Wieting Design

Practices That Could Be Hurting Your SEO

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We all know the importance of using SEO (search engine optimization) best strategies, but are you familiar with practices that may be hurting your SEO? These may often be done unintentionally yet can have a big impact on your website’s ranking.

The following can negatively affect your SEO:

Bad Website Links

Inactive links or broken links go nowhere, and should be fixed or removed as needed. You can manually search for these, or easier ways include using Google Analytics or the plugin MonsterInsights for WordPress. While auditing, also check for nofollow links and redirects – if they exist, ensure they’re correctly placed where needed. Inactive links can stop web crawlers in their tracks resulting in a page not being indexed for search engines.

Spam Blog Comments

Spam links in your blog’s comment section can affect how you’re ranked; watch out for spam bots inserting irrelevant links like these. Using bad SEO strategies, these spambots try creating their own backlinks by commenting on others’ posts but this can hurt your ranking in the process. Links on your page help Google understand what kind of page you are, so a bad or irrelevant link can give Google the wrong impression. Have a good spam filter or monitor your comments to ensure no bad links exist in comments.

Slow Site Speed

You may have tons of awesome content on your page, including videos and high resolution images, but make sure your page is not overloaded. Watch out for oversized images, embedded videos, bad code, and overdue theme or plugin updates. A slow site speed leads to a longer load time that negatively impacts user experience, leading to increased bounce rates. Additionally, search engines may not be able to crawl all your pages when your site is slow (as to not overload). Use Pingdom to check your site speed and see if it needs improvement.

Not Using HTTPS

Safety online is important – users know this and so does Google. Search engines will rank safe sites higher because they want to send visitors to pages worthy of trust. Switch to HTTPS if you haven’t already; an SSL certificate ensures secure data transmission with encrypted data between the server and your site. Check if your hosting package includes this or if you need to purchase a security certificate.

Low Visitor Engagement

Posting quality content can improve your SEO, but there’s much more to it including how users engage. How are visitors interacting with your website? Are they engaged, completing calls to action (CTA’s) or sharing? How much time are visitors spending on the page? Google ranks sites based on how relevant they are, and if you have a high bounce rate it may lower your relevancy score.

Non Responsive Design

Searches being done on tablets and phones are increasing, which means your website needs to be responsive to these different devices. If not, visitors may leave quickly when the page doesn’t load or show correctly, in turn increasing your bounce rate and potentially hurting your SEO. Google is aware of the device trend and has even started indexing the mobile version of sites to make sure that users get the best access to what they’re looking for on phones. AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) can help with mobile speed.

Irrelevant Keywords

Keyword stuffing and using irrelevant words in the hope that your page gets noticed can backfire. Words that don’t match the content on the page will most likely result in a higher bounce rate when visitors realize they haven’t found what they were looking for on the site. Stay true to what your page is about without overdoing it; remember that it’s quality content that counts. (Note: Are you noticing a trend here? It’s all about being pertinent to the subject matter.)

Duplicate Tags and Descriptions

Make sure Google can successfully index your website; factors that may affect this are duplicate content tags or noindex tags. One can confuse search engines while the other will prevent the page from being indexed. Make tags relevant and also remember to tag your images correctly by describing what’s actually on them vs just listing the words you’re hoping to rank for. Be relevant for your topic and Google will reward you rather than penalize.

At the core of SEO rankings is the question – is my site relevant for what I offer and working properly? Keep this question in mind because Google is constantly analyzing this to sort pages in search engine results. At the end of the day, search engines exist to provide users with the best results and this is based on many factors. Some are easy to do on your own while others may require help from a search engine marketing expert like Wieting Design. View our SEO services.

With more than 20 years experience in marketing for local businesses in CT (Connecticut), we can work with you to improve and maintain your search engine ranking. View our past projects or contact us to discuss your local business marketing needs.

Wieting Design | Website Design CT

Wieting Design is a full-service, graphic and website design agency based in Fairfield County, CT and serving all of Connecticut (CT). We are committed to sharing our experience and expertise in website design, graphic design, social media marketing, search engine marketing (SEO), and video production to help build powerful tools and campaigns that work for your Connecticut business. Whether your objective is to grow your reputation, create client loyalty, drive traffic to your website or set up a marketing strategy, we will adapt our approach to get you the results you need with the services we provide.

 

8 Ways To Increase Your Instagram Followers

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Are you new at Instagram and doing it yourself?

If you’re a new business and just starting out Instagram will most likely be on the list of social media platforms that you should take advantage of. Posting photos can take a lot of time and can be disappointing when your met by nothing more than a few likes from a handful of followers, it’s easy to get discouraged.  Unless your a rocker, movie star, sports figure or selling a hot product it could take time to see an increase in followers and likes. Instagram is not just about posting pictures. If managed correctly it can:

  • Increase product sales
  • Drive traffic to your website
  • Increase brand awareness
  • Increase customer satisfaction
  • Attract top talent
  • Identify and establish relationships with influencers

Here are a few tips that might help the process along when your first starting out with Instagram!

