by Marianna Muscat | Sep 19, 2017 | SEO
Countless business owners spend hours and hours on their website’s SEO by updating meta data, focusing on link building and improving user experience. Unfortunately, however, there is often one aspect of search engine optimisation that is neglected or completely ignored – optimising their website’s images for search. This is a big mistake. Considering that Google Images accounts for a considerable number of daily searches, dwarfing those performed on YouTube, Google Maps, Amazon and Facebook combined, these business owners are missing out on the opportunity to be drawing a lot more traffic to their website. Below are a few helpful pointers for effectively optimising images for search from here on out.
Check the Quality
Not only do good quality images ensure a better user experience when it comes to your website design, but it also increases the chances of catching someone’s eye on Google Image search, leading to an increased number of website hits and interest.
Be Conscious of Sizing
16:9 or 4:3 is best. Any other sizes may wind up being resized in order to fit those dimensions in the Google Image search results.
Pay Special Attention to Alt Tags
The biggest no-no is using the image’s default name (i.e. JPEG 10282849) as its alt tag. This means that it will be impossible to find using Google Image search. Instead, create alt tags using plenty of keywords and accurately describing what is present in the image. The more descriptive, the better your ranking is likely to be.
Are you looking for a digital marketing company to assist you in perfecting your website’s SEO? Here at WSI OMS, we can help you with everything from optimising images for search to building high quality links. Contact us today to learn more about our wide range of services and expertise.
by Francois Muscat | Sep 11, 2017 | SEO
The world of SEO is forever changing, and if you aren’t focused on keeping up with the trends, your website’s rankings are sure to take a noticeable knock. In an effort to help get you back into the loop, we take a look at a few essential focus areas for your SEO campaign below.
Content Marketing
Content marketing and SEO work hand in hand – these days, one cannot exist without the other. Knowing this, if your SEO efforts are to yield any worthwhile results, you need to be taking the time to create your own brand-relevant content (and promoting it on the right platforms). Not just any content, though. Content that people are going to want to read and, most importantly, engage with. Don’t feel as though you’re too good with words? Content curation is also an excellent option to try.
Create a Link Building Strategy
Yes, link building is still important when it comes to SEO. Just remember that while the focus should indeed be on creating high quality back links on authority websites, you still need to be just as focused on identifying where those low quality back links to your site exist – and do your best to get rid of them ASAP!
User Experience
Regardless of whether or not your website design is stunning, the question is: does your website take forever to load? Is it easy to navigate around it? If not, your SEO is likely being negatively affected. User experience is now more important than ever when it comes to rankings, so make sure that you take the time to perfect this. Remember – if user experience is good, the chances are also good that the SEO engines are finding it easier to crawl through your website, ultimately helping you to reach that top spot that you have been chasing for so long!
Feeling a bit lost? For professional assistance with your brand’s SEO campaign and digital marketing strategy, do not hesitate to get in touch with the team at WSI OMS.
by Francois Muscat | Aug 14, 2017 | Content Marketing, SEO
Google Tag Manager is a free tool developed by Google to meet an increasingly pressing need for ease of access, functionality and complex data collection-made-easy as the digital and digital marketing world becomes more complex – and it’s great for SEO.
SEO is all about tracking user behaviour and responding to it to give users what they want and like. Google Tag Manager is, therefore, a powerful SEO tool in that it:
- enables advanced tracking and data collection from multiple sources, far beyond what can be gained from Google Analytics alone
- enables faster, more flexible and more directed response to that data
- reduces the need for time-consuming (and often costly) coding by developers
- offers direct control through an easy-to-use platform
- enhances the functionality of marketing programs that can otherwise slow the site page loading
A one-stop tool for ‘faster, better, easier and more intelligent’ tracking has the potential to be the SEO (and digital marketing) equivalent of a jet full of rocket fuel vs. a WW2 prop-plane. That is, if used correctly, to its full potential and by the people directly invested in using it: the SEO and digital marketing team.
Tags for tracking and data collection
For the client: a tag is a snippet of code that tracks and collects specific data sets showing user response to digital marketing efforts: from websites, social media platforms and mobile apps. This data is relayed to respective third party platforms such as Google Analytics. Tags track user behaviour such as engagement, sharing, remarketing, AdWords conversions, click-through, etc.
Collectively this tracking data provides crucial information for social media marketing strategy, content marketing, SEO and related strategies such as link building and further website design and development.
Google Tag Manager gives you and your team direct control
Traditionally, tags were installed and managed by developers in accordance to your website design and whatever data sets were required at the outset and over the course of an SEO or content marketing strategy. However, Google Tag Manager allows instant and direct control of tag installation and management: by you or your digital marketing team.
Contact us today for more information on how we can help you make the most of Google Tag Manager. We will maximise SEO and boost your overall digital marketing strategy.
by Marianna Muscat | Jul 25, 2017 | SEO
With all the hype about social media, it’s easy to forget the importance of good old organic search traffic and the on-site efforts aimed at garnering the market on keywords. Organic SEO is alive and kicking thanks to some new challenges, particularly in relation to mobile. Mobile optimisation has the potential to bring in huge amounts of traffic, increase brand awareness and create a rock solid foundation for digital marketing efforts.
One of those challenges is a ‘first prize’ for a web page: Google’s Answer Box
What is Google’s Answer Box?
Many search queries are in the form of questions. So many in fact, that websites dedicated to answering every question under the sun, proliferated over the years. So many, that Google itself got in on the action and in 2015 it started returning answers in an ‘Answer Box’ in position 0 in the SERP – above all the results – a position once only filled by paid advertising. In other words, Google is saying: here is the definitive answer to your question – the one we have decided is best.
