Category: SEO

If you’ve ever wondered what a landing page is and whether your website needs one, you’re not alone. There are plenty of discussions around the planning, designing and using landing pages online, both in blogs and on social media. Answers vary from a landing page being your site’s home page, right through to a page with a strong call to action. However, the truth is, a landing page is a page on your website you have deliberately created to capture leads.

Understanding How a Landing Page Works

Each landing page has a clear goal: to collect the essential details from your visitors. Rather than trying to sell your visitor your product or service, you are providing them with something so valuable they are happy to share their contact details with you. What you provide is called a lead magnet. A lead magnet can range from an eBook, a cheat’s sheet, a downloadable template or a checklist. It has to be something related to what your business offers and which the visitor sees as being valuable and something they want! You then tell them what they need to do to get the lead magnet, called the call to action.

Let’s take a look at how the lead magnet fits into the workings of a landing page:

  • Your visitor is directed to your landing page, usually from a paid advertisement
  • They are presented with an irresistible offer; your lead magnet and a strong call to action telling them to enter their details into a form on the page
  • Your visitor enters their details, usually name and email address, which converts them from being a visitor or being a lead
  • Their information is stored in your leads database
  • Your lead is directed to a thank you page where they receive the lead You can also include other calls to action here, such as to check out your blog or contact you
  • You contact your leads to build up a solid relationship with them and to market your products or services to them

Why Using Landing Pages is Important

The number one reason why you need a landing page is that it generates leads for your business. It is much easier to sell to someone whom you have already developed a relationship with, demonstrated your competence and who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. A lead has voluntarily given you their contact details because they were interested in your lead magnet. They are a warm lead and ready and waiting to become your customer or client!

Landing pages will also help you:

  • Collect information about your visitor’s demographics
  • Provide a place for you to present your best offers
  • Show you which offers or lead magnets work best with your target audience
  • Let you test out different aspects, such as your copy, images and keywords

When creating a landing page, all other distractions must be removed to maximise the leads you receive. The copy must also be meticulously written and tested to ensure maximum conversion rates too. We can help you with both of those here at FutureLab. Our web developers will build and design you the ideal landing page, with our copywriting team providing irresistible copy. We’ll take care of the testing and monitoring of the results from your pages, plus establish a high performing digital marketing program for it too.

For further information or to begin the process of custom building your new landing pages, please contact your FutureLab team now!

Having an active SSL certificate on your website is essential in today’s online world. An encryption technology developed in the 1990’s, SSL is an acronym for Secure Sockets Layer. It allows data to securely travel between your web server and your visitor’s web browser by creating an encrypted connection. The recent increase in SSL usage is due to many web browsers now displaying a warning message for visitors on websites which do not have a valid certificate. In particular, the Chrome and Firefox web browsers are displaying a “not secure” message within a website’s address bar if a valid SSL certificate is not installed. This has led to most reputable hosting companies, including ourselves, providing our customers with SSL certificates for their websites. Today we’re going to discuss further what an SSL certificate is, how it works and the reasons why it’s vital your website has one.

What is SSL and How Does It Work?

An easy way to understand what an SSL certificate is to think of it as a passport. Information about your domain name, server name, company name and location are all bound together with unique cryptographic keys. When installed on your website’s server, it will encrypt all information sent to and from it, allowing only the two parties on each end to be able to read it. If intercepted, it cannot be deciphered. The application protocol HTTP will change to HTTPS, and either a green browser bar or green padlock will be seen depending on the type of certificate used.

Why Do I Need an SSL Certificate?

When a visitor uses your website, information is passed between your website and their web browser. Information can include passwords, credit card details, addresses and other personal information. Before the introduction of SSL, it was possible for hackers to steal this information. An SSL or digital certificate, however, creates a secure link from your website to your visitor’s browser, allowing safe passage for all information.

It’s a common misconception that SSL is only necessary for eCommerce websites. The reality is, SSL provides security, peace of mind and data integrity for both parties on any website. The data encryption does prevent others from seeing credit card and personal details but also stops malware and other meddling occurring too.

