February 2020 – Page 5 – Go Sitebuilder

February 6, 2020March 17, 2020

How do I get my website to rank higher on Google?

Female small business owner working at home and using her laptop to help her business rank higher on Google. She is sat on the floor of her living room, leaning against a grey sofa.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is one of the best organic (FREE) marketing tools your brand could be employing. In short, if you do it well, then you will appear higher in Google’s rankings which, in turn, should drive more internet users (who have searched a term surrounding your business/product) to your website. This should help people ultimately, become a customer with you!

There are lots of tips and tricks that businesses have tried to employ to help them rank higher on Google. Let’s take a look at some of the most effective:

1. Improve your website or user experience (UX)

Research by SEMrush suggests that there are four main ranking factors that influence a website’s ranking on Google:

1. Website visits
2. Time on site
3. Pages per session
4. Bounce rate.

It is all four of these factors that directly relate to the people that are visiting your website and the experience that they are having. If they’re struggling to navigate it or there are a few broken links, then it’s likely they are going to bounce or possibly find business elsewhere.

Pretty simple? Carry out regular health checks on your website to ensure everything is working as it should be, and, if anything can be improve! You should even ask friends and family to give you advice on what parts of your site you can work on to make the experience better.

2. Back-links

These are links from other websites to yours – and Google favours them very highly when it comes to ranking your website! But don’t just use any old website to link to you. The Google algorithm sees high-authority domains as a trustful source, so trying to gain links from reputable companies will do great things for your SEO. You can do this by networking or messaging like-minded brands directly.

3. Use H1 and H2 tags on every page

When Google indexes your website, it searches for the use of header tags in your content to easily categorise and store the text. By structuring your content with clear headings, Google will know that your site is easily readable for site users too, again, adding to a better search engine ranking for you. This simple step can make all of the difference.

4. Write regular content

Having high-quality blogs or articles on your website is a great way to increase traffic. Writing around topics that target your key terms will add to your authority on the topic and in turn, increase your site traffic. Make sure your content also contains links to internal pages on the website – it helps Google to make connections to your other web-pages and gain a deeper understanding of your brand.

5. Optimise your images

If your website uses imagery, make sure the files are optimised for Google. Compressing your files, having descriptive names and alt-text will help not only with the loading speed of your site (boosts SEO) but is another way of telling Google what features on your website. The more things you can show to Google to prove you are an authority in your business, the likelier you are to rank higher.

If you haven’t started building your website yet, or you’re still looking for the right tool for you, check out our free trial of Go Sitebuilder. Go Sitebuilder has been created with busy small business owners in mind so you won’t need any previous website building experience. Try it today and see just how easy it is!

February 5, 2020March 5, 2020

How can I achieve success in digital marketing?

Digital Marketing is important in today’s world, but it needn’t be daunting. There are some simple ways to use it to make your products and services more successful. People love a good story, so use a website to tell the story behind your business. Be personal and talk about how you were inspired to start up, people will feel they can understand and relate.

Pictures that tell a story

Images are a great way to share your journey, particularly if there’s an interesting reason behind how your business started. Social media can be great for this and allows you to add hashtags to reach people who may be interested. While it’s important to let people know what you have to offer them, it helps not to be too “salesy”. And even on occasion, allow them to see a little of yourself or your company; such as social outings as a team or celebrating a colleague’s milestone birthday.

Adding personality to your brand

Potential customers like to feel that they know your brand or at least understand why they might need what you’re selling. Simply posting an image of your product and a link to buy, isn’t good enough. It offers no reason for people to part with their hard-earned money and it gets caught up in a sea of other adverts all doing the same thing. Describe your products well and add an ‘About page’ to your website so your customers can get to know the brand they’re buying from.

Reaching your customers the right way

A website that is memorable and includes something which sums up what you do is a fantastic way of ensuring people can find you. Linking your social media accounts to your website also makes it easier for people to get in touch and follow your progress and successes. To appear more professional, add forms to your website so people can reach out directly. Including a news section or adding a blog is useful for keeping people informed and engaged with your business.

Optimising your content

To ensure you attract the right people to your website, SEO can important and so is the ability to incorporate social media and YouTube videos. Many people respond better to videos. They are a great way to keep people’s attention for a longer span of time. As mentioned, you’ll also want to add contact forms to your website. This makes it easier for customers to get in touch, as not everyone finds using email or social media to be an easy task.

February 5, 2020March 17, 2020

How do I promote my electrician business website?

Female electrician working on a construction site.

