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Articles by DCW Digital

What is Organic Search?

18 March 2020 by DCW Digital

Organic search relates to the list of unpaid search results you see when you type a query into a search engine.

What is Organic Search
Organic Search is Free Advertising

When you use Google or any other search engine to search for a particular word, product or question, you are presented with a list of results.

Most search engines will display two kinds of search results:

(1) Paid Search Results

The paid search results are usually pay-per-click (PPC) adverts a company has bid for in order to show up when people search for certain keywords.

This means that a company will have to pay every time someone clicks on one of those paid adverts to visit their website.

(2) Organic Search Results

The organic results are usually displayed just below the first set of paid search results, but clicks on these results are absolutely free.

(3) Google My Business Listings

It’s also worth mentioning that Google now also displays local Google My Business listings usually in a very prominent organic position.

Google My Business is a powerful free tool that allows you to promote your business on Google search and Google Maps.

Organic Search Results
Paid & Organic Search Results on Google

Why Organic Search Matters

Unlike Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and other types of paid advertising, getting your business listed in organic results is absolutely free.

There are literally millions of people searching for products and services using Google and other search engines every single day.

Simply put, if you’re not focusing on improving your organic rankings then you’re basically throwing money out of the window.

How to Improve Your Organic Rankings

There’s a huge list of things you can do to improve your organic search rankings. Some of these things are quick and easy, whereas others may require assistance from a professional SEO expert.

A good starting point would be to check out our article on why sites don’t rank well on Google or consider our affordable SEO services.

Conclusion

Organic search is a powerful and free way of getting your products and services in front of hundreds or even thousands of potential customers.

In order to rank well in organic search results, your website and it’s content need to be search engine optimised.

Good web design, fast hosting and a mixture of other search engine optimisation basics are a good place to begin.

Although it’s not always easy to get to the top of the organic results, it is possible with the right focus, attention and patience.

Filed Under: SEO

What is an SSL Certificate?

18 March 2020 by DCW Digital

An SSL certificate is a security certificate that can be used by websites to enable secure HTTPS connections and protect their users.

What is an SSL Certificate?
Keep your website secure with an SSL certificate

What is SSL?

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a website and a web browser.

An SSL certificate gives your website a padlock that is displayed in your browser bar, reassuring visitors they’re safe on your site.

Watch this short video from SSL.com for a simple but detailed explanation about Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and how they work.

What is SSL?

Having an SSL certificate on your website encrypts the site and protects your users from being potential misled or having their data breached when they enter private data via things like a blog comment or contact form.

Your users are also at risk of having their credit or debit card details stolen if you run an eCommerce website that accepts payment details.

The easiest way to know if a website is secure is to check if it has a little green padlock icon to the left of the website address in the address bar.

You can also test the site by adding https:// before the website address when typing it into your browser.

Secure Website
How to Spot a Secure Website

Why You Need an SSL Certificate

Although it’s not yet compulsory to have an SSL certificate installed on your website, it is very highly recommended for a number of reasons.

Establishing Trust

People are more aware and cautious when it comes to their online security today, and they are starting to learn what a non-secure site looks like.

Having a secure website along with a privacy policy and cookie policy on your website shows users that you are professional and trustworthy.

Avoid Being Labelled Dangerous

Most of today’s most common web browsers like Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer will warn a user that a site is non-secure and potentially dangerous before they enter that website.

Missing SSL Certificate
A dangerous looking website

You can be 100% sure that pretty much nobody will click to proceed to any website when it shows a warning like this one.

Improve Organic Search Rankings

Google introduced SSL as a ranking factor back in 2014 and it appeared to allow a generous grace period for websites to make the change.

But that period has now ended and you can expect to see most non-secure sites now ranking lower than their secured competitor sites.

Conclusion

Having an SSL certificate installed on your website is an essential piece of kit if you want to increase your organic search traffic from search engines and convert those website visitors into paying customers.

Not having a secure website is one of the reasons many websites don’t rank well on Google and other search engines, so it’s a lazy and costly mistake.