Therefore, the main reasons your website needs SSL are to:

  • Encrypt all information sent between your website and your visitor’s web browser
  • Provide authentication for your visitors, as they know that they are sending their information to the right website, not an imposter
  • Improved SEO rankings, as Google will rank sites with valid certificates slightly higher than those without
  • Gain your customer’s trust, as they know you are doing everything you can to protect their personal information
  • Avoid your visitors seeing a message in your web address bar saying your website is “not secure” if they are using the Chrome or Firefox web browser

 

At FutureLab, we take your security seriously. Using only secure cloud hosting, we provide our customers with a compartmentalised server system which promotes fast websites but also protects you from hackers and spammers. We also offer SSL certificates with all our hosting plans too. Arrange a time with us to chat about how we can improve the security of your website by switching to one of our managed monthly hosting plans and website development services.

A year on from ‘Mobilegeddon’ we look at how Google mobile search is continuing to evolve

 

You may remember reading about a big Google mobile search update back in April 2015 – dubbed ‘Mobilegeddon’ by the SEO community. We wrote about the update here at FutureLab and also had a look at the first results of Mobilegeddon and how some clients had come to us as a direct result of the mobile changes.

The ‘Mobilegeddon’ update last year was about prioritising mobile-responsive websites in mobile search results. So, from that point onward, if your website wasn’t mobile-responsive, you were going to lose rankings on mobile to a competitor who did have a mobile-ready website.

 

Mobile-first Design

At FutureLab, mobile-responsive design has been a priority for the last four years. We don’t charge extra for mobile-optimisation like some web companies – we simply don’t design a website these days unless it is responsive. When we meet with prospective clients, we’re sure to let them know that mobile-optimisation is really important. Sometimes we meet with mixed reactions – companies that aren’t bothered about mobile optimisation. A year ago when we told our clients and prospective ones about the update, we had companies saying they weren’t that fussed about optimising for mobile.

 

Mobile = important!

A year on from the update and it’s clear that mobile search is only gaining in importance, to Google and users alike. As Yoast’s Joost de Valk succinctly put it, “Whether mobile search is important, hugely important or incredibly important for your business depends on the market you’re in.” There’s no case for ignoring mobile traffic anymore, no matter if you’re a small company, based away from the big city, or rely on your business connections to bring in revenue.

 

Big change for Google search

The latest news from Google HQ is that desktop search and mobile search are going to become completely separated out from each other. The change will take place ‘within months’, according to Gary Illyes, a Google webmaster trends analyst. The mobile search will be rapidly updated, while the desktop search will be a secondary search which may not be as up to date as mobile search results.

Any business case for not investing in a mobile-responsive website is getting harder and harder to justify. The writing on the wall is quite clear – focus on optimising your website for mobile or pay the price of lower search rankings, less traffic and less visibility online.

Last month Google quietly released a big update to their search engine Local algorithm, dubbed the ‘Possum’ update by the SEO community.

The update helps show web users local results when they are searching for goods and services near their location.

 

Possum Update: The Overview

Have you ever searched online for ‘cafes near me’ or ‘closest grocery store’? Often, these sort of searches happen when users are on the go and looking for the closest food/drink/shopping/dentist and so on near to them. Searches that involve some reference to your location, AKA ‘near me’ searches, have been growing wildly in popularity. Well, Google has been paying attention.

In general, local results being prioritised over others is nothing new. That’s why you’ll usually see .co.nz results rather than .com or .co.uk when you search online from NZ. Likewise, businesses with an Auckland location aren’t going to do as well in Christchurch search results and vice versa.

However, this new update deals specifically with Local results – using all of the data they can find, Google will work out your location and help show your website or Google Maps listing when it is most relevant to a nearby user.

Since the update, the Local search results also seem to differ more from the regular organic results. This means that searching ‘website design services near me’ or ‘website design services Takapuna’ will show different results compared to searching ‘website design services’. On the whole, this is good news – it means small businesses will have a chance to show up in search results to users close by, rather than being overshadowed by the big players of their industry with a bigger web presence.

