put a map as well as coordinates and the full address of your retail store on your site, including your phone number and hours of operation.
  • Ensure that your site is mobile friendly. A majority of shoppers use smartphones to find stores nearby.
  • Add a click-to-call button to your site to make it extra simple for customers to call you.

In addition to preparing your online presence, consider how you will add a festive touch to your store using decor, lighting, music and possibly scented candles. Cinnamon, pine, and apple are great this time of the year.

Many of the principles included in our blog, 4 Tips to Prep Your Website for Festival Season Traffic, can be applied to the holiday season.

2. Plan Your Promos

As you might have guessed, marketing is key to holiday success in a small business. Plan your marketing period for November first through January first now, including:

  • discounts and deals
  • lead generation methods
  • your marketing budget
  • customer loyalty rewards
  • daily marketing

Pre-holiday promotions are always very exciting, and an excellent way to get ahead of the competition.

3. Tidy Up Your Social Media Reputation

Many online and offline shoppers use reviews and social media to choose where they want to shop. Now is the time to tidy up your online presence and ensure that your company’s reputation is in good shape. Use a monitoring tool to keep an eye on mentions so that you can quickly respond to any negative reviews or comments.

While you’re at it, start preparing your editorial calendar and schedule posts to go out throughout the season. That way, it’s one less thing to be busy with while serving all your holiday customers.

4. Review Your Inventory

Do a sales forecast based on last year’s performance and see where you need to stock up. Ideally, your business should offer good representation or products at all the different price points.

Once you have done your preparations, it is time to sit back, relax and enjoy your last few weeks of peace before the holiday rush. Think of it this way: You may be busy over the holiday season while everyone is resting, but you will make great profits that will help you out when the post-holiday sales hit the shelves.

How to Choose the Right WordPress Security Plugin for Your Site

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WordPress is an awesome tool, which provides unlimited customization through its vast range of native and third-party plugins. It’s ironic how we forget how fortunate we are for having so much choice while wading through thousands of options in search of the right WordPress security plugin. With this post, we aim to make the process of choosing the right WordPress security plugin just a little bit easier for you.

How to Choose the Right WordPress Security Plugin for Your Site

WordPress security is not something to take lightly if you’re serious about following the best practices and building an online following for your business.

Did you know that Google has blacklisted more than 50,000 websites for phishing and 20,000 for malware?

The good news is that the core WordPress software is regularly audited by a large team of developers which makes it very secure. However, you can do a lot to reduce and eliminate risks. Even better, you don’t have to be particularly tech savvy to improve your WordPress security.

With more than 30,000 WordPress plugins to choose from, it’s not easy to choose the right security plugin. While this guide will not guarantee that you choose the right plugin, it will certainly help you make better decisions.

Step 1: Understand the Confusion

When it comes to WordPress plugins, the bulk of them are either handy, great, or amazing. However, there are some that are useless and some that are downright annoying. The descriptions can be confusing for one of two reasons:

  • Deliberate confusion is perpetrated by marketers looking to make money off their plugins.
  • Accidental confusion is caused by well-meaning developers who have experienced the same issue you’re trying to solve.

The latter will typically introduce a genuine solution that narrowly addresses your issue.

When choosing a WordPress security plugin, you have to ensure that you choose one that meets your needs. That leads us to the next point.

Step 2:  Make a Checklist of Features

What are you looking for in your WordPress security plugin? There are close to 2,500 WordPress security plugins to choose from, across a variety of categories, including:

Auditing – This type of plugin allows you to keep a tight reign on who logs onto your site when, and what they are doing while they are there. Using the information from your auditing software, you can identify a risk and respond to a compromise faster.

Detection – These plugins offer great protection for known issues, but not so much for unknown issues. If your site has been attacked, it will be blacklisted by search engines, and flagged by visitors’ antivirus software. Your host may disable your site, or it may be redirected to different sites.

Prevention – These security plugins offer perimeter defense against hacking. These are firewall plugins that prevent:

  • brute force attempts
  • denial of services (DoS)
  • exploitation of software vulnerabilities
  • remote file / local file inclusion attacks
  • cross site scripting
  • remote command execution

Utility – The most common type of security plugins offers a diverse range of tools, including maintenance and backups.