  1. Hashtags are known to help increase followers: depending on the kind of business you have you will want to use hashtags like #interiordesign #homemakeover #homedecor #diningroom or #kitchendesign if you are a interior designer.  Think of words that are associated with your business. Look up popular hashtags that are associated with your business.
  2. Like random pictures from people in your target audience.  Write a comment.  Compliment a project, say how much you love the post, be engaging. This is the most natural way to gain new followers.
  3. With anything quality beats quantity. Edit your account to leave only the best images. No one wants to follow someone with thousands of images of random shots. Be smart and thoughtful of what your putting up.
  4. Make sure your bio is complete. Include relevant keywords and hashtags, and make sure you have a link to your website. You don’t want to be spammy when running a professional business.
  5. Ask questions in the captions of your photos. This is a great way to increase engagement. Once you establish yourself people will respond.
  6. Use geotagging, especially if you’re a local business. When you geotag your photos, others who post photos in your area will see your postings on the location’s page and it will help gain traction for you.
  7. Plan, and prepare ahead.  Devise a plan for how you’re going to use Instagram, and a schedule to keep yourself on track. Don’t get lazy.
  8. When is the best time to post on Instagram?  Just like the Instagram algorithm, the answer seems to change every year. Here is an article that might help answer this question.  https://later.com/blog/best-time-to-post-on-instagram/

Be aware there is a game called “follow-bait”. This is when Instagrammer’s want to gain followers. They randomly follow accounts in hopes to get follows back, (mostly new accounts) once they get the new follower they will unfollow you.  After a while, some have thousands of followers but only follow a few hundred back which is a sure sign they are only looking to gain more follows.

Don’t take it personally, the follow-unfollow is popular because, it still works. But as you become more familiar with Instagram and learn the ropes you will know who to follow and not to follow.

You will also discover the improvements Instagram has made to help your business grow like creating photo albums and videos to tell a story or share an event.

If you have any questions please email us or give us a call at 203 414 9692

 

Wieting Design | Website Design CT

Wieting Design is a full-service, graphic and website design agency based in Fairfield County, CT and serving all of Connecticut (CT). We are committed to sharing our experience and expertise in website design, graphic design, social media marketing, search engine marketing (SEO), and video production to help build powerful tools and campaigns that work for your Connecticut business. Whether your objective is to grow your reputation, create client loyalty, drive traffic to your website or set up a marketing strategy, we will adapt our approach to get you the results you need with the services we provide.

 

 

Social Media: What Does it Really Do for Your Business?

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Hand Holding A Social Media 3D Sphere
At one time, many business owners believed that social media was just another fad. Today, social media is one of the top activities on the Web. In fact, the average social user spends more than 30 minutes a day on a social media site.  It is no longer up for debate – social media is very important for business.  If you’re still not convinced, here’s what social media can do for your business:

  • Increases traffic if targeted to the right audience.
  • Captures the attention of new customers and improves brand visibility.
  • Cost-effective when compared to traditional forms of advertising (i.e. print ads, direct mail, billboard ads, cable television, etc.).
  • Gives you the opportunity to build a review profile from satisfied customers.
  • Allows you to improve customer service and offers real-time feedback. You can utilize this feedback to make improvements to your business.
  • Increases customer loyalty, according to a study conducted by Texas Tech University. The study concluded that businesses should take advantage of social media tools when connecting with their target audience – this will help increase engagement.
  • Gives you the opportunity to convert potential leads into customers.
  • Builds stronger customer relationships. Social media allows you to instantly interact with your customer. For instance, let’s say that a customer posts a complaint about your product or service on Facebook, you can respond and resolve the issue right away. By doing this, you’re showing customers that you’re prompt when it comes to responding to their needs. Responding promptly to feedback (whether negative or positive) shows that you genuinely care about your customers.
  • Offers a great way to distribute content. According to AOL and Nielsen, people spend over 50% of their time on the Internet reading or watching video content. Approximately, 30% of this time is spent on social media sites where people share the content they like the most.
  • Provides good search engine rankings. It is said that when you maintain a solid social media presence, it lets the search engines know that you have a credible brand. As a result, you’re more than likely to experience an increase in traffic to your website.

The above are just a handful of benefits of using social media for your business. It is important to know that in order for social media to work well, it must be done the right way. Hiring a professional social media consultant who can think strategically, when it comes to creating a social media campaign, will ensure you experience successful results.

Just like SEO and other forms of Internet marketing, social media takes time before you begin to reap the benefits from your efforts. However, if you can invest at least 45 minutes to 1 hour a day in social media ‘consistently’ you will begin to notice results.

Tip: The key to success with social media is to be engaging. Engagement is the main ingredient to building long-term business relationships with your followers.

Do you need professional assistance with developing a social media campaign for your business? Feel free to contact a cindy@wietingdesign.com or give us a call at: 203.259.8913.

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Wieting Design, LLC
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Serving: CT, Fairfield County CT
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