On the flip side, since Local results will now vary even more depending on your location, remember that you won’t be able to check your search rankings accurately unless you’re in the location you want to check up on. Or, we can help you with SEO tools to help check your local rankings in multiple towns and cities.

 

What Do I Need to Do?

You may be asking at this point – how does this update affect my business? As we said, this is good news for small businesses who service a particular location – but you’ll need to ensure your website has the right signals on it for Google to help prioritise your website in Local search results.

 

Add NAP Details to your website – Name, Address, Phone Number

This is an easy one which all businesses should have online. Put your contact details across every platform you use, including your website, Google My Business/Google Maps, and social media profiles. Ensure your details are the same and are accurate across all platforms. In addition, add your opening hours to your Google My Business page.

 

Add Schema.org details to your website

Schema markup is a worldwide-recognised way of labelling various content on your website for Google and other search engines to use. Have you ever searched a big company and had their logo, name and company blurb turn up on the right hand side of your search results page? A fair bit of that data comes from schema markup.

 

Get the above sorted and you should experience a lift in search engine rankings for Local results. For further reading about the Possum update, Search Engine Land have a detailed report (Google haven’t released anything official about this update, so the report is based on expert SEOs watching search engine results very carefully).

 

possum-update
Another gratuitous possum pic

 

If you’d like some help setting up your Google My Business page or adding schema.org markup to your website, get in touch and we’ll be happy to help.

Now this is a story all about how, we made Fond Farewells the best in town. And I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, I’ll tell you how we got their juicy 1st page Google share.

In Christchurch, New Zealand born and raised, in pet cremation, was where they spent all of their days. Collectin’, crematin’; art-makin’ so fly, and helping pet owners say their final goodbye.

When their website was made, it was all pretty good, but there wasn’t anybody in their neighbourhood. To help spread the word and bring in hits – Fond Farewells got us to SEO that sh*t.

We reviewed and researched day after day, and came up with a strategy play-by-play.
New titles, descriptions were all in place, and a fresh new Google+ page to take the cake

A little while later, and look what we find: Fond Farewells take first place in the line.
‘Pet cremation Christchurch’ they were finally there – number one on the throne, competition beware.

*For the non-rapped version, please keep reading below!

[vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]
[vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” css_animation=””][vc_column][vc_separator type=”small” position=”center” up=”20″ down=”20″][vc_column_text]Ok, so we got excited about our SEO results working with Fond Farewells and wanted to share them in Fresh Prince style. It’s not often you can say your strategy worked with 100% success, but in the case of Fond Farewells, we’ve optimised their site like a dream.

Fond Farewells are a pet cremation service based in Christchurch that operates throughout the South Island. The organisation has links with Gribbles Veterinary who offer the Fond Farewells service throughout their veterinary clinics in the South Island.

The Gribbles Veterinary/Fond Farewells team had requested SEO work to raise the visibility of Fond Farewells online, especially for certain keywords such as ‘pet cremation Christchurch’. Their main competitor was appearing at the top of search results for ‘pet cremation’ and similar keywords, while Fond Farewells was not visible on the first few pages of the search results at all.

We implemented SEO on the website to target particular keywords and phrases, so that online users searching for pet cremation services would start finding the website.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” css_animation=””][vc_column][vc_separator type=”transparent”][/vc_column][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” css_animation=””][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_gallery type=”nivo” interval=”0″ images=”19040″ img_size=”large”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

1: fond farewells the top result for ‘pet cremation christchurch’ search.

Now, searching for ‘pet cremation Christchurch’ brings up Fond Farewells as the top result in Google search (see Image 1 to the left).[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” css_animation=””][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

2. Fond farewells increased traffic – website visitors, page visits and sessions all up by over 25% in this comparison chart.

