SEO Blog

Search engine giant Google have revealed another new change to their algorithm, this time in the form of a page layout update. The change has been brought in to help users find high-quality websites in the search results, with the aim of delivering a better user experience. Sites without much content above the fold of a webpage will be affected. This is because the update has been made to eradicate users  struggling to find the content once they have clicked on the link within the SERP.

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If you were looking to find out about a decent local business in your area, what would you do? You’ll most likely search on the Internet or ask a friend for recommendations, rather than looking through the Yellow Pages. That’s because new ways of finding out information have evolved and become more dominant, and the search engine is one of them.

So, let’s say you use search engines to find out the information you require, only for you to click through to a site, which may be what you want, but you don’t like the look of it as it isn’t engaging enough. Your likely response is to close down the page and look elsewhere. This is why it is essential that you create a decent website for your local business, otherwise you could potentially be losing out on customers.

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For any website, the main port of call for Internet users is likely to be the Home page or the top level pages including the About Us page as well as all top level category pages. When it comes to SEO, you should look to optimise all of these as they’re the most important in terms of gaining traffic.

If you were to access a website only to discover that the text is too small, there are too many images, the menus are not user friendly, and the site doesn’t look visually appealing, then chances are you are going to close the window or look elsewhere. This is why you need to carefully optimise these pages. As you have managed to get your visitors through to your site, you should now focus your attention on keeping them on the site and becoming regular users. So how exactly do you do this?

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There’s a line of thought that suggests you have to have a website that looks professional and adheres to modern design concepts. However, when browsing the Internet, you can be met with dozens of sites that completely