No matter what business you’re in, online security is of the utmost importance. If your website is compromised, it could lead to a whole host of issues, from stolen data to a damaged reputation. With that in mind, it’s important to know how to protect your website from cyber-attacks. Here are some tips on how to do just that.
Use a Web Application Firewall
A web application firewall (WAF) is a security tool designed to protect web applications from malicious attacks. WAFs are designed to detect and block malicious requests, such as SQL injection attacks, cross-site scripting attacks, and other malicious activities. WAFs can also be used to protect websites from denial of service (DoS) attacks. By filtering incoming requests, WAFs can protect a website from malicious traffic, allowing only legitimate traffic through. WAFs can also be used to detect and alert administrators to suspicious activity.
Top ten best WAF
1. Incapsula
2. Barracuda WAF
3. Imperva SecureSphere
4. F5 BIG-IP Application Security Manager (ASM)
5. Cloudflare Web Application Firewall
6. Sucuri CloudProxy
7. Amazon Web Services (AWS) WAF
8. WebKnight
9. Akamai Kona Site Defender
10. Citrix NetScaler Application Firewall
Keep Software Updated
Outdated software is one of the most common causes of website security breaches. Make sure you keep all software up to date, including content management systems, plugins, and themes.
Monitor Your Website
Keeping an eye on your website is essential for security. Look out for any suspicious activity, such as sudden spikes in traffic or changes in content.
Use Strong Passwords
monitor with password and shield vector illustration design
Weak passwords are an open invitation for hackers. Make sure you choose strong passwords and change them regularly.
Implement SSL Encryption
SSL encryption is a must-have for any website. It ensures that all data sent between the website and its users is encrypted, making it virtually impossible for hackers to access.
Backup Your Website Regularly
Regular backups will ensure that if the worst does happen and your website is hacked, you can restore it to a previous version.
Conclusion
In conclusion, protecting your website is important to prevent hacking and other malicious activities. It is important to use secure passwords, use secure hosting, use a firewall, use SSL encryption, and other security measures. Furthermore, it is also important to keep your website software up to date and regularly scan for vulnerabilities. Finally, it is important to be aware of the latest security threats and to take appropriate action to protect your website.
The world of web design is ever changing. As technology advances, so do the tools available to web designers. In today’s world, there are many options available for building websites, such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. However, one of the most popular options for building websites is WordPress and Elementor.
WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that is used to create and manage websites. It is an open source platform that allows users to easily create, customize, and manage their websites without any coding knowledge. Elementor is a drag and drop page builder plugin for WordPress. It provides users with the ability to design and customize their website in a user-friendly interface.
Both WordPress and Elementor offer a number of advantages for web designers. First, both of these platforms are free and open source, which means that anyone can use them. This makes them accessible to a wide range of users, from experienced web designers to those just getting started. They are also highly customizable, allowing users to create a website that is tailored to their specific needs.
In addition, both WordPress and Elementor are highly user-friendly. WordPress offers a number of themes and plugins that make it easy for users to customize their website. Elementor also has a number of features, such as drag and drop elements, that make it easy to design a website. Another advantage of using WordPress and Elementor is their scalability. WordPress is highly scalable and can easily handle large amounts of traffic. Elementor is also highly scalable, which makes it easy to add new features and content as needed. This makes it ideal for larger websites, such as e-commerce stores.
Finally, WordPress and Elementor are both SEO friendly. WordPress has a number of SEO features that make it easy to optimize a website for search engine rankings. Elementor also has a number of features that make it easy to optimize a website for SEO. This makes it easier for websites to rank higher on search engine results pages.
History of WordPress
WordPress was created in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little as a fork of b2/cafelog. It was initially used as a blog platform, but over the years it has evolved into a powerful content management system (CMS) and website builder. It is now the most popular CMS in the world, powering more than 35% of all websites.
The first version of WordPress was released in May 2003 and was based on the b2/cafelog codebase. This version was incredibly basic and didn’t include many features. However, it had a simple interface and attracted a lot of attention from users. Over the next few years, WordPress underwent several major upgrades and improvements. In 2004, the first plugin system was released, allowing users to easily extend the functionality of WordPress. This opened up the platform to a much wider audience and made it easier for developers to create custom themes and plugins.