Looking at the data for Fond Farewells in Google Analytics, we can see that increased visibility has brought about a corresponding increase in visitors to the site and website traffic. We began work on the website in late Feb/early March 2015. Image 2 below encapsulates the improvement in Fond Farewells’ visibility online. Starting from April 2015, website visitors are up 25% over the last six months compared to the previous six.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator type=”transparent”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_gallery type=”nivo” interval=”0″ images=”19041″ img_size=”large”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” css_animation=””][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_gallery type=”nivo” interval=”0″ images=”19042″ img_size=”large”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

3. Fond farewells begins appearing for ‘pet cremation christchurch’ for the first time in march 2015.

Fond Farewells was barely even appearing in results for ‘pet cremation Christchurch’ (their main targeted keyword) before we began work on the website. Image 3 marks when the website began appearing for this keyword: March 2015.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator type=”transparent”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” css_animation=””][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

4. Data from the last 90 days (end of dec 2015 – end of mar 2016) for ‘pet cremation christchurch’ – an average search position of 1.1 now and total clicks and impressions both increased.

Lastly, a year on Image 4 marks the progress: an average position of 1.1 for the keyword in the last 90 days, and major traffic to the website on this keyword compared to nothing when we first began the project.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_gallery type=”nivo” interval=”0″ images=”19042″ img_size=”large”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” css_animation=””][vc_column][vc_separator type=”transparent” thickness=”20″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” css_animation=””][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Our approach to SEO

We first approach our SEO projects by doing considerable research into the industry and looking at competitor websites. Combined with keywords provided by the client, we can come up with a list of recommended keywords to target. We add to this by using AdWords and Google Trends data to find the popularity of certain search terms and check for any missed keywords to add to our research.

From this data we can begin to create meta content that best describes each page while also targeting specific keywords. It’s best to plan for each page to target slightly different keywords. That way, we can reach the widest audience while still remaining on topic on each page.

Using Google Search Console (previously Webmaster Tools) and Google Analytics, we can track traffic to the website and determine what’s working and what needs improvement. These tools are also essential to ensure the website is listed in Google and configured correctly.

By monitoring the website using these tools, over time we can perfect the SEO strategy until one day – we discovered that our client was at the top for their chosen search term. Now that’s what we call an SEO success story!

Want to hear more about what we could do to improve your website traffic? Call us on +64 9 280 3470 or email us on contact@futurelab.co.nz.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Here at FutureLab we’re always updating our portfolio with recent websites completed, yet we don’t often re-visit projects to see how a new website is benefiting its business.

Well, we’ve collected feedback and statistics from a number of the small Auckland businesses we’ve had the pleasure of providing with web design, and thought we’d share some of those success stories with you today.

 

Orewa Private Kindergarten

 

Orewa Private Kindergarten (OPK) had no existing website at all, so we were starting from scratch with this project. The kindergarten wanted to set up their online presence and get their website to feature when people searched for kindergartens in the Orewa and Hibiscus Coast area.

FutureLab set up the website for Orewa Private Kindergarten and also set up a Google+ page for the kindergarten, complete with the Orewa location of the kindergarten added to Google Maps. The website package for OPK included SEO. We provided meta titles and descriptions for all pages, wrote some new content for OPK, and linked the pages internally using keywords.

The result? Orewa Private Kindergarten’s new website, www.opk.co.nz, now ranks on the first page for the following keywords: “Orewa kindergarten” and “Childcare Orewa”

This means that we got OPK to the front page for their most important keywords, beating out competition from older and more established websites! That’s a success story and a half.

 

Childcare Orewa - Google
Childcare Orewa – Google Search

Kiwibaby.co.nz

 

Julia from Kiwibaby came to us looking to totally revamp her online shop selling baby products. Previously, Julia was receiving one or two online orders a week, and her site wasn’t ranking particularly highly for her keywords. Now, Julia tells us she received a couple of orders every day thanks to the revamped site. She’s also moved up the rankings for the keywords “baby car seats Auckland”, “prams Auckland” and more – and is ranking 4th currently for “baby products Auckland”, and 1st for “baby products online Auckland”! Julia is stoked about the increased business that her new website has brought to her business. (You can read more about her feedback on our testimonials page.)

 

Baby products online Auckland - Google Search
Baby products online Auckland – Google Search

Xtreme Nutrition

 

Xtreme Nutrition were another online store looking to help boost their online sales. These guys are a large business whose website was already experiencing a lot of online traffic and sales. FutureLab’s job was creating a new website that would provide a better user experience for their customers and help boost sales further. We added some new functions, like a rewards program and a better search function to help customers enjoy the site and use it more frequently.