Every small business should have its own website. It’s a powerful way to attract new customers while still enable existing ones to find you. A quality website makes you look professional and builds trust for your business. In today’s world websites can be your first impression, and with a beautiful and sleek website, you’re sure to make a good one. Once you have built your website, you’ll want to promote it in order to attract more customers to your electrician business. Here are some expert tips that will help you get some more exposure.

Search Engine Optimisation

We offer easy to use SEO tools at Go Sitebuilder to help ensure your website is indexed with Google. These tools make something that might sound a little intimidating a breeze to get done and gets them done correctly. You’ll also want to make sure the content on your site fully optimised. There are endless resources available to help you learn about SEO online, or you could work with a specialist to help optimise your content quickly! Whichever way you do it, there will be a bit of trial and error. But with the process, you’ll be growing your skills at the same time you’re growing your business. If you’re new to the world of SEO, check out our beginners guide over on our blog.

Trade directories

There are plenty of online trade directories where you can list your business. Most of these listings will include the option to add your website URL. This kind of placement could land you a lot of visits from local customers looking for electricians – so, get listed on as many directories as you can. Remember, you’ll need a unique domain name if you want to stand out from the crowd!

Social media

There are many businesses who have managed to turn their social media accounts into powerful sources of organic traffic. It’s not necessarily simple to get people excited about a trade on social media, but with a little creativity you could come up with a clever way to attract attention. Just remember to be yourself and to add your personality into everything you do. Remind everyone about what is unique about you and your business and have fun with it.

Paid Advertising

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads on Google and social media can be a great way to attract the right sort of customer to your website. There are tons of how-to’s online along with articles directly from Google Ads to help you get these campaigns running towards success. An electrician business is a good candidate for attracting customers this way since most people will be using search engines to find what they’re looking for.

The bottom line

These are just some of the simplest ways to promote your electrician website. There are lots of others, and it’s worth picking a few that you think will work and giving them your attention to get some success. People will always need electricians, so you simply need to find a way to help local customers find your website. Don’t be afraid to be a little creative to stand out from the competition.

If you haven’t got your business online yet, or your existing website isn’t working for you, check out our free 14-day trial with Go Sitebuilder. Sign up today and start building the website that will make your business a success. You won’t need to hire an expert and you won’t need any previous website building knowledge – you can even start building on your mobile phone!

February 5, 2020March 17, 2020

Should I be worried about launching my new website without protecting the idea behind it?

Innovation is important if you want to get a new business off the ground or grow an existing one. This means a great deal of time, effort and expense can go into ‘Research and Development’ to find the next big thing. However, it leads to one of the biggest worries for owner-managers and executives. ‘What if someone steals my business idea?’

This can be a particular concern for start-up enterprises. Having found a great niche or product, you will definitely need a website to promote it. Once the website goes live, your competitors and any potential ‘copiers’ can instantly see what it’s all about.

Business and intellectual property rights

If your innovation is particularly groundbreaking – or protecting your business ideas is essential for your success – then seeking legal advice is often best. Specialists in such matters as patenting and copyright can help you to attach protections to your ideas, including Trademarks to ensure no one can replicate your brand identity too closely.

All of this costs money though, and budgeting to protect ideas to this extent should be part of your initial business plan.

Be prepared!

If you feel the above is unnecessary or too expensive, there are still things you can do to help protect your ideas. For example, it’s important to be ready to start trading before your website goes live. Get your business operations as far along as possible, before you reveal any of the detail online.

You could always design and build your website with Go Sitebuilder in the meantime, as a prototype, and then make it public when the time is right. The beauty of this is, you can start selling and making connections before anyone else can use your website information to mimic you! It keeps you ahead of the competition!

Care in website wording

Tips for protecting new business ideas include being careful with your website content. You need to say enough to grab and hold the attention of potential customers, without revealing sensitive corporate information. For example, you may not want to reveal your supplier details, or even announce tie-ups with clients! It’s the sort of intel rivals can use to undermine you. Also, the thinking process behind your start-up or its products may be something you keep ‘close to your chest’.

Getting your house in order

To some extent, your website could be the easiest way to control information about your new company, product or service. Especially when you create it yourself using Go Sitebuilder.

To protect your ideas you should also consider such things as non-disclosure agreements with suppliers, clients and staff. Also, data compliance and control is not just about meeting your legal obligations. Cybersecurity measures can make sure that important business information remains private within your new venture.

If you haven’t started building your website yet or you’re still looking for the right tool for you, check out our free trial of Go Sitebuilder. You won’t need any previous technical knowledge as Go Sitebuilder has been created with busy small business owners in mind – you can even build it on your mobile phone!