When you can get a free SSL certificate from LetsEncrypt, there really is no good excuse for not securing your website and protecting your customers.

Filed Under: General, SEO

What is Copywriting & What Does a Copywriter Do?

18 March 2020 by DCW Digital

What is Copywriting?

Copywriting is the art of writing copy (text) that communicates your message and persuades your potential customers to take action.

What is Copywriting?
A copywriter hard at work

Many businesses hire a copywriter to write the copy for their websites and other sales and marketing materials.

Too many websites fall short when it comes to their content. The copy on their website is either poorly written or lacking in-depth and keyword focus.

Research has proven that poorly written content can have a massive impact on the reputation and trustworthiness of your business.

Most importantly though, poorly written website copy results in potential customers leaving your website and buying from your competitors.

What Does a Copywriter Do?

A copywriter obviously spends a good proportion of their time writing content for websites, emails and other sales and marketing materials.

However, the best copywriters spend just as much, if not more time researching and learning about their clients business and industry.

There are, of course, various types of copywriters from website copywriters to creative advertising copywriters to technical copywriters.

Each kind of copywriter will usually have a different skill set required depending on the kind of business they work for.

For example, for a website, you’ll need a creative copywriter who, ideally, will be skilled in website copywriting and technical SEO copywriting.

The Copywriting Process

If we use a freelance copywriter as an example, their typical copywriting process when taking on a new client would usually look as follows;

(1) Client Interview & Research

A good copywriter will always use a good amount of time to research their client first in order to get a feel for who they are and what they do.

They will typically interview, research and learn about the client’s values, products, services, history and communication style.

(2) Competitor & Industry Research

Another important task done by most copywriters is to research their client’s competitors and learn about the industry.

This gives the copywriter a deeper understanding of the client’s business and allows them to extract valuable insights from their competitors.

(3) Planning the Content Strategy

Before writing any content it’s important for a copywriter to put together and agree a content strategy with the client.

For website copywriting projects, this may involve keyword research and planning the structure of the content on the site.

For other copywriting projects it may just be a case of understanding the overall purpose and objective of the content to be produced.

(4) Copywriting

Once a copywriter has a better understanding of their clients business, industry, products, services, tone and the purpose of the content, they will finally start putting together the first draft of the copy.

Most professional copywriters will create at least two or more drafts before referring back to the client for approval and publishing.

Conclusion

Many businesses underestimate the importance of copywriting and how much difference good copy can make to their bottom line.

By hiring a professional copywriter, you can increase the trust amongst readers and persuade them to buy your products and services.

Check out our professional copywriting services if you’re in the market for a website copywriter or need help with some SEO copywriting.

Filed Under: Copywriting

5 Reasons Websites Don’t Rank Well on Google

18 March 2020 by DCW Digital

Why Websites Dont Rank Well on Google
Why Websites Don’t Rank Well on Google

According to some recent internet data, there are currently more than 1.7 billion websites in the world.

And I can tell you from experience, 99.99% of websites don’t rank well on Google or other search engines.

That means when a user searches for a particular search term on Google or any of the other search engines, most websites don’t show up and as a result, miss out on potential new customers.

Now, if you’ve ever researched the complete list of Google ranking factors, you can be forgiven for thinking that ranking well is an impossible task.

But don’t be fooled, because it’s not as impossible as you think to rank well on Google or the other search engines.

Naturally, if you’re a small business or startup trying to compete in a highly competitive industry, especially on the international scene, you’ve got your work cut out for you.

But if you’re a local business, you can rank well on Google and the other search engines sometimes within a matter of days.

5 Reasons Why Your Website Does Not Rank Well on Google

The worldwide web is packed full of websites of all shapes, sizes, colours and styles. Some good, some bad.

Many companies choose to focus on making cool websites that are visually attractive and full of bells and whistles.

But visual websites and bells and whistles come at a cost, especially when they come at the expense of some very simple and important ranking factors.

(1) Slow Website Speed

If your website is slow to load then it will be impacting your search rankings and resulting in people spending less time on your website.