Since launching the new website in December 2014, Xtreme Nutrition’s sales have increased 20%. That’s what we call a win!

 

FutureLab

 

Last, but not least, is our own website, www.futurelab.co.nz. Over the past year, we’ve been working on SEO and boosting our own traffic as we’ve continued to grow. It’s not just our clients who expect increased web traffic and sales from their new or updated websites; it’s us too.

Well, the results have been pretty good – coming from very modest rankings last year, we can now proudly say that we’re on the first page for ‘web design Takapuna’, ‘web development Takapuna’ custom web developers’, ‘Joomla developer Auckland’ and ‘Magento development Auckland’.

 

If you’d like to discuss getting a website for your business, or perhaps improving the SEO of your current website to drive more web traffic, talk to FutureLab. We can arrange a free, no-obligation consultation to discuss your needs and requirements.

Have you heard about the Google update?

 

What’s happening on the 21st April 2015?

Google recently announced that from the 21st of this month, the way that search results are ranked on mobile devices will undergo a ‘significant’ change. From that date, if your website is not mobile-friendly, it will drop in the mobile search result rankings.[vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_separator type=”transparent” position=”center” up=”50″][vc_column_text]

What’s so special about being mobile-friendly anyway?

Google aims to provide the highest possible user experience – and we’ve all felt the frustration of trying to browse an unresponsive website from a smartphone. That tiny page you need to enlarge and navigate around to see anything? It makes finding and using an ‘old-fashioned’ website a nightmare on a smartphone. Google are now getting serious about rewarding mobile-friendly websites – and punishing the rest.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator type=”transparent” position=”center” up=”50″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”18547″ border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”full”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]

My website isn’t designed to be mobile-friendly… what can I do?

The bad news is, your website is going to experience a drop in search result rankings on mobile devices after the 21st April. The good news is, there is plenty you can do to improve your website and rescue your search engine rankings.

 

Companies have a choice between using one website that is mobile-responsive – designed for use on desktops, tablets, and all types of smartphones – or creating a new website for mobile (often shown with m. in front of your domain). For a number of reasons, we recommend a mobile-responsive website – you can see more about the pros and cons of each in our blog post responsive vs mobile websites.

 

For the moment, you may even get away with doing nothing – that’s if mobile users aren’t important to your business, of course. However, don’t bury your head in the sand over mobile-friendly websites for too long! Smartphones are here to stay and having a mobile-responsive website will become more and more essential to your business.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator type=”normal” position=”center” up=”50″][vc_column_text]

How can I find out more about this issue?

A good place to start is this handy tool from Google that will quickly tell you if your website is mobile-friendly or not. If you find that your website is NOT mobile-friendly, we may be able to help you. Get in touch to discuss options for how you can improve your website’s usability on smartphones. We’ll be happy to meet with you and suggest the best course of action – it’s free, and it may just save your search rankings too.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column width=”1/1″][action full_width=”yes” content_in_grid=”yes” type=”normal” show_button=”no”]Are you ready for the Google Update? Let’s talk![/action][vc_separator type=”transparent” position=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_separator type=”transparent” position=”center”][vc_column_text]

About FutureLab Web Design

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”18498″ border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”full”][vc_separator type=”transparent” position=”center”][vc_column_text]FutureLab specialise in improving the online presence for small and medium businesses in New Zealand. All our websites are designed to be mobile-responsive and provide a high-quality user experience on desktop, tablet and smartphone.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_separator type=”transparent” position=”center”][vc_column_text]

Flick us a quick message and we’ll tell you how to improve your mobile presence.

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You may think that developing and maintaining a website for your business is over once you’ve flipped the switch and introduced your new website to the world. Sure, there’ll be the odd product to update but that’s all the effort you need to put in, right? Not so. Developing a website for your business takes time and effort – which doesn’t stop once the web developers are finished.