3. Search and Compare WordPress Security Plugins

When you enter the word ‘security’ into the Add New plugin search bar, you will see many results. Each result features a range of statistics to consider:

  • Updated – This is the date on which the latest release was updated. If it has been more than a year, you may want to avoid this plugin as it may not be compatible with the latest version of WordPress.
  • Downloads – This is the number of downloads of the plugin.
  • Average Rating – Out of 5 stars.

It is important to compare the last two factors. A 5-star rating from five users is less of an accurate indication of the quality of the plugin than a 4-star rating across 10,000 downloads.

Next, you must compare the plugins by opening each of those you are considering in a new tab. Pay attention to:

  • Plugin Description:  Read through the description to ensure the plugin does what you expect from it.
  • Requires: Find out whether the plugin can run on your version of WordPress.
  • Reviews: Don’t just rely on star ratings. Also, read user reviews – both good and bad – to understand the reasons why users have rated it as such.
  • Support Overview – This section will provide an overview of the number of open and resolved threats. The key is to see how quickly the plugin author responds to requests. You want to choose a security plugin with an involved author.
  • Screenshots – The plugin screenshots should give you a good indication as to how easy it is to work with a plugin and some of its functionalities.

4.  Test the WordPress Security Plugin

Once you have chosen your security plugin, it is time to take it for a test drive. Simply click on Install and Activate, and then access it from the left-hand menu to change settings and options.

WordPress Security Plugins: A Word of Caution

Don’t leave your WordPress security to chance. Once your site has been compromised, you may have to hire a professional to fix it properly.

We hope this blog post shed some light on the issue of WordPress security plugins.

11 Ways to Streamline Your Business During the Back-to-School Season

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It’s that time of the year. You’re done with the kids’ back-to-school shopping, and you’re excited to get back into the flow of your business at full steam. The summer rest has probably sparked a few exciting new goals that can help grow your business.

As a solopreneur or small business owner, your time is extremely valuable, especially since you want to be able to pursue other activities that are important to you in your free time. Streamlining your business is, therefore, essential to make sure you spend less money on mundane business activities and more time on what really matters.

Check out our tips on how you can streamline your business during the back-to-school period and enjoy more time spent on income-producing activities that will provide you with the unbound lifestyle you desire.

“Spring” Clean Your Office

Most people function best in a clean and tidy environment. Perhaps a tidy office is indicative of a tidy mind, which is fertile soil for creative ideas. Check out our post about office organization hacks HERE.

Set Some Goals

Unless you have a goal, you may not know what you’re working towards. The back-to-school period is the perfect time to set new 3-month, 6-month, 12-month, 3-year, and 5-year goals, complete with achievable and measurable milestones.

Create a Schedule

Most businesses benefit from adhering to a marketing program. Of course, at Unbound Web Design we’re all about flexibility and working when inspiration hits, but an editorial calendar is a great way to stay on track.

This is especially valuable for planning your marketing for the holiday season when you’re not in the office. Also, unless you’re marketing regularly, it will be hard to track your results in order to see what works and what doesn’t.                                                                                                                           

Unplug

So many entrepreneurs have become slaves to their gadgets. We have become reactive rather than proactive. Unplug for an hour each morning, and you will be surprised at how much your productivity increases.

Prioritize

Instead of lengthy to-do lists, focus on the three most urgent or most important tasks of the day.

Implement the 80:20 principle, by spending 80% of your time on the 20% of activities that bring the most value to your organization.

Set Boundaries

You will derive more work-life balance from setting boundaries between home life and work life. Even if you work from home, be sure to make some flexible rules which you stick to most often:

  • Set aside 15 minutes a day for personal phone calls or recreational social media.
  • Leave the office at the same time every day, even when you have a lot of work to do.
  • If you have to burn the midnight oil, take a two-hour break to enjoy dinner and some quality time with the family first.

Outsource

As business owners, we tend to take on more than we need to. By outsourcing some of your work, you can free up the time to focus on more important tasks or activities that will make you feel good. Try  to outsource the following types of tasks:

  • tedious tasks
  • time-consuming tasks
  • tasks you’re not good at

Reduce Staff Meetings

In recent years, research has shown that we waste too much time in meetings. Instead of insisting on a weekly staff meeting, consider having your meeting online, or sending out an email update. If you absolutely have to have a meeting, follow the meeting techniques of highly successful leaders.