In 2005, WordPress was released under the GNU General Public License, which made it an open source platform. This allowed anyone to use, modify, and redistribute the software for free. This was a key moment in WordPress’s history as it allowed developers to start building a community around the platform and contributed to its rapid growth.
History of Elementor
Elementor was founded in 2016 by Yoni Luksenberg and Ariel Klikstein as a WordPress page builder plugin. It was designed to make web design more accessible to everyone, no matter their technical experience.
Elementor quickly grew in popularity and is now used by over four million websites. It has become the most popular page builder for WordPress, with a wide range of features and customization options.
Elementor has also released a Pro version that includes additional features, such as a Theme Builder and Popup Builder.
Since then, WordPress has continued to evolve, adding new features and improving existing ones. It has become a powerful and versatile platform that is used to create all kinds of websites and applications. It is now the most popular CMS in the world, powering more than 35% of all websites.
Conclusion
Overall, WordPress and Elementor are great alternatives for building websites. They are both free and open source, highly customizable, user-friendly, scalable, and SEO friendly. In addition, they are both easy to use and can be used by anyone regardless of their coding knowledge. For these reasons, WordPress and Elementor are ideal for any web designer looking to create a website.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used in web development to create an enhanced user experience for visitors to websites. AI can be used to analyze user behavior, identify patterns, and offer personalized content and recommendations.
AI can be used to predict user behavior and make website navigation more intuitive. By recognizing patterns in user behavior, AI can suggest related content and relevant offers. AI can also be used to create dynamic website content based on user interests and past activity. For example, a website might suggest articles related to a user’s previous searches or purchases.
AI can also be used to analyze user data for insights into customer behavior. This data can then be used to personalize website content and offers. AI can also be used to automate customer service tasks, such as responding to customer inquiries, or providing personalized recommendations based on past purchases.
AI can also be used to improve the overall performance of a website. AI algorithms can be used to optimize website loading times and reduce loading errors. AI can also be used to monitor website performance, identify potential problems, and suggest solutions.
AI is becoming an increasingly important tool in web development, as it can help to create a more personalized user experience. By analyzing user data and behavior, AI can help to create a more tailored website experience that is designed to meet the needs of individual users.
How does artificial intelligence analyze user data on a website?
Artificial intelligence, or AI, can be used to analyze user data on a website in a variety of ways. One common approach is to use machine learning algorithms to process and analyze the data. This might involve using techniques such as natural language processing to understand and interpret user-generated content, or using predictive modeling to identify patterns and trends in user behavior.
How can artificial intelligence create better content for a website?
One way that artificial intelligence can be used to create better content for a website is by using natural language generation (NLG) techniques. These techniques allow AI systems to automatically produce written content that is coherent and reads like it has been written by a human. This can be useful for creating things like product descriptions, blog posts, or other types of web content.
But what is Natural Language Generation?
Natural language generation (NLG) is a subfield of artificial intelligence that focuses on creating written or spoken content in a natural and coherent way. NLG systems use algorithms and data to automatically produce written or spoken language that resembles human communication. This can be useful for a variety of applications, such as generating reports, creating summaries of large datasets, or even generating personalized responses to user queries. NLG is closely related to natural language processing (NLP), which is the ability of a computer to understand and interpret human language.
Believe it or not. We wrote this whole article using our own AI text generator, pretty good right? Make sure to schedule a call with us to learn more.
Web1, also known as Web 1.0, is the original Internet. It consisted of pages using static HTML – the web’s formatting language at the time – that displayed information online. Web1 ran on a completely decentralized infrastructure—anyone could host a server, build applications, and publish information on the Internet without any gatekeepers censoring them. The users of Web1 could search for information on the web via web browsers.
The disadvantages of Web1
Unfortunately, there was no way for users to change information and there were few opportunities for interaction with others. Users could only communicate via simple chat programs and forums. Therefore, the users interacted with Web1 mainly as observers and not as participants.
Web 2.0
Unlike Web1, the current edition of the Internet is centralized, focused on content creation, and largely monopolized by large, successful technology companies.
In the late 1990s, databases, server-side processing, forms, and social media combined to form a more interactive Internet known as Web2 or Web2.0. This is the current version of the internet – a playground for content creation. Whether you’re an aspiring writer, photographer or influencer, you can easily create and showcase your work to the Web2 world.
Service providers like WordPress and Tumblr offer people a platform to create content, while social media companies like Facebook and Twitter allow people to connect and communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world. In addition, mobile internet access and the widespread use of smartphones allow anyone to easily consume content.