The truth is, keeping up a good flow of traffic to your website involves keeping your website up to date too. The search engine robots that decide what results to show to each user like to see that a website is fresh, with new content added and interaction happening on the page. That sends the message that your website is working and more importantly, that users are finding something of value there too. The higher the quality and utility of your website, the higher it will be placed in the average search result.

What can improve the quality and utility of your website? Web copywriting.

Copywriting, especially for the web, encompasses a whole range of activities and therefore can be easily misunderstood. Web copywriting for your website could include writing the text for your homepage, all your website pages, writing a blog, writing guest posts on others’ blogs and linking to your website, writing advertisements for use with Google AdWords, Facebook, LinkedIn, writing your Christmas e-card, or digital newsletters, email campaigns, articles or research posts. What unites all these various activities, is that web copywriting, like copywriting for print, is designed to increase brand awareness and sales for your business.

How could blogging increase my sales?

It might not seem at first glance like blogging would have anything to do with customers buying your products or services. The relationship isn’t as simple as a straight line from blog post to checkout.

For example:

Imagine you own an online store selling children’s toys, and you write a blog post entitled ‘Top ten toys and games for Christmas’ on the 1st December.

You know that there are plenty of parents searching for Christmas gifts for their children, and that they might be stuck for ideas. Your blog post mentions how difficult it can be to think up new ideas for children’s Christmas presents, then outlines ten gifts that are ideal to buy depending on what your child enjoys. For example, the latest board games for groups of kids, puzzles for the brainboxes, Lego for the hands-on children, etc. After each idea, you might provide a link to each category of toy or game on your website. At the bottom of the blog post, you also feature some products related to the article.

There are two categories of people who might find and read this article. There are those who are already browsing your online store, who see your post and read it for ideas. Then there are those who actually arrive at your site via the blog post. They might have actually searched ‘top gifts for kids’, and clicked on your article in the search results.

For both categories of reader, you are providing informative content, while also giving handy suggestions and links to your products. Either way, you are increasing your chances of a sale, and making your website and brand memorable to those readers – who might just come back next time they are looking for a gift.

How about if you don’t sell products online? Well, it’s not only ecommerce stores that can benefit from producing quality online content.

Let’s take a car mechanic who has a simple website advertising their business. They start a blog and write articles about how to care for your car, simple car problems you can fix at home, how to prepare for a long car journey, and so on. The company are writing using their specialist knowledge and helping people care for their vehicles.

The benefits are threefold. First, their existing customers might appreciate the extra help with looking after their car, and be more likely to become loyal to that mechanic – establishing an ongoing relationship and not tempted to shop around based only on price. Second, simply having the articles online means that they will start appearing in search results related to the key words and phrases in the each article. That a) means you have more pages, therefore more opportunities to be found online, and b) brings in new users who are searching for far more than just ‘car mechanics Auckland’. Lastly, the more time is spent on your website, the higher quality that it will appear to be to the machines who count these things. That will give your website yet another boost up the search engine rankings.

This cycle is repeated every time the mechanic posts a new article. Each new page is a new opportunity to target fresh customers.

What can web copywriting do for my business?

 

Writing a blog for your website does ALL of the following:

 

  1. Provides quality content for your website browsers to read and engage with. You can heighten this by including a comments section below each blog post, sharing each post via your social media accounts, inviting others to write guest posts on your blog etc.
  2. Helps establish your company’s appearance as a leader/expert in your industry. Your content is informative, helpful, and keeps readers coming back for more advice/tips/research findings.
  3. Provides huge opportunity to increase website traffic (as we saw in our car mechanic example).
  4. Increases awareness of your brand and encourages brand loyalty. The more you interact with your customers and provide something for them to engage with, the more likely they will remember you above your competitors.
  5. Brings in readers who might not have otherwise found your website – therefore increasing your potential sales base.
  6. Establishes your website as a site generating quality content and real user interaction, thereby boosting your chances of appearing higher in search engine results, and being found by more people.

