FreshWebz Web Design Colchester

Affordable Web Design Colchester

Email : enquiries @ freshwebz.co.uk

Busy time!!

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There’s been a lot going on recently including a new blog for My Travel Extras, transferring the travel related posts from this blog; a change of web host (followed by changing straight back again!) & trying to get some more web design business.

First of all the change of web host! I decided that I should move my sites to a hosting company with its servers based in the UK as Get to the Top on Google: Tips and Techniques to Get Your Site to the Top of Google and Stay There suggests that Google.co.uk gives higher importance in the UK rankings to websites where the server is based in the UK. As I use 1and1 & their servers appear as being in Germany, this may be harming my .co.uk domains.

I chose Heart Internet as they offered web hosting at the same price, but with 100 mySQL databases as opposed to the 2 I have with 1and1. I transferred all my domains over to Heart, the .co.uk being free & the .com costing £5 each. Unfortunately, it was only when I had a number of the .co.uk domains transferred, that I realised that I was unable to apply more than one domain to the hosting account unless I paid a “domain mapping” charge of £20pa for each other domain!

With around 30 domains, there was no way it was worth doing that, so the only alternative was a reseller account, whereby I would also be selling web hosting! As this cost a minimum of £25 per month, with no guarantee of selling any hosting, I couldn’t consider doing this & was gutted that I’d spent loads transferring the domains over & now would end up paying through the nose for something I didn’t really need.

I have to say that this domain mapping was not something mentioned anywhere on the hosting section of the Heart site & now I will be very cautious about it if I ever consider changing my hosting again!!! It was only by going through the support database, that I found any reference to it!

I decided to bite the bullet, take the loss & transfer my domains back to 1and1 :o/  Luckily however, the .com transfers had not been completed and so they could be cancelled & the charges refunded. Because Heart also offers a 30 day money back guarantee, I got my hosting costs back too <phew>. I would like to say thanks to the support team at Heart Internet though, who responded to my enquiries within minutes & were very helpful in sorting this problem out, even though they were losing a customer. Excellent customer service – if only Tiscali could be like this, but that’s another story!

I decided to also set up a separate blog for My Travel Extras, removing all the travel related posts from this one. Whether it makes a difference or not I’m not sure, but I presume that travel related content on the travel site would be viewed better by Google, than travel related posts on a web design domain. Fingers crossed this may help bring some visitors to My Travel Extras which has not been setting the world on fire recently and may even benefit the Freshwebz rankings too!

How the bounce rate of your website can affect your Google rankings

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Does Google use the bounce rate of a web page to specify the position of that page in the search results? What does this mean for your website rankings and what can you do to get a lower bounce rate?

What is the bounce rate?

There are two definitions: the bounce rate of your website is the percentage of visitors who see just one page of your website or the percentage of visitors who stay on your site for a small amount of time (only a few seconds).

The bounce rate helps you to measure the quality of traffic that your website gets and it also helps you to find out where your web pages could be improved.

Does Google use the bounce rate as a ranking factor?

Google has the ability to collect the bounce rate with the Google toolbar and Google Analytics. In addition, Google can measure the time between visits to their search engine by the same user and they can use the Google Chrome browser to measure the complete surfing behaviour of users.

Last month, a webmaster performed a test that showed a significant ranking change as a result of a significant bounce rate change. The test is not very conclusive but chances are that Google really uses the bounce rate as a ranking factor.

The bounce rate alone might not be used by Google but combined with other factors, it could have an effect on the rankings. For example, Google could measure how many people start a new search for the same topic after visiting your web page. That would be an indicator that your website is not suitable for the chosen keyword.

What can you do to lower the bounce rate of your web pages?

A high bounce rate is usually a sign of a low quality web page. This means that your web page either doesn’t offer what the visitor is searching for or the usability of your web page isn’t good.

If you improved the contents and the usability of your web pages, you might lower your bounce rate from 75% to 65%. This would lead to a remarkable 40% increase in conversions (35 out of 100 visitors now stay on your website instead of 25 out of 100 visitors).