And that ultimately means lost revenue for your business.

As a rule of thumb, the pages on your website should take less than 2 seconds to load for it to be considered fast.

Personally, we aim to have all of our client’s websites loading in under a second on both desktops and mobiles.

Super Fast Website Speed
Superfast website

Despite the cold hard facts of how important website speed is, most websites don’t come close to being fast enough.

A recent study highlighted that the average speed for websites in 2020 was 4.7 seconds on a desktop and a whopping 11.4 seconds on mobile.

Ouch.

Websites can be slow to load for a number of reasons including slow hosting providers, large images, poor website framework, too many flashy gimmicks and integrations and so on.

In most instances, you can improve the speed of your website with some simple and free changes if you have the resources or know-how.

If you’re interested in a free non-technical consultation on your website then feel free to request a free website audit from us today.

(2) Lack of Text

The number of words on the pages of your website is another important ranking factor for search engines.

We see way too many websites with too many images and very little text and it’s a really lazy habit that hurts the performance of a site.

You’ve got to remember that Google essentially sends a robot to your website in order to make sense of it, and if all you have is images with a bit of text, you make it very difficult for that robot to understand what your site is about and so it does not know what to rank it for.

You should be aiming to write at least 300 words per page as a minimum or more if you have the time, skills and knowledge.

The best performing websites tend to have in excess of 500 words per page and usually also have cornerstone content pages that consist of 1000 words or more, so don’t hold back.

So why not review each page on your website and use a word counter to calculate how many words they have.

If you find yourself struggling to write your own content then our copywriting services might be of interest.

Alternatively, if you’d like your text quality checked then our copyediting service is another option too.

(3) Missing or Poor Keyword Implementation

Keywords are words that are relevant to your business and the products and services you offer.

For example, if you’re a plumber in Manchester then ‘plumber manchester’ would be a relevant keyword and ‘boiler installation’ would likely also be a relevant one too.

Each page on your website should essentially have a keyword focus, which means it is focused on one or more relevant keywords.

This keyword should then be integrated into various elements of your page such as the page title, text and what’s known as the meta-title and meta-description.

The purpose of this is again to ensure that when Google or other search engines send a robot to crawl your website, it can easily understand what the pages relate to and index and rank them accordingly.

More importantly, your website needs to be user-friendly and easy to understand by a regular human being who is searching for you online.

Too many websites have very little or absolutely no keyword implementation at all. I’ve seen countless examples of websites showing generic page titles such as ‘Home’ or ‘Services’ with no other descriptive information.

Basic keyword optimisation isn’t rocket science, but it’s easy to get wrong and it does require a strategy if you want to get it right.

We follow a structured approach to all of our web design projects that includes advanced keyword research and technical SEO copywriting which integrates keywords into your text and all of the other relevant places.

If you’d like to know what keywords you’re ranking for already and how to improve your keyword performance then request a free website audit from us today.

(4) No Backlinks or Bad Backlinks

In order for Google and other search engines to judge the popularity of your website, it looks at what other websites link to your site.

These are what the industry calls backlinks.

For example, when I add a link like this one to a client’s website then that is a backlink from our site to theirs.

You can generate various types of backlinks from sources such as business directories, blogs or even social media profiles etc.

It’s actually quite easy but a little time consuming to generate backlinks to your website and not all backlinks are good ones, so you do have to be careful.

Every website is given something called a domain authority score which tells search engines how authoritative that website is.

The higher the score, the better.

In an ideal world, you’d have lots of backlinks from websites with a high domain authority score, but that’s very hard to achieve.

Instead, you should focus on getting backlinks from a variety of sources and avoid getting links from sites with a low domain authority score.

You should also avoid using any cheap link-building companies who offer to generate hundreds or thousands of backlinks for next to nothing because your site will get penalised and potentially get ranked much lower.

And trust me, it’s really difficult and extremely time-consuming to get rid of backlinks.

Check out our link-building services for more information on how to generate quality backlinks for your website.