 

It’s clear to see now how something simple like blogging on your website can actually boost your business and provide tangible results to your bottom line. Blogging doesn’t have to take much time – you can choose to get staff or the company owner to write relevant content on there, or employ a professional copywriter to contribute regularly to the blog. The upside of a copywriter will be they already understand how to use keywords and write about relevant content designed to appeal to your target market or increase the likelihood of a sale. Plus of course, outsourcing this work leaves your staff free for other tasks. However, if you’ve got one or two willing staff members who have both flair and enthusiasm for writing, you may well want to take advantage of your in-house talent!

If launching a blog is a bit much right now, at least make sure the content on your website is optimised to draw customers to your site and keep them there. Web copywriting for this purpose is especially important on your home page. Investing in a professional copywriter is worthwhile to help sell your brand, your company personality and values, and of course your products and services. A good copywriter will research your industry and use relevant, appropriate keywords to help customers find you online. The benefit of using a web copywriter specifically is that they’ll be familiar with how to upload the content to your website and optimise your web pages too – for example, using meta titles and descriptions, good image titles, and putting the more important keywords in headings and titles. (If you want to learn more, read our post on basic SEO for business websites.)

The benefits of copywriting for your website

I think we can all agree that bad web content is just as irritating as bad web design. Website content with typos, spelling errors – a homepage that doesn’t immediately tell you what the company does/produces, content that’s hard to read, in varying fonts or just waffles on with no important information… we’ve all experienced frustration and annoyance when stumbling across these types of website ourselves. Make sure your own website isn’t committing the same sins!

Investing in good copywriting for your main website pages is just as important as creating other content such as articles and blog posts. To start with, you want customers to find your website, understand what to do when they get there, and make it easy to buy a product or service, get in touch with you, and find your location. That is the most simple, and essential, job that your website content should be doing.

After that, you want your web copy to reflect your brand values and tell your story. What does your company do that is different from your competition? What makes you stand out? Why should someone pick your products or services? What was your road to success and what do you value as a company today? These are all questions that a web copywriter can help you answer in a way that inspires trust, loyalty, and a connection with your customers.

If you’re looking for more advice on copywriting for websites, you can contact us or ask for a quote.

First things first: if you need to learn what SEO is and how to use it, catch up here. Search engine optimisation, or SEO for short, is hugely important to your website. It can mean the difference between driving a good amount of traffic to your website, and withering away somewhere in the murky depths of the internet where no one can locate you. We’ve talked previously about writing titles and descriptions for each page of your website, making sure each one gives a short, clear idea of what that page is about. No keyword stuffing, using full phrases or sentences and a unique description for each page.

Now let’s go into a little more detail on some other techniques you can use to optimise your website.

It’s all about great website content

We can’t say this enough – to have a great website, you need to have great content! Search engines scan your site, rate your website’s quality, and use this as a factor to determine where your site should rank when users type in a search query. Google tells us your landing page should have ‘relevant, useful, and original content’. This is a rather broad statement, so let’s unpack it a little.

RELEVANT

You want your potential customers to be able to find you. Think about what they might be typing into Google or another search engine in order to look for your products or services. This isn’t necessarily about what makes the most sense to you – but what makes the most sense to the average Joe, who may not be as computer-literate as you. So while the keyword ‘electronic music genre’ might make perfect sense for your independent record store, your average customer might be searching anything from ‘best electronic beats 2014’ to ‘latest EDM’ to ‘song by Skrillex on the radio now’. Research shows that search queries are getting longer, and you want to ensure you’re catching all your potential customers by including many broad and specific keywords in your website content. Taking our record store example, you might want to mention both ‘electronic music’ and ‘top electronic songs’ on your page dedicated to the genre of electronic music. If search engines find content on your website that matches or is similar to a user’s search query, they are more likely to display your website in the search results. Also, the more times that search query appears in your site, the more likely the relevant page is to show up higher in the results. Make sure to scatter your most important keywords throughout your site, integrated into content that makes sense. Finally, is your content what users would expect to find when they visit your site? Make sure you don’t mislead your customers with unrelated information. Organise your site with each page dedicated to one topic, and don’t be tempted to dilute a page with extra content that doesn’t belong there.