In addition to improving the usability of your web pages, you can lower your bounce rate by tailoring your landing pages to the keywords and ads that you run. If your landing pages offer the information that the searchers are looking for then you will get a lower bounce rate.

Lowering the bounce rate of your web pages has two major benefits: it’s likely that you will get more visitors from search engines and you will get a higher conversion rate. The only exceptions to the scenario above are one page websites and web pages that offer very compelling content on a single web page (for example Wikipedia pages).

Official Google statement: how to get high rankings

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This month, the Google Webmaster blog published an article, in which Google’s Maile Ohye officially explained what it takes to get a high ranking in Google’s search result pages.

Inbound links are important but content is even more important

Google’s Maile Ohye writes the following about inbound links in his article:

“Inbound links are links from pages on external sites linking back to your site. Inbound links can bring new users to your site, and when the links are merit-based and freely-volunteered as an editorial choice, they’re also one of the positive signals to Google about your site’s importance.”

Nothing new here! If many related websites link to your site, and if these links look natural, this will help your rankings on Google a lot.

However, links are not the most important ranking factor & he gives a concrete example:

“Let’s say I have a site, example.com, that offers users a variety of unique website templates and design tips. One of the strongest ranking factors is my site’s content. Additionally, perhaps my site is also linked from three sources — however, one inbound link is from a spammy site.

As far as Google is concerned, we want only the two quality inbound links to contribute to the PageRank signal in our ranking. “

The website’s content is mentioned as one of the strongest ranking factors. The inbound links are additional. That makes sense; it’s the content of your website that really tells Google what your website is about.

If you want to get a high ranking for the keyword “used cars in essex”, but your web pages are about microwave ovens, then you won’t get high rankings for that keyword.

For that reason, it is very important that you optimise your web pages for the keywords for which you want to get high rankings, before you try to get links from other sites. This optimisation should also be an ongoing process as keyword popularity may vary over time.

Google analyses over 200 ranking factors

According to the article in Google’s blog, Google analyses more than 200 signals (we call them ‘ranking factors’) to specify the position of a web page in the search results:

“Given the user’s query, over 200 signals (including the analysis of the site’s content and inbound links as mentioned above) are applied to return the most relevant results to the user.”

It’s a simple two-step process

Apparently, getting high rankings on Google is a simple two-step process!!

  1. You must optimise your web page contents so that Google can find out what your website is about. Optimise your web pages for your keywords so that Google knows that your website is relevant to these keywords and your topic.
  2. Other websites must confirm that your website is about that topic. That’s what inbound links are for.

Hmmm, we all knew that didn’t we? So why is it so hard to do then?!!!!! ;o)

How to use page titles better for local searches

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If you’re selling products and services that are related to a special area, it is crucial that your website gets found by people that are looking for it. One of the easiest ways to get found by people that live in your area is to optimise your web page titles for your product & location.

What is the web page title?

The title of a web page is the text that is written between the tags in the HTML head code of a web page, is displayed in the web browser window when someone visits your website and it is usually used as the linked text when your website appears in the search results.

Why should you use optimised web page titles?

The web page title is one of the main factors that Google, Yahoo and other search engines use to rank web pages. A good, relevant, informative web page title greatly improves the chances of getting high search engine rankings for your product/service.

The web page title is used by the search engines as the bold linked text on search result pages. That means that it should be clear, relevant, concise and appealing, so that web surfers will be drawn to click on it.

How to write your web page title so that it gets better local rankings

If you optimise your web page titles correctly, they will both increase your search engine rankings and attract people from the local area & those looking for your products/services, to your website.

You’ll benefit from targeted traffic and targeted traffic leads to more conversions i.e. sales. Here are some things that you can do to improve your web page titles:

Include the name of your business, important keywords and your city in the title of your homepage:

FreshWebz – Affordable web design in London and Essex

Depending on your business size, change the order of these items. Well known businesses should list their company name first. If your business is new then it’s usually better to list the keyword first:

Affordable web design for small businesses: Freshwebz in London

People are probably looking for a solution to their problem (web design) instead of your actual company name. Instead of your town, you can also use the name of the greater area if your service is available in that area.

