It should be safe to assume that your business website contains images, and if it doesn’t then the question has to be, ‘Why not?’. Images are a great way to engage with, inform and entertain customers, but what many website owners don’t realize is that images can also play a role in onsite SEO. More importantly, there are some simple steps you can take in relation to the images on your website that can boost your site’s ranking in the eyes of Google.

In hindsight using the term ‘eyes of google’ might be a tad misleading because, despite all their top-level programming, and sophisticated algorithm updates, Google is not able to see the images on a website in the same way that human eyes see it. Their spiders which crawl the internet and analyse websites can only recognise text. This means that no matter how colourful, large, exciting, or high quality any image on a website is, Google is not going to see that.

This means that for Google to know that your images are relevant to the content and subject matter within your website, you need to add something called ‘alt text‘.

For example, if you had a website selling sports shoe products, and one of those products was Nike Air Jordan 14 Retro, you would likely have a page for this product along with an image of them. When you upload the image, you would enter alt text such as ‘Air Jordan 14 Retro Sports Shoes’. Now, when Google’s spiders come calling, they will be able to read that text, and therefore the page gets more ranking juice for that keyword phrase.

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If you have ever seen or heard any advice on SEO the subject of backlinks will undoubtedly have been mentioned. While it is true that having backlinks to your website from other sites can play a significant role in boosting your rankings, it is also the case that the linking structure which you have within your website is important too.

Creating links within your website has several SEO advantages, and if it is done correctly the benefits can mount because it helps those visiting your website to navigate through it more easily. The advantage of this is that they have a positive experience and are likely visit your site again. More than that they may recommend your website to others which is a premium free traffic source.

Being able to navigate your website with ease will also make visitors more likely to take action while they are there, such as subscribe to your email list, or better still, purchase something. You should know by now that Google rewards websites whose visitors stay for longer. Visitors being able to navigate easily through your website is certainly going to help achieve that objective.

These reasons are primarily why you should consider how the linking structure you are putting in place improves the navigation of your site, ahead of the specific SEO elements such as improving page ranking. Google’s algorithm will adjust your ranking up or down to a greater degree based on the visitor data it receives more than whether one of your pages has a link to it or not.

The best way to start improving your website’s link structure is to plan it properly and doing this visually is preferable. You do not need to be good at drawing, as all you need is to be able to represent the pages of your website with circles or squares and then use lines to represent each link. An even better way is to download free mind map software and use that, as you can edit and save your link structure when changes occur.

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Responsive Web Design seems like nothing more than a fancy new buzzword being floated around a lot these days but really it is just talking about a concept that is simple in nature. It is all about making sure that everything on your website functions optimally across all the major devices through which people are accessing the internet nowadays.

From the onset of the first iPhone back in 2007 to this day, the number of people using the internet through their phones has increased massively. Fast forward to 2018, the number of internet users through mobile has surpassed the number of internet users from desktop computers. This is why the aspect of Responsive Web Design isn’t just a new term, it is a necessary concept that needs to be adopted by every business.

Here is a look at the 4 reasons why you need responsive web design.

1. Good for SEO Rankings

One of the foremost reasons why businesses even have websites is to leverage the power of the internet and gain relevant exposure to an online audience. Keeping that in mind, they know that ranking high on SEO is crucial for their success. The best search engine is Google and there is little left to debate that fact. The primary focus for Google is to provide the best possible user experience to people using their platform. That’s why Google evaluates your website based on the usability of your website through a varying range of devices. Having a responsive web design makes your website easily accessible across all devices and the top results from any Google search have that part of their web design sorted out.

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Branding is often regarded as nothing more than having a good logo and a catchy tagline, however, nothing could be further from the truth, especially when it comes to SEO. Effective branding can have a positive impact on your SEO and ranking, just as poor branding can have a negative impact.

With Google increasingly seeking to base their search engine results on user experience, it is no longer just enough to focus on the technical elements of SEO. By these, we mean things like anchor text, meta tags and keyword density, which are measured by crawlers and algorithms, and not real people.