(5) Missing SSL Security Certificate

The fifth, final and most irritating reason why your site might not be ranking on Google and other search engines is that you don’t have an SSL security certificate installed.

Having an SSL certificate on your website encrypts the site and protects your users from being potential misled or having their data breached when they enter private data via things like a blog comment or contact form.

The easiest way to know if a website is secure is to check if it has a little green padlock icon to the left of the website address in the address bar.

You can also test the site by adding https:// before the website address when typing it into your browser.

Missing SSL Certificate
A website with a missing SSL Certificate

Most websites should re-direct automatically to the secure version but some sites might display both secure and non-secure versions depending on if the set-up has been done correctly or not.

Google introduced SSL as a ranking factor back in 2014 and it appeared to allow a generous grace period for websites to make the change, but that period has now ended and you can expect to see most non-secure sites losing rankings.

The reason this is probably one of the most annoying reasons why sites don’t rank well on Google is that it’s a really simple fix.

Many design agencies, domain and hosting providers charge a small annual fee for SSL certificates, but you can actually get a free SSL certificate from LetsEncrypt so there’s absolutely no excuse why any site shouldn’t have one.

Conclusion

If your website is either slow, lacking text, missing keywords or an SSL certificate then you are likely ranking lower on search engines than your competitors who have these things.

Honestly, I’ve seen some of the ugliest sites you can imagine ranking higher than others because they had these fundamentals in place.

If you personally built your own website and don’t have much experience then you can be forgiven, but if you paid a web design agency or other professional to do it then they’ve failed you.

It’s not easy or fast to get ranked well on Google by any means, but the least you can do is make sure you get the basics in place to give yourself a better chance of doing so.

Filed Under: Copywriting, SEO Tagged With: google

Test & Tune Your Website via Google PageSpeed Insights

18 March 2020 by DCW Digital

PageSpeed Insights (PSI) is a free tool from Google you can use to run a website speed test and get other performance insights on your website.

Google PageSpeed Insights
Test your page speed with Google PageSpeed Insights

Simply pop the website address of your website into the Google PageSpeed Insights tool and you’ll see the results in less than 60-seconds.

PageSpeed Insights Overview

The Google PageSpeed Insights tool runs a series of checks on your website using Lighthouse, a speed tool from Google, as its analysis engine.

It also incorporates field data provided by the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) into the tool to add further depth.

PageSpeed Insights reports on the performance of a page on mobile and desktop devices and provides suggestions on how to improve that page.

What’s in the Report?

The report will give your page a score to summarise the performance. You will get a separate score for both your desktop and mobile performance.

A score of 90 or above is considered fast, with 50 to 90 considered moderate and below 50 being considered to be slow.

The insights report gives you a very detailed and somewhat technical performance overview, broken down into manageable tasks to improve.

Real-World Field Data

If your website has enough data, the insights tool will use data from its Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX).

The Chrome User Experience Report provides user experience metrics for how real-world Chrome users experience popular destinations on the web.

Lab data

PSI uses Lighthouse to analyze your webpage and generate a performance score that estimates the page’s performance on different metrics.

Each metric is scored and labelled with an icon:

  • Fast is indicated with a green checkmark
  • Moderate is indicated with an orange informational circle
  • Slow is indicated with a red warning triangle

Audits

Lighthouse separates its audits into three sections:

  • Opportunities provide suggestions on how to improve the page’s performance metrics. Each suggestion in this section estimates how much faster the page will load if the improvement is implemented.
  • Diagnostics provide additional information about how a page adheres to best practices for web development.
  • Passed Audits indicates the audits that have been passed by the page.

Conclusion

Slow websites not only result in poor user experience but are also now penalised by search engines and ranked lower in search results.

Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) is one of many free website speed test tools available on the web today and can be very useful.

However, the majority of regular website owners may find the detail of the report to be rather technical and difficult to understand.

For a less-technical report, you could consider other free alternatives for testing the speed and performance of your website such as our free website audit or the website speed test by Pingdom.

Filed Under: General, SEO

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