Organize Your Finances

Handling your money better offers a wide range of benefits, so consider doing the following:

  • Find out what you get for your monthly bank charges. If you’re paying for a service. you’re not using, ask your banker to reduce your costs and reinvest your savings into things that enhance your business.
  • Pay smaller expenses in advance. Many smaller monthly fees can be paid in advance for the year in order to save money and a lot of time every month.
  • File your taxes electronically.

Invest in Knowledge

Since the kids are back to learning, it might be a good time for your own back-to-school knowledge tune-up. What can you learn that will enhance your business further or bring more value to your clients?

Sign up for an online course, join a community class or a MOOC. Many of them are free, so there’s no excuse not to invest a few hours a week into bettering yourself.

Streamline Your Website

Now that your business is streamlined, it may be a good time to see how you can streamline your website. Here are some factors to consider:

  • Streamline the sales funnel from your advertising through to your payment gateway and delivery.
  • Streamline the way clients interact with you by incorporating online chat or placing your contact details in a prominent spot.
  • Create an editorial calendar and consolidate your advertising, social media, blog posts and special offers.

Juggling a business as a solopreneur can be fun, especially when you have systems in place to allow the more mundane tasks to take care of themselves. Thankfully, technology gives us the luxury to free up some time to spend on more fulfilling activities.

4 Ways to Tell If You’re Doing On-Page SEO Well

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Is Your Website Healthy & Successful? There Are A Few Ways to Tell

A successful website requires much hard work and painstaking detail, but when it comes to choosing the activities you need to focus most of your attention on, you first need to find out which activities bring the best results.

There’s a slight twist when it comes to on-page SEO in the sense that you need to do it (or get it done) and you have to do it right. But how do you know you’re on-page SEO is really working?

There are many factors involved in on-page SEO, namely:

  • Google algorithms
  • website changes
  • competition factors
  • changes in user behavior
  • keyword rankings
  • traffic

These factors fluctuate all the time, and they are mostly out of your direct control.

When you’re wondering whether your on-page SEO is working, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Are your most important keywords ranked?

When building pages on your sites, each page should focus on one primary targeted keyword and several secondary keywords. You have to constantly work at your excellent search rankings to ensure that they remain at the top of the SERPs, as they will fluctuate all the time.

Track your rankings on a regular basis to see how your site is performing based on your target keywords. However, there’s more to successful on-page SEO than just rankings.

2. Are you getting any organic search traffic?

Organic search traffic is when someone types in a search using one of your targeted keywords, and then links to your website through the search results, rather than the paid ads at the top of the SERPs.

If you’re featured at the top of search results, the search engines obviously view your site as a valuable resource on the relevant topic. Organic traffic increases when:

  • your rankings improve
  • you use quality page titles and meta descriptions
  • you create more content

There may be some seasonal fluctuations in traffic, but by comparing traffic month-on-month and with the same period from the previous year, you will see whether you’re on track. Google Trends is another helpful tool for search data.

3. What is your bounce rate?

Your bounce rate is dependant on how long visitors stay on your site before leaving. It forms the link between the keywords used to target your audience, and the content and design of your landing page. Your page should be a natural progression that provides more information about the search terms that brought visitors to your site. Slow loading times, poor design and a lack of content are some of the reasons why visitors click out of your site.

Some pages will naturally have high bounce rates, such as event information pages, listings and so forth. Aim to have a lower bounce rate on your landing pages, homepage and service pages.

If your bounce rate is over 70%, you should consider getting professional help. Between 35-60% is typically a good average, but if you can improve the user experience or site content on your pages, be sure to do so. Anything less than 30% is usually good!

4. How is your conversion rate?

No two industries share the same online conversion rates, and every business has its own definition for conversion. For some, it might be a sale, for others, a newsletter sign up, or a free download. But most of us agree that a conversion is an action taken by a percentage of website visitors.

Most companies will be over the moon with a 5% conversion rate, while many will be satisfied a 3% conversion rate. However, if you are losing potential customers, it is time to speak to a professional about your conversion rate.

In many cases, sites receive thousands of visitors, but extremely low conversions. That often signals incorrect keyword usage and poor user experience. Either way, a professional can help you optimize in such a way to convert your visitors into qualified leads.

How is your on-page SEO faring? Are you happy with your results? Let’s discuss in comments below.