Web2-centric businesses have reaped the benefits of this Internet revolution. In addition to profits, the companies have also built a large database of users. Larger companies like Google and Facebook have bought up smaller companies and gathered a central and global network of users and their data.
The disadvantages of Web 2.0
Since the advent of Web2, major Internet companies have realized that they can use user data to keep them in their respective ecosystems. By producing targeted ads for consumers or preventing cross-platform communication, users are often inclined to continue using these services.
In recent years, ethical issues such as censorship, data tracking and data ownership have attracted the attention of many internet users. Ironically, user data appears to belong to the companies in Web2, rather than the users themselves. We’ve seen cases of unfair data control, where users have had their accounts closed after unknowingly violating a platform’s internal community rules. In the 2010s, it was discovered that Facebook did not protect its users’ data, which caused violent outrage over the personal data collected without users’ consent around the world.
To address these issues, some have proposed a solution that combines the advantages of Web1 and Web2: decentralization and user participation. Although not concrete, the basic concepts of this version of the Internet, known as Web3, have been largely defined.
What is Web 3.0?
Looking at the current problems with Web2, Web3 is the next logical step to improve the Internet for users. By leveraging peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies such as the blockchain, virtual reality (VR), the Internet of Things/IoT, and open source software, Web3 aims to dilute the power of the massive Web2 companies. With decentralization, users can hopefully take back control of their content and ownership of their data.
Important features of Web 3.0
Decentralized: as it is meant to address the root of the Web2 problem, i.e. centralization, decentralization is of course a critical factor for Web3’s success. In addition to giving back control over users’ data, companies must pay to access their data. The decentralization would make native crypto payments available to everyone and eliminate the need for the expensive middlemen in the traditional payment infrastructure on Web2.
Permission-free: instead of a few large entities controlling participation or prohibiting cross-platform communication, anyone can freely interact with others in Web3.
Trustless: the network on which Web3 is based would allow users to participate without trusting anything other than the network itself.
These ideals will be largely supported by the blockchain and crypto.
Potential benefits of Web 3.0
Increased data security
Data held by the tech giants in centralized databases is vulnerable, as hackers only need to access a single system to hack user data. With decentralized solutions for storing and managing data, private information can be kept more securely.
Real ownership of data
One of the areas of focus for Web3 is data ownership, where users will be able to regain control of their data – and even monetize their data if they want to.
Truth check
Without a central power, users will not be able to be subjected to unfair censorship. Without the power of censorship or the ability to delete specific content, it becomes much more difficult for large companies to control how topics are covered.
There are other potential advantages that make Web3 superior to its predecessors.
Economic freedom
Web3 will empower users by allowing them to consume, create and own their content and data. And since Web3 is based on blockchain technology, users will be able to easily access ecosystems that facilitate decentralized finance (DeFi) and other tools to achieve financial freedom.
Improved social interactions
Like its predecessors, Web3 will continue to incorporate technologies emerging with blockchain technology. For example, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and artificial intelligence (AI) can add digital elements to Web3 applications to enhance online social interactions.
We already see such an example in the form of the metaverse, which is a virtual 3D universe that users can explore with avatars. Through complete worlds like the metaverse, users can socialize online, buy virtual land, play games, and even work remotely.
Summary
Web2 vs Web3 can be seen as a variant of the age-old debate between centralization and decentralization. As Web3 has yet to materialize, opinions differ on its alleged superiority over Web2. But with its decentralized infrastructure, Web3 could potentially address the data-related scandals we’ve seen in Web2 and return control to users.
Getting traffic to your website is not something that normally comes automatically, but it is something you need to work for. It is simply about how much content you have on your website and how well it ranks on Google. A little simplified perhaps, but basically, quality content combined with a little time is required so that Google has time to find your articles/pages.
Then of course there are ways you can boost your traffic to your website via, for example, social media, paid advertising, etc. etc. In this article, we thought we would advise you on our eight best tips to increase traffic to your website. It should also be added that the focus will be on tips that are completely free for you.
Social media
Being active on social media is always a good way to drive traffic to your website. Be where your customers are. The more often you post content with quality and value, the more attention you get. Which also leads to more people clicking on your website. Use relevant links in your posts and encourage your fans/followers to click on them. Also remember to place a link in the bio, so visitors can easily find your website.
Blog Posts
Having blog posts or articles on your website is often an excellent way to attract traffic. A visitor to your website may not be ready to buy at the time of the visit. Then relevant blog posts can be a good way to create trust in the visitor, as well as let them get to know you and your products. In this way, you also increase the likelihood that they will come back to you when they are ready to complete a purchase.
Newsletters and mailing lists
Newsletters and mailing lists are a very good way to generate traffic to your website. For many businesses, email marketing is a given, while others find it has no effect at all. Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to get traffic and to your site that converts (read more about conversions here). Working on creating an email list can therefore be a good strategy.
Google Analytics, or GA, is a free tool that helps you measure and analyze traffic to your website. If you have a website, it’s probably because you want to reach more potential customers. Google Analytics is a great tool that gives you important insights about your website and your visitors. Insights that can help you make the right decisions to bring in more customers and expand your business in the long run.
A potential customer makes his purchase decisions in various stages and moves through a so-called purchase funnel.
Acquisition
In the first stage of the purchase funnel, potential customers hear about you and become interested in your business. More concretely, it is when the potential customer starts to recognize your brand and becomes interested in your products.
Behavior
In the next stage of the buying funnel, a potential customer begins to interact with the content on your website. For example, by reading an article you have written.
Conversion
In the last stage of the purchase funnel, the user decides to buy a product or service from you and thus becomes your customer.
With Google Analytics, you can track how your visitors behave when they visit your website. You can see how they move through the different stages of the purchase funnel and gain insight into what is working and what can be improved. What led a visitor to become a customer? What made another visitor leave your site? With GA, you can analyze which of your marketing efforts are performing well and which need improvement. You can understand your visitors’ behavior and use that information to attract even more visitors to your website.
Looking for the best CMS software to build your website? A CMS, or content management system, can help you create a high-level functional website without having to build each page from scratch using code.
However, different CMS programs have different pros and cons, so you should choose the tool that is best for your specific needs and budget.
What is a CMS?
Before we get to our list, let’s answer the question: What is a CMS?
A content management system does exactly what the name says: it helps you “manage” your website’s content in a “systematized” way.
Instead of having to work with code when you want to add content to your website, with a CMS you can work in an easy-to-use editor that might look something like this:
When you then want to “publish”, the CMS will correctly display that part of the content to the visitors according to your wishes.
A CMS also manages the organization of your entire website’s front end. For example, if you publish a blog post, the CMS will automatically display it at the top of your blog page and add a timestamp.
However, a CMS is more flexible than just a blogging platform. A blogging platform is basically a CMS for a specific type of content (blog posts) while a CMS can help you manage virtually any type of content.
The “content” of your CMS could be, for example:
Blog post
Static pages
E-commerce products
Forum posts
Private course content
Membership
It can even be several types of content at the same time! A good CMS platform can help you manage just as many different types of content as you need.
What is a Headless CMS?
In the list below you will see another term: Headless CMS. With a headless CMS, you use your CMS to manage all content on the backend. Then you can build your own frontend by querying data via an API.
The advantage of this “headless” approach is that you can use your content pretty much anywhere. It can be about everything from a website to a mobile app and much more.
A headless CMS requires much more technical knowledge but gives you more flexibility in how and where you use your content.
What should you consider when choosing a CMS?
Here are some of the most important things to consider when choosing a CMS:
Pricing – every CMS comes with a cost. Some are free and open source, but you have to pay to host them. Others may require you to purchase the software from the company that creates the CMS.
Support & customer experience – some tools are open source with no central support options, while others have 24/7 support – make sure you understand what you’re getting.
SEO – it’s important that your chosen software gives you the tools to rank in Google and other search engines.
Customization – If you run a business, a CMS that allows you to create personalized experiences for visitors can help you improve your marketing and conversion rates.
Ease of use – if you are not a developer, you should choose a tool that is easy to use without development knowledge.
Security – some CMS tools put you in charge of website security, while other tools handle this for you.
The 5 Best CMS Software Solutions in 2022
WordPress— Price: Free
WordPress s is by far the world’s most popular CMS – it powers over 37% of all websites on the Internet. WordPress started as a blogging platform but has since turned into a powerful CMS that you can use to build any type of website. It can be about everything from E-commerce stores to membership sites, forums, and much more.
In fact, WordPress, through the WooCommerce extension, is also one of the most popular platforms for creating an e-commerce store. Some of the reasons for WordPress’ great popularity are:
It is free and open source.
You can find thousands of WordPress themes to influence the look of your website.
You can access 55,000+ free plugins to extend your site’s functionality (Here are some of the best).
Advanced users can also use WordPress as a headless CMS with something similar to Gatsby.
2. Drupal — Price: Free
Drupal is another popular open source CMS that is quite similar to WordPress.
With its flexible taxonomy system, Drupal excels when it comes to managing sites with large amounts of content. It also has a built-in user access system that gives you good control over what registered users can do inside the CMS.
Like WordPress, you can control the look of your website using themes and extend Drupal’s functionality with modules.
3. Joomla — Price: Free
Joomla is the third player in the trio of popular open source CMS software, along with WordPress and Drupal.
Like WordPress and Drupal, Joomla has large marketplaces for templates and plugins, helping you create a website that matches your needs.
In terms of the technical knowledge required, Joomla offers a nice middle ground between WordPress and Drupal.
4. Grave — Price: Free
Grav is an open source flat-file CMS. The “flat-file” designation means that Grav does not require a database to function. Instead, it works via content from text files. This makes Grav very easy to deploy anywhere as all you have to do is upload the site’s files.
You can still create dynamic content types and filter content, but you’ll also be able to use a Markdown editor to create content.
5. Shopify — Starting at $29/month
Shopify is a hosted e-commerce platform. It is the second most popular way to create an eCommerce store after WooCommerce.
Shopify’s biggest advantage is simplicity. Since it’s a host-based tool, you don’t have to worry about your store’s security or maintenance. You can simply focus on finding customers and expanding your store.
You still get a good dose of flexibility thanks to the Shopify App marketplace, but you won’t have full access to your store’s underlying source code.
Businesses that need more flexibility can get Shopify Plus.
Color psychology in marketing and branding is very complex. Consider these research studies to make better decisions.
Do you feel calm when surrounded by green fields and blue skies? Have you ever wondered what the color red represents and why you feel a little uneasy when you stare at a stop sign? These are just two of the many effects color has on the human psyche. It is part of a study called color psychology.
What is Color Psychology?
Color psychology studies how different colors affect human behavior. Color psychology is used in advertising and marketing to evoke emotional responses. It sounds simple on the surface, but you quickly realize that there is so much more underneath.
Before we look at how the meaning of color affects human behavior (and how certain colors evoke different reactions), let’s take a quick trip through the history of color.
In the 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton observed sunlight passing through a glass prism and how the light was reflected in different colors. He initially identified six wavelength hues: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.
But color psychology predates Newton’s time by thousands of years back to the Egyptians. They studied the effect of color on mood and used color to achieve holistic benefits.
More recently, the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung called color “the mother tongue of the subconscious”. His psychological studies led him to develop art therapy. He believed that self-expression through images and colors could help patients recover from trauma or distress.
Have you noticed how colors go in and out of style? In the 1970s, earth colors were popular but gave way in the 80s to turquoise and purple. Later, pink and blue-grey came on the wallpaper.
When it comes to marketing, people often focus on the big things like text, search engine optimization, branding, social media, email marketing and PPC advertising. But there is a tremendous amount of value in getting to the point of getting the finer details perfect. One of these details is color. More specifically, you need to embrace the concept of color psychology and how the human brain perceives different shades of light.
How color psychology is used in marketing
The meaning of colors and the psychology of colors can strongly influence people’s behavior and decision-making. People make subconscious judgments about a person, environment or product within seconds or minutes. Color plays a big role in this first impression.
That fact is not lost on brands and advertisers. They know that certain colors and shades evoke emotions and make people act. This effect is both subtle and powerful.
Through their choice of color in logos, packaging, signage and advertising, brands can influence consumers to buy on impulse, or choose their product or service over a competitor’s.
Think about your favorite brands and how certain colors dominate. Are their logos bright red like Coca Cola or Netflix? Or are you a person who likes the colors black and white like Nike? Maybe you prefer yellow and are drawn to McDonalds.
The psychology of common colors
In this episode, we explore the ten most common colors and emotions and the psychology associated with them. This should allow you to strategically choose certain colors and optimize your website, online branding and digital presence.
Red is a color that stimulates and attracts attention. Positive connotations include love, power, passion, energy, strength and warmth. Negative associations mean danger, warning and anger. Red can often be used to promote a sense of urgency and drive people to action (as in the actionable study we referenced earlier.) Lots of successful companies use red as their primary branding color, including Netflix and Coca-Cola. If you want something bold and edgy, this could be an option for you.
Orange sits next to red on the color spectrum and shares some of the same warm attributes, albeit with a little less stimulation of the senses. Orange has positive associations with warmth, courage, success, kindness and confidence. But it can also evoke feelings of inertia or ignorance. It can also feel cheap. (When was the last time you saw a luxury product or brand use the color orange?) Brands that use orange are usually fun and lively, such as Fanta and Nickelodeon.
Yellow is a bright color that demands attention and creates very distinct associations with consumers. Positive emotions include optimism, happiness, fun and sunshine. Negatives can link a brand to feelings of instability or irresponsibility. Like orange, yellow tends to be more of a “cheap” or budget-friendly color and is rarely used in luxury settings. (Although it’s interesting to note that Ferrari, a very advanced brand, uses yellow as a primary color. It just goes to show that there are exceptions to every rule.) Popular brands that use yellow include Subway and McDonald’s.
Green is a color of refreshment. It is relaxing and very easy on the eyes. Green evokes positive feelings of peace, tranquility, growth, nature and health. Although it can also be used to produce emotions such as guilt, envy and jealousy (usually associated with money). Well-known green-centric brands include Starbucks and John Deere.
Blue is a reliable color that insinuates strength and confidence. It has a calming and cooling effect on people, making them feel relaxed and light. However, it can also be seen as cold and masculine in some scenarios. So remember this if you are trying to create opposite effects. Blue is often used in companies where trust is very important – such as finance or healthcare. (Companies like IBM, Pfizer, and Oral-B use blue.) But it can also be used in a variety of other industries. Companies like Facebook depend on blue to connect with customers.
Purple is the combination of red and blue – and it shares some common attributes with both. It is seen as a royal, creative and luxurious color that moves people to action. It can also be seen as mysterious (which can be positive or negative depending on your brand’s goals). Although less common than some primary colors, purple is a popular choice for brands looking to let loose and have a little fun. Examples are Barbie and Footway.
White is a color of balance, calm, innocence, purity and freshness. It is a minimalistic color that helps people feel centered and balanced. However, it can also be boring and uninteresting. That is why it is paired with other colors, where it provides pure contrast. While we’ll let you debate which color is the primary and which is negative, brands like Apple and Wikipedia have white as one of their primary colors.
Gray is slightly different than white. It usually evokes similar feelings, but is seen as more luxurious. It is also a very high-tech and glamorous color. You’ll see many tech and luxury companies, including Apple, Lexus and Peugeot, use silver.
Black is often used together with white or grey. It sends signals of formality, drama, class and protection. It also has a shadow side, where it can possibly create feelings of mystery, death or evil. Black is a common choice for brands such as Nike, Puma and The New York Times.
Brown is often forgotten, but it has its place in brands. It is often associated with kindness, longevity, down-to-earth and the outdoors. However, it can also give off an unappealing aesthetic that feels conservative. Brown is not a popular color in the big brand, but you will see it in popular companies like UPS and M&M’s.
As you can see, each color provokes a different set of responses. Some are obvious and intuitive, while others are more subconscious and under the radar.
If your pages aren’t indexed by Google, you can’t be seen there either – it’s that simple. My first tip is therefore basic technical SEO, making sure that the content you want to rank for is indexed by the search engine.
The easiest way to check this is via the Google Search Console tool, where you can see how many of your pages are indexed and how many are not.
All the pages you want to drive traffic to via the search engine must be indexed (“Valid” in the Search Console view). Alternatively, you can do it manually on Google through a search like this: “site:seo-tips.se” (with your domain).
Do you have a XML sitemap?
An XML sitemap is a way to make it clear for the search engines which pages you have on your website. In the sitemap, you can specify which pages should be indexed (i.e. visible on Google) and which should not.
You can get by without too, especially if you have an effective internal linking strategy, but the sitemap is recommended regardless, especially if you have a large and complex site.
I usually recommend XML-Sitemap where you easily can build sitemaps automatically.
Do you have HTTPS?
If you still have http:// in your URLs, it’s time to migrate to HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure).
Already in 2017, some browsers (e.g. Chrome) started marking pages that lacked HTTPS as insecure pages. In practice, this means that the URL field says “Not secure”.
By fixing this on your domain, you can improve the bounce rate and get more value from the organic traffic you already generate, which can indirectly also affect your rankings.
Contact us, policy pages and about us
As seen above, credibility is an increasingly important factor affecting your rankings. As SEO guru Brian Dean points out, there are several signals Google considers to determine a website’s credibility, including:
Links to your policy pages (terms & conditions etc.)
“About us page” is easily accessible
Contact information
References / sources in certain types of posts
Therefore, make sure you have these easily accessible, for example in the footer.
Local SEO
Search engine optimization within specific geographic areas (Local SEO) is an important part of the process if you run a local business.
This includes maintaining and optimizing:
Google My Business profile to appear on Search and Google Maps with your business name.
Customer reviews and good ratings.
Unique SEO title with keyword
SEO title (title-tag) is the title that appears for every search result on Google and can be decisive if you end up, or stay, on the first page of the SERP (Search Engine Ranking Page).
It should always include the landing page’s primary keywords.
It should be captivating and make visitors click on your particular search result.
Keywords in (h1, h2, h3)
Headings also have an important place among my search engine optimization tips. The most important heading on your landing pages is the main H1 heading. Namely, it is one of the primary elements that search engines use to determine what your content is about.
Therefore, check that you have the keyword in your H1s on all landing pages and that you only have one main heading on each page to avoid duplicates. In the other headings (h2, h3, etc.) you can use related keywords more freely.
A tip for search-optimizing headlines is to use long-tail keywords when relevant. It is thus longer phrases that have searches and include the keyword. Another good tip is to compare your keywords to your competitors. I would recommend Wordstream.
What do you think characterizes a good website? The answer to the question will vary a lot depending on who is answering. Some will highlight design, such as font and color. Others focus on the structure and navigation, i.e. the page’s user-friendliness, also called UX and UI design. And a third will say high-quality images. Many believe that stylish design is timeless. Ultimately, it simply depends on who you ask.
If you rewind the tape 10-15 years, things looked different. The answers to what a good-looking website is were probably just as varied back then, but in those days it was quite a long way when the website worked. If you had a good design and nice pictures, it was a big plus. Most had no website at all. But today, the demands and competition are significantly higher. Users want more than a pretty design.
A good-looking website is for many a beautiful and aesthetically pleasing website. A design that can convey the company’s brand and vision well is a must today. Beautiful, aesthetic design that conveys the brand is of course very important, but for us at thernloven, a nice website is more than that.
The visit to the website must be simple, pleasant, clear and enjoyable. Just as a well-designed office or home is both functional and easy for most visitors to experience as a beautiful environment, your business website is just as important. And there are a lot of general guidelines to rely on. It is always the whole, form and function that make good design great design.
Three important things that is needed on your website.
Purpose: Your website needs to accommodate the needs of the user. Having a simple clear intention on all pages will help the user interact with what you have to offer.
Simplicity: Simplicity is the best way to go when considering the user experience and the usability of your website. This includes color psychology, font-type and images.
Navigation: Website navigation is key to retaining visitors. If the website navigation is confusing visitors will give up and find what they need elsewhere. Keeping navigation simple, intuitive and consistent on every page is key.
An important reason to invest in a nice website is the contact it creates with customers. The first visual impression is of great importance, but it is also very important that the website loads quickly.
According to statistics, the bounce rate, i.e. how many people leave the page without clicking further within your website, is if the loading time on the page is 2 seconds. But if the loading time increases and becomes 7 seconds long, the rejection rate becomes a whopping 32.3%! A huge increase! So make sure you review the technical aspects of your website.
Today, most of us experience something called “micro stress” when pages load more slowly than we are used to. When you have managed to get a visitor to your site, it is extremely important that the customer gets the chance to get to know your company and your services so that those who feel that your company would suit them perfectly, do not miss the chance to become your new customer .
If you work with digital marketing, a nice website will also come in handy for the site’s search engine optimization, or “SEO”. A website that looks beautiful but lacks relevant information regarding its products/services will get a lower “ranking” on Google. That is, the page will probably not appear among the first companies, but end up on a later page in people’s searches, which in turn affects results and the number of conversions from the website. But more on that in next weeks Newsletter… 🙂