February 4, 2020March 17, 2020

How to kick-start SEO for your new website (in 4 easy steps)

Dual heritage female business owner using her phone to update her website's SEO. She is casually dressed standing in her kitchen wearing glasses and drinking coffee

If you’ve recently completed building a website for your business, or you’re thinking about doing so, you might be asking “how do I start SEO for my website?” Search Engine Optimisation isn’t an easy (or fast) task, but there are things you can do to give yourself the best chance for success. Here are 4 steps to help you kick-start your SEO strategy.

Step 1: Perform thorough keyword research

Before you can start optimising your website for search, you need to know which keywords you’re targeting. Just ask yourself which word or phrase best describes your business, then use Google (or even the free Google Keyword Planner) to discover related key terms you could target at the same time.

Step 2: Optimise your text content for SEO

Now that you know which terms you’ll be targeting, how do you get your site to appear higher in the rankings? Well, a lot of it is down to your website’s text content. You need to write it in such a way that it appeals to your website visitors, but also to search engines. It can be a bit of a fine art, but it always pays off. You should also ensure your page titles and header tags are optimised, too. With a bit of practice, you’ll have this down in no time.

Step 3: Submit your website for indexing via the Google Search Console

Once you’re happy with the on-page SEO changes you’ve started with, you’ll want to make sure Google actually knows about your website. To do this, you’ll need to request indexing directly from Google. It will eventually find the site on its own, but registering your website can speed things up. Just sign up for the free Google Search Console tool and submit your website from there.

Step 4: Plan out your content strategy for long-term success

As we’ve discussed, much of SEO relies upon your website’s content — and lots of it. Content marketing isn’t just a buzzword, it’s fuel for the SEO engine. For this reason, it’s a very smart idea to develop and deploy a content strategy, or content calendar. This is essentially a roadmap you can follow to ensure your website is always publishing fresh content — which is something Google really loves!

These steps will form a great foundation for search engine success, but if you’re yet to build a website and you really want to make a splash, try out Go Sitebuilder free for 14-days. With SEO tools built right in, it’s the best way to get a running start for your business.

February 4, 2020May 19, 2020

Important first steps to make a new website SEO-friendly

Female small business owner sat on her sofa at home with a hot coffee planning her SEO strategy on her laptop. She is casually dressed and smiling

If you’re a new website owner, the whole world of SEO can feel intimidating. You don’t want to get lost in the buzzwords, conflicting advice, and confusing link-building strategies – it doesn’t have to be that hard! With a little bit of advice and planning, you’ll be an SEO in no time. We’ve put together a few simple key points to make your new website is SEO friendly, and we promise it’s easier than you think!

1. Produce good quality, highly relevant content

Your visitors are probably coming to your site to learn or buy something. You’re the expert at what you do after all. You have to make sure that what they see when they visit your site solves their problem. Google rewards relevant, information-filled content. So, produce plenty of highly relevant content such as blogs and articles, and you’ll see the SEO benefits quickly!

2. Keep images as small as possible

Site speed is a key feature of how well a website performs in an SEO audit. If the images on your site are too big (in terms of file size), it can slow a site down and see it rank lower than a faster site. Try to avoid uploading large file sizes, or shrink the images where possible – make sure they are still good quality, but keep them as small as you can get away with.

3. Keep the site design minimal

Websites are becoming more minimalist in design. Minimal design means the content stands out, the site will be easier to read for the visitor and more importantly, the site will load quickly, which is a big SEO benefit. The temptation could be to over-complicate your website design. Keep things clean and simple and your visitors will benefit. Our powerful website builder allows you to create simple, beautiful sites without the need for an expensive web designer or any technical skills.

4. Link strategically

Do you have friends in your industry who could provide a backlink to your site? Relevant backlinks are a big SEO boost, so speak to customers, friends, industry colleagues, etc and see if they’d be willing to give your new website a helping hand with a backlink from their site to yours! If a site has backlinks from relevant sources, it’s a big help.

5. Use relevant keywords in your content

This is very important – you have to write about what you want to be found for. An example could be an electrician wanting to be found by potential customers. They’d make sure they write about the services they offer and the locations they offer them in. Writing articles on previous jobs they’ve done or and where the jobs took place are relevant, keyword-dense content.

You don’t need to be perfect from the start, but it’s important to be consistent. Plenty of content, plenty of information and a few helpful links will all help! If you’re at the start of your website and SEO journey, why not take a look at a 14-day free trial with Go Sitebuilder? Our expert team are always on-hand if you have any questions – so, what’s stopping you from getting your business online?

February 3, 2020February 16, 2022

How do I get my new website noticed?

Male looking at mobile phone whilst holding reading glasses. He is working from home and his young daughter can be seen eating at a table in the background.