Use a different title tag for every page. This is important! The title should reflect the content that can be found on the page, so it’s less effective just copying the homepage title to every page. For branding purposes, the titles should contain your company name and a popular keyword for which you want to be found on search engines:

FreshWebz: Search engine optimisation & SEO services in Colchester and Essex
FreshWebz: Web design Portfolio – websites designed for recent clients
FreshWebz: Contact us for an affordable quote for your new website design

Use short web page titles. Short titles are much easier to read for web surfers. Do not try to stuff your title with keywords in the same way that you wouldn’t stuff your page content with keywords. It is much better if your web page title is highly relevant to one keyword, than somewhat relevant to many keywords. If you want to optimise your website for different keywords, optimise different pages for different keywords.

Do not use special characters in your titles. Avoid symbols and other special characters wherever possible. They might not be displayed properly on all computers and your website listing might look strange in the search results.

If you change your web page titles as described, your website will get better rankings on search engines and it will be found by people looking for your products/services & who live in the right area. By getting more visitors for one topic, you will improve the overall ranking of your site & so improve your position for other search terms.

Unfortunately, the web page title is not the only element that influences the position of your website in the search results of Google and other search engines. If you want to make sure that your site appears in the top 10 results, you should optimise all factors that are needed to get top rankings.

How to write link texts that will increase your Google rankings

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Good inbound link texts can give your website a boost in Google’s search results. Unfortunately, many people still don’t take advantage of the full potential of optimised link texts. They will list their links with the title of their site or use the time honoured phrase “click here“! This article explains how to make the most out of your links.

What is a link text?

The link text is the text in the clickable text that is used to link to another web page. It is the text between the anchor tags. That’s why some people call link texts anchor texts.

Why are link texts important?

Google and other major search engines heavily rely on link texts to specify the position of web pages in the search results. If many websites link to a web page with the link text “travel” then Google thinks that the web page must be relevant to the keyword “travel”. For that reason, the web page will get a ranking boost for that search term.

The more often a keyword appears in links to your website, the better your rankings for that keyword will be.

How to write good links

There are a few easy tips that will make your links more useful for both web surfers and search engines:

1. Write your texts as if there were no links. Search engines like links that are in the normal text of your web page. The content should make sense to the user e.g.

Getting links from another web page is a great way to improve your rankings on Google and other search engines.

2. Do not describe the action of the link, or a meaningless title, but the purpose of the link:

Bad: Click here for more information on cheap flights.

Good: Further information about cheap flights can be found on our site

3. Use clear and descriptive text for your links. The link text should be meaningful enough to make sense when read out of context.

Bad: The software can be downloaded for free on the product name website.

Good: The software can be downloaded for free on the product name website.

4. Avoid unpleasant surprises. If the link goes to a web page that starts a movie, or downloads a file then you should warn the user by mentioning this in the link:

You can download our review of this destination for free.

Many website visitors do not read the text on a web page but scan the highlighted keywords. For that reason, your link texts should be easy to understand & catch their attention even if people haven’t read the surrounding text.

Use keywords in your link texts whenever possible. The more often a keyword appears in a link to a specific web page, the better are the chances that this web page will get higher rankings on Google for that keyword.

FreshWebz Web Design Colchester

We are a web design company specialising in working with small to medium-sized businesses. We offer high quality website design, as well as a range of other online web services, for any individual, sole trader, small business, SME or UK company. Our services are geared to both new and established business owners requiring a professional, affordable website design solution with local on-going Colchester based support. Contact us for an informal chat, to see how we can improve your business' web presence!

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FreshWebz Web Design
E : enquiries @ freshwebz.co.uk

Who We Are

We are a Colchester Web Design company, specialising in creating Affordable Websites for Sole Traders, Start-Ups and Established Small Businesses in Colchester and surrounding areas. We provide Affordable Web Design, Mobile Friendly / Responsive Websites, CMS Websites and eCommerce Websites that are affordable, professional and easy to use. Visit our Web Services page to find out more about what we can offer your business.

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