You also need to think about the way in which your website appeals to those who visit. For example, do they stay on the website for some time, do they click through to other pages, or are they just there fleetingly and clicking away almost immediately?

These are important to consider because it is data like this that allows Google to measure how good or bad your website is with regards to user experience. While there are specific actions you can take to improve this such as increasing page load speed, and adding more interesting content, you can also impact them by improving the branding of your website.

Google has always regarded big brands as more desirable than nonentities, and while it may not be possible for you to compete with a global mega-brand, you can still impact on your ranking by making your brand the best it can be. Google sees branding as a trust factor and this is influencing their search results in ever increasing ways.

Good branding is also seen by Google as being something which is a white-hat activity rather than blackhat. They know that spammers, and those who are out to earn a quick buck, are not going to spend the time, effort or money building up their brand. Those websites that do, are seen as more reliable and likely to have more authority too.

A website which has a brand is likely to have traffic coming to it from multiple sources including social media, and there will be a lot of diversity in the backlinks which are going to it as well. This is also recognised by Google as being a positive indicator that the website is trustworthy and thus it moves its ranking up.

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Business owners often wonder where most SEO activities take place. Is it on the website or off the website? Whilst much of the SEO work undertaken to improve a websites’ Google rankings happens away from the website such as link building and social citations, a lot is done on the actual website itself. Whilst the off-page optimisation is extremely important and very influential if done correctly, the on-page SEO activity is also vital to a website’s ranking – especially in competitive industries.

If you were wondering what the most important on-page factor is, then who better to ask than Google themselves. They are quite clear that the content on a website is the number one element when it comes to rankings. This makes sense when you understand why Google exists, and more importantly how they continue to thrive.

Google live or die depending on whether the people using their search engine are satisfied or not, by the results which Google display for any given search term. If the list of websites which appear for any given search term are sites which the user can then visit and find both relevant and interesting content, that user is happy with Google’s service and likely to use them again.

Alternatively, if Google were to show websites where the content is only vaguely relevant, and more importantly, of poor quality, and of little value, the user becomes dissatisfied and stops using Google to search.

This might seem very basic and obvious, but it is in effect the basis upon which one of the world’s biggest and most successful online companies exist. This means that all the testing, programming, data analysis, and update releases from Google are all simply to try and make the results it produces the best they possibly can be for its users.

Google’s users may use their search engine for many different reasons, but they’re mainly searching for content of one type or another. Here is but a tiny fraction of what that content could be…

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There is a plethora of paid tools and software which can help with your SEO strategy, and no doubt each of them has it merits. However, there is a free tool, which means it is often overlooked or given the credit it deserves.

That tool is the Google Search Console, and it has several excellent features which can give your SEO efforts a significant helping hand in terms of being able to see how your website is seen by Google.

Google Search console isn’t one tool but is instead a collection of tools which provide information relating to search traffic, crawling data, and search engine appearance. You may have heard of it being called one of its previous names which were Google Webmaster Central, and more recently Google Webmaster Tools.

To start using Google Search Console there are a few steps you need to complete which include opening a Google account if you do not already have one, and then verifying your account which can be done in several ways, including using SEO plugins such as Yoast.

You will then need to select settings such as whether you want your website to have ‘www.’ or not, how often you want Google to crawl your website, and if there are others who work on your website, adding them as users.

Once you have everything set up, you can then start to take advantage of the Google search Console’s reporting features, and more importantly start using them to make any changes to your SEO strategy that the information they provide suggests.

Here are some of those features:

Search Analytics

This will show you the keywords which Google is ranking your website for, and how highly it is ranking you for those keywords. This is vital information which lets you see which of your keywords are ranking well and which keywords you need to work on for them to move further up the SERPs.

Many web owners report that they were shocked when they saw how their keywords were seen by Google with many wrongly assuming they had optimised for some of the keywords, when in fact they hadn’t. This data allowed them, as it will you, to make changes to pages, pieces of content, and linking strategies, to improve the SEO for those keywords.