Building a new website is an exciting time for any business, and getting it live on the internet for people to see can be just as fun. But how do you make sure people are seeing it? If you want your site to really stand out from the crowd and achieve its greatest potential, it needs to be as visible as possible. We’ve compiled some tips to get your new website noticed.

Pay attention to keywords

Getting your new website noticed involves being easy to find when people are searching online. It’s helpful if your brand name appears as near to the top of search listings as possible. In order to achieve this goal, you’ll need to find out what keywords people would use to search for your business. There are different tools you can use online to get an idea of what these keywords might be. But, whatever keywords you choose to represent your business, try to find words that are as relevant and specific as possible. Use for keywords that are less frequently used and not just single words. Long-tailed keywords or keywords with more information will help you drive more traffic.

Once you’ve identified keywords, embed them naturally in your website. Keywords should be used within your content, along with your tags and picture titles.

Start blogging

Blogging about your business, your products, or subjects you think your website visitors will enjoy reading is a great way to get your new website noticed online. So, if you haven’t set up a blog already, now is the time to get writing! Including blog content on your site is also a favoured SEO strategy, which could help you to rank higher on search engines like Google.

Each time you publish a blog, let your followers know by posting a quick message on your social media pages. It’s also a good idea to send an email out to your mailing lists. In order to gain attention, and to keep attracting visitors to your website, provide unique content that puts a fresh spin on what might already exist online. Mix things up a bit and publish different styles of posts, such as how-to guides or even video tutorials. Encourage readers to like or share your content, so that it gets promoted even further.

Get listed

Get your name noticed by making sure that your website’s address and contact details appear on relevant online lists, directories and indexes. This is an especially useful strategy for those who rely on local custom. In particular, adding your details to Google Maps could also improve your local search ranking.

Think about relevant sites where your target audiences might search for a business like yours, or seek related information, and make sure your name gets added in those places.

Having a website is crucial for every business. If you haven’t created yours yet, why don’t you check out Go Sitebuilder? Create your website from anywhere without the need for any technical skills. Try Go Sitebuilder free for 14-days to see just how easy it is to get your business online.

February 3, 2020March 17, 2020

How much does it cost to launch a brand?

One of the main starting points of any new business or new product or service launch is to create a ‘brand’. This will form the foundation of the website you use to attract and retain customers, and any other sales and marketing tools you use. You’ll use your branding as a fun way to stand out from the crowd. But, how much does it cost to launch and promote your brand? This can depend on how much you’re willing to take the ‘Do It Yourself’ approach!

Firstly, let’s explore what is meant by brand.

Creating a brand identity

Some people think that “brand” and “logo” are interchangeable words. This is not the case! Your brand is the complete identity of your company, product or service. For example, what are your Unique Selling Points (USPs) and where does your business stand in the marketplace? This will end up revolving around the benefits you offer your customers. Is it the cheapest? easiest to use? most reliable? or perhaps the most innovative? The answers to these questions will help you start developing your brand.

When you have worked up a detailed brand profile, you then translate that into a brand identity. This includes the fonts and colours you can use to best illustrate and express yourself. For example, deep blues are often associated with reliable financial and professional firms, whereas yellows and oranges often portray tech and futuristic companies. All of that being said, you can use whatever colour resonates with who your company truly is.

So now you’ve covered the nitty-gritty, the “who am I” stage. The next step is to find a logo that sums up your brand identity. Many include a tag line to reinforce USPs (for example, ‘Just Do It’ – Nike or ‘Because You’re Worth it’ – L’Oréal).

Using your brand in your website design

Now that you’ve worked up a brand identity and clear statements about your company or product, you’re ready to create your own website. You can use your chosen colour palette as the basis of page design, varying shades and intensities to draw attention to calls to action and other important features.

It’s highly recommended that you keep your brand consistent across your website. This includes avoiding reversed logos as web design features or introducing colours that aren’t in your chosen palette. This will help solidify the look and feel and stop your site from confusing or distracting its users.

What budget is needed?

Creating and launching a brand can cost a massive amount of money – IF you’re a big company with deep pockets and global ambitions from day one. However, it can also be done on a shoestring if your goals are more manageable!

You could create your brand identity and statements yourself, perhaps using a local graphic artist to build a high impact logo for you. Though there are free online tools for DIY logo creation. Once you have your logo and all its support information, you can use Go Sitebuilder to create a professional website that dovetails brilliantly with your fabulous new brand!

If you haven’t started building your website yet or you’re still looking for the right tool for you, check out our free trial of Go Sitebuilder. You won’t need any previous technical knowledge as Go Sitebuilder has been created with busy small business owners in mind – you can even build it right from your mobile phone!