All Posts, Business Strategy, SEO
As a small business owner, your focus can be pulled in so many directions when it comes to improving and sustaining your customer base and experience. When it comes to the efficacy of your website, attracting traffic, converting visitors into customers and a laundry list of other necessities, you’ll want to start with or keep your focus on what’s important. One essential aspect of website development that you may not be paying enough attention to is search engine optimization (SEO). Meaning, you need to make sure that your website has basic SEO metadata and is configured properly.
SEO metadata refers to the information that appears in the HTML code of your website and provides search engines (like Google and Bing) with information about the content of your site. Here are some essential SEO metadata that every small business website should have:
- Title Tags: These tags appear in the browser tab and provide a brief description of the page’s content. They should be concise and accurately reflect the content on the page.
- Meta Descriptions: These are brief summaries of the page’s content that appear in search engine results. They should be compelling and accurately represent what visitors can expect to find on the page.
- Header Tags: These tags organize the content on your page into different sections, making it easier for search engines to understand the hierarchy of information.
- Alt Tags: These tags describe the images on your website and provide valuable information to search engines that can’t “see” images.
So, why is it important to have these basic SEO metadata configured on your website?
- Improving visibility in search engine results: If your website has accurate and descriptive metadata, search engines will be more likely to show it to people who are searching for relevant keywords.
- Increasing click-through rates: When your website appears in search engine results, the metadata can influence whether someone clicks on your link. If your metadata is compelling and accurately represents your content, people are more likely to click through to your website.
- Enhancing user experience: By using header tags and providing alt tags for images, you are making your website more organized and easier to navigate for both visitors and search engines.
- Beating the competition: If your competitors are not optimizing their metadata, you can gain an advantage by doing so. You can appear higher in search engine results, attract more clicks, and ultimately win more customers.
As a small business owner, you must ensure that your organization’s website has the basic SEO Metadata configured. If you use WordPress as the platform for your website, you’re already in great position and may have several key elements available for simple configuration and input. We get questions all the time about what can be done to increase website traffic and improving search engine results, and these are some relatively easy things you can take quick action on or do yourself. You’ll improve the visibility in search engine results, increase click-through rates, enhance user experience, and be more competitive. There’s a whole lot more to do in SEO, and while it may seem overwhelming at first, implementing these details and descriptions is an easy and effective way to get started.
Check out our FREE slide deck on SEO Data & Strategy. You’ll even be able to download a PDF copy for free.
About Design Theory, All Posts, Content & Copywriting, Web Development
Last week Design Theory allowed the outside world an inside look at our audience numbers for our weekly blog postings via Peeking Underneath the Hood at Your Blog #’s. It was great to get feedback by email and comments on the blog as to what people thought of our exposure and how that helped them to consider the importance of analytics. Most companies should know that tracking their visitors through a source like Google Analytics includes hits from search engines, pay-per-click networks, email marketing, displayed advertising and the like. Off-site analytics, like the ones I’ve demonstrated here, are to measure not just the website’s current audience but also it’s potential audience and what we at Design Theory can do to create more opportunities, exposure and buzz (aka comments) about our services. So, the analysis of our web data helps to improve the website and our blog content for Design Theory and it’s visitors.
During the last week of September
887 Page Views vs. preceding week’s 994 Page Views
As opposed to last week, this week we see a significant increase in readership directly from www.jpdesigntheory.com. Additionally, the top referring website is still Google but there seems to be a little less traffic via Google UK than the week preceding and Google.com jumped 46 more than last week as well. Last week there were very few unique readers on Monday & Tuesday (how readers are tagged via a persistent cookie that stores and returns a unique id value so that Client V is always the same Client V whenever he/she comes back to the website) but this week, there are definitely more than its predecessor (361 vs. 221). That’s great because that tells us we are reaching new people and therefore more potential clientele. As far as the blogs go, Daphne & I are still neck & neck, which once again confirms that our blogs and tags are working well for us. Lastly, as ironic as it is, our top view location moved from Ulaanbaatar, New Mexico last week to Meriden, CT this week. I can’t explain that one at all! But at least it reflects the diversity of our readers and confirms that Design Theory has a worldwide presence.
During the first week of October
717 Page Views
What I also notice right off the bat is that Tuesdays readership fell drastically and I know exactly why. I was on vacation and didn’t blog. Yes that’s right, I did it…I took a vacation and I’m not sorry about it. And although I’m not happy the numbers dipped, it did provide us with some solid intel. It shows that I have a reading audience and there is value in the content I create weekly for the blog. So Daphne metaphorically DUNKED on me HARD but that’s ok. Despite having different titles and talents, we have the same goal. And that ultimate goal is increasing the ROI that those talents provide via the blogs and the work we do for our clients.
As detailed in the Audience Stats, our number of visits/readers let us know that people are accessing our website and whether or not we are capturing new audiences. However, something this particular report doesn’t reflect (but should definitely be considered) is the bounce rate. The bounce rate tells us how many people come to our site and quickly left it. Now there are plenty of reasons that happens. Maybe someone had to answer their door or walk their dog…but most often it reflects that they didn’t find what they needed or became bored with the content. There’s no room for ego when looking at these numbers I must tell you. Because what it does is identify areas that we could improve on like imagery, written content and the ease of navigation throughout the website.
So once again we learn, we grow and do better. I’m encouraged by our numbers while knowing there’s ALWAYS room for improvement and I look forward to continue to write and put out great content & tidbits to our readers and clients.
~ Content Writing Inspiration ~ 
The beginning is easy; what happens next is much harder. ~ Anonymous
All Posts, Marketing, Web Design, WordPress
Hungry for more? Right on the heels of last weeks blog are more juicy tidbits for restaurateurs and the importance of having a website. Whether a Mom & Pop or listed at the top of Zagat…tuck in the napkin and get ready for another serving!
* Taking it to Go ~ Because Smartphones have almost become an appendage, it is essential for people to be able to look you up while on the go. When people hear about or pass by a fab restaurant which offers a favored cuisine, the first thing they do is get on the internet and look for more information. Whether that’s the menu or a recent review – if you don’t have a website chances are that those folks might pass you by or pass you up when making their selection. An important point to make here as well is to ensure that your restaurant is easily searchable. You want your entire menu online, dish by dish. Using a PDF may seem like an easy, cost-effective solution as they are easy to download on a computer/laptop. However, in order for someone to find you using a search engine and make proper use of “tags”, you must have an itemized online menu. If possible, you should also try to have a mobile version of your website which will make reading the menus easier if opened on a Smartphone device.
*Cater to the Customer ~ If you are one of the many restaurants that offer catering services in addition to your in-house offerings, people should know this. But guess what, many probably don’t! Aside from your physical menu or waiting for a catering gig call, your website should be used as another promotion tool and done so in a prominent area. The goal is to build greater awareness of the expanded services you offer and generate more business. This way the customer might come to sample some food initially for the catering gig, but might become a faithful fan for other times. And the reverse has happened many times as well – someone comes in and loves a particular dish or your culinary style and wants you to cater an event. It’s all about using each opportunity and tool available to build your customer base – to be in mind for dinner time or party time.
*The Bottomless Cup of Possibilities ~ There are so many layout and design options it’s like a never-ending cup of good Joe. The restaurant web design business has become big business. WordPress designers have capitalized on this and it has become a great website option especially since it’s super easy to manage the content and update regularly. This is “muy importante” for a restaurant with a changing menu and daily/weekly specials. But keep in mind that clean designs are best and adding vibrant, crisp images will make customers eat with their eyes first. An attractive yet informative website with regularly updated content and promotions is a place where customers return time and again – good for their bellies and great for your pockets!