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At the very thought of the phrase ‘Web Design Trends’, people can instantly form a link with visuals from back in the day when the internet was just a fledgling thing. All those shiny buttons, HTML based websites, and the GIFs that made up the websites in the days gone by might make you cringe right now. It was these design elements which made up the bulk of the design trends in that time.

There have been drastic trends when it comes to web design but the last decade or so has seen more subtle changes in terms of how it’s done. As subtle as they may be, it is still an important thing to be aware of the changes in web design trends over the years so that you have a better idea about what you want to do moving forward. Here’s a look at the most prominent trends over the decade.

Web Design in 2007

This was the time of shiny 3D buttons and roll over effects which were dying out but still in use. The web design was still very much based on grid like designs and CSS built tables were prominent.

These lasted for a few more years and also saw the different background textures fade away into oblivion as better internet speeds came along and they started being considered too primitive. It was a time for better things.

2010 and Better Internet

As time went on and technological advances were made, the internet connections that everybody was using started to support better speeds. This led to the rise of graphics heavy websites to come into prominence. The web design during this time was augmented by the rise of social media platforms to give rise to infographics.

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While all our web design contracts are coveted, Sam Sorgiovanni is a contract we are delighted to have in our pocket. One of the World’s premier yacht designers Sam Sorgiovanni and his company Sorgiovanni Designs is updating their online profile to be inline with their World class yacht designs.

Our skills and experience in the areas of web design, digital marketing, social media and Google AdWords campaigns mean that Sam Sorgiovanni and Sorgiovanni Designs have the best advice available in all digital marketing elements.

2017 is a year that holds significance for Sam Sorgiovanni as it marks 20 years since he decided to follow his dream to open his own design studio in Fremantle, WA. Sorgiovanni Design Studios offers design services for bespoke luxury yachts, with the inspiration for the designs often emanating from the clients as they share their dreams and aspirations with Sorgiovanni.

He, along with a team of highly experienced professionals offer many services including interior and exterior yacht design, residential and transport design and project management, with all that they entail. Sorgiovanni travels the world to consult with his clients and to find out just what they want in a yacht. He also consults with many major shipbuilders worldwide and many of the beautiful resort style super yachts have benefitted from his expertise.

It is many years since he attained his BA in Industrial Design and went to work for the Australian ship builders Oceanfast. He worked for them for 12 years and during that time gained valuable knowledge and world-wide experience, being mentored by Jon Bannenberg, another famous name in yacht design. All that experience has been put to good use in working for himself and designing super luxury yachts of all sizes.

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Australia’s #1 brand of automatic pool cleaners, Kreepy Krauly has picked Slinky Digital as it’s digital marketing and design partner.

Kreepy Krauly systems are manufactured from top quality materials and are widely considered to be the most robust and reliable of all the automatic pool cleaners available on the Australian market today. The Australian-made, Kreepy Krauly is built to deliver years of continuous use.

The Slinky Group are very excited to be working with Kreepy Krauly where our services will include Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), AdWords marketing and our premium web development services.

Exciting Australian Formula 4 Champion, Jordan Love has chosen Slinky Digital to design and implement his online marketing presence.

From racing in karts from the age of 9, Jordan started 2015, competing in F1000 in WA where he currently holds the track lap record at Barbagallo Raceway.

Jordan raced 4 rounds of Formula 4 in Australia at V8 SuperCar circuits and was awarded rookie of the round at Sandown International Raceway in Victoria.

Jordan competed in both the Super Six and Asia Cup Championships in Malaysia and was awarded Asia Champion for 2015 having won 14 out of the 15 races.

Update:
20 Dec 2016 | Jordan Love Receives Porsche Scholarship
Top West Australian teenager Jordan Love will progress to sports cars after becoming the 2017 recipient of the Jamey Blaikie Scholarship. Read more at Speed Cafe