USEFUL

Do users find the information they are looking for when they browse your website? Do they stay around, read and click through to other pages, or do they leave straightaway? These are your website’s ‘bounce rate’ and ‘dwell time’, and they are factors that helps search engines decide how to rank your site. How long a user stays on your website, and whether they click through into any other pages on your site, are measured by search engines. A user that stays longer on your site and has a look at other pages appears more satisfied than a user who leaves your website after say 10 seconds. Your website is graded according to these standards. While you can’t make every user stick around for half an hour, providing clear and helpful information can certainly improve your chances. If you’re selling a product, some useful information to provide could be product descriptions, product reviews, pricing, shipping information, whether an item is in stock… all helpful to someone deciding whether or not to make a purchase from your company website.

ORIGINAL

Firstly, duplicating content across your own site is a bad idea. Search engines don’t like it, and it could penalise your ranking – meaning that your website won’t appear as high up in search results. However, there are some legitimate reasons for duplicating content across your site. There’s just a couple of technical things you need to do in those cases – no follow the duplicate page, and get a rel=canonical from the duplicate page to the original page. That way, Google knows not to index the duplicate content. A good web developer will make sure to implement these and other SEO-friendly techniques for you, if you’re not maintaining your website yourself.

Secondly, you want to provide your own content on your website – not someone else’s! By all means, share and link to informative and relevant content from around the web. But be careful not to simply copy and paste content without any acknowledgement of the original source. If you do this over and over, Google may view you as spam. It’s far better to create your own compelling content, mixed with links to great content around the web.

As we said, after creating your titles and descriptions, great content is really the next biggest factor in achieving a wonderful website that both your users and the Google bots love! Spend the majority of your time allocated for SEO in improving your content for best results. It’s worth putting in the effort now to reap the rewards further down the line! There are a few final items to take note of in creating the best search engine optimised website:

Create links to and from quality websites to increase your ratings with Google

Linking to other websites and having websites link to your content is a great way to show Google your website is alive, trustworthy and worth visiting! It shows that there is some quality content to view on your site which will draw visitors in. Having links to your site also helps Google organically crawl your website, as your website can be more easily found via all the links pointing to it. But, there is one very important point to remember:

NOT ALL LINKS ARE CREATED EQUAL!

For those of you who aren’t familiar, back in the day, links were only a good thing – and that meant that companies would pay for links to be added to web pages and cheap directories in order to boost their ratings. That system came crashing down when Google changed the way they rate links (in technical terms, they changed their algorithm from Panda to Penguin). Now, Google considers the quality of the links from your website, not the quantity. So, the moral of the story is, don’t buy links, and don’t submit your website to low-quality online directories.

Link to yourself

Don’t forget to include internal links within your website! Adding internal links in relevant places helps keep viewers on your site, clicking through your pages, and finding the content they need.

Make your URLs easy

Especially when using a template for your website, you’ll often find that pages have a default URL link filled with numbers, letters and question marks. For obvious reasons, these URLs are not user-friendly. You’re not likely to get a user remembering the web page they are looking for, and in addition those URLs just don’t look good. When you’re creating your website, rename all your pages to reflect the content of that page. Keep it short and memorable. If you’re creating a blog post for example, and the title of your post is long, just pick out the keywords and remove all the unnecessary small words. Use hyphens to separate each word, and keep each URL at a maximum of 4 or 5 words. That way, when readers come to your site, it’s easier for them to find and share your page in the future.

Add descriptions to images on your site

The alt text on an image is a good place to write descriptive text that could include a keyword or two. Since Google can’t crawl images, this is a good way to tell Google what your image is about and how it relates to your content. You can add a caption to an image for added benefit too.

So, for those of you setting out with a new website or looking to improve an existing one, all the above are great places to start. Just remember: it’s 90% about great website content! Optimising your website with good titles, descriptions, memorable URLs and image text certainly help. But once you’ve got interesting and relevant content, the links, sharing and great visibility of your website will follow… and you’ll be sending a clear message to the search engines that your website deserves to be seen!

We won’t sugar-coat it; SEO is time-consuming and requires hard work and effort. You need to be persistent and patient, as the results take time. If you’re feeling completely overwhelmed with jobs and tasks to improve your website, you can call us for help with SEO, web content, or just advice on where to start.