Optimising for Mobile Search
Google doesn’t bring up Answer Boxes in response to all searches because it doesn’t always find an authority webpage that can answer the question and that is optimised in the right way. In addition, most answer boxes came up for searches on desktops. Far fewer Answer Boxes are returned for mobile search – again, due to optimisation. A web page has to be mobile optimised and the content presented in the correct way to have a chance.
There’s a wide open playing field for excellent content, optimised for the right keywords and perfectly optimised for mobile search, to achieve the coveted position of Position Zero in search results. Get it and traffic will flood in.
Contact Us at WSI OMS for website design for mobile functionality and mobile optimisation of your website. Be competitive in the age of mobile search and Google’s Mobile First Index.
by Francois Muscat | Jul 12, 2017 | SEO
SEO has come a long way, constantly adapting to the changing landscape of the internet, the algorithms used by search engines and user behaviour. It has also lately adapted to the popularity of social media and increased mobile use and by the availability of increasingly detailed metrics that measured traffic and from where and whom.
‘Traditonal SEO’ focused on algorithms
SEO was based solidly on search and keywords – and the adapting part was using the information provided by Analytics and search results to try and keep up with algorithm changes. No-one knew what they were, and it was surmised that they could change from day to day. In other words, SEO was about running to keep up.
As social media began rising in prominence, websites got Facebook plug-ins, Facebook Pages were linked to websites and the resulting Analytics metrics became valuable tools to see how much traffic was coming in from the Facebook pages. But that’s if they clicked through to the website. Metrics from social media and websites were measured separately – with one set of metrics used for SEO and the other for Social Media Marketing.
AdaptiveSEO focuses on ‘social signals’
Today, AdaptiveSEO campaigns combine the two. Algorithms are still important but the user behaviour of your social media audience and how they access social media has become more important – not least because search engines are also adapting their algorithms to the same thing.
AdaptiveSEO uses feedback on how your target market reacts to your posts and content and website, adapting SEO strategy to these ‘social signals’. How people perceive your business and how they may search for it is used to optimise your website, for PPC campaigns and overall online marketing strategy as much as the feedback from search and traffic analysis and the latest ‘guesswork’ re algorithm changes.
AdaptiveSEO starts with your website design
Your website needs to be designed to function optimally across all devices and display great content that can be shared on social media. A website that loads quickly on a mobile device, is easy to navigate and invites users to share quality, meaningful content is as important a ‘baseline’ now as ‘clean code’ and ‘optimal keywords’ were a decade ago.
Adaptive SEO is about staying one step ahead – by being prepared and because ultimately everything that search engines value is gleaned from and geared toward one thing: people. Social signals are mapping out the future of internet and device technology – and the future of SEO.
Contact us at WSI OMS to design your AdaptiveSEO campaign, so that you too can stay one step ahead of the game in your SEO and online marketing strategies.
by Francois Muscat | Jul 10, 2017 | SEO
SEO can be complex – and it’s getting more and more complex and adaptive as the competition on the internet increases. Luckily, there are certain techniques used in SEO that are fail-safe if done properly from the start, and these are based on transparency, honesty, value and quality. Search engines want to know what your website is about in the clearest possible ways – especially if they are relying on you to tell them, as in the case of images. They also want to know how great your website and content is – and for that they rely on your site visitors.
The traditional steps for optimising images for search engines
Image reading technology has come a long way, but if the images on your website are correctly named, titled and those names and titles are supported by content, appropriate meta-data (info that supports what’s on the site, some of which only search-engines can read) and links, you have laid a foundation that will support and boost your SEO strategy – no matter what.
- Save your image with a name that describes what’s in the image. This you can do yourself before you send your images to your webmaster to load if your webmaster or search-engine optimiser is doing the rest for you.
- When images are loaded onto a site, each one can be given an ‘alt Title’. This can expand a little on the name the image was saved with – giving Google (for example) a little more info.
- Code allows the image to then be given ‘alt Description’ – meta-data that tells Google a little bit more about what the image is about in context (sometimes visible if when you ‘hover’ your cursor over an image).
- Images can also be Captioned – allowing for more search–engine attracting keywords.
- Link your images or image gallery to relevant pages on your website – or info on other sites if it is authority, quality info and the click-through won’t take your visitor off your site.
But what about people? Functionality for user behaviour is SEO too
- Make sure your site visitors can ‘Share’ your images on social media platforms – and encourage them to do so with easily visible share ‘buttons’ – and with high quality images.
- Ensure your images and galleries are fully viewable, functional and shareable on mobile devices – because that’s where they, with their text data and their associated user behaviour are now being indexed.
SEO isn’t just about ‘alerting’ search engines. User behaviour is now even more important. If your perfectly SEO’d search-engine readable gallery is full of low quality images or images that don’t display correctly on mobile, site visitors won’t click through them or share them on social media. They’ll likely leave your website more quickly too. Google and other search engines see this behaviour, and they’ll give your site bad marks for it – or even fail it completely and leave it out of mobile search results.
Quality and functionality are everything since only way for search engines to ultimately judge real relevance to users is to measure user behaviour – how people react to content, use your website and how they link to it from social media or other websites (or not).
Correct basic SEO of quality images incorporated into a search-engine, cross-device and user-friendly website design with appropriate sharing features is as essential to the success of your digital marketing strategy as your text content marketing and link building strategy.
Contact us today for more information on how WSI OMS can help your website compete against competitor sites, through our adaptive SEO services and solutions – a core offering in our range of digital marketing services and web solutions in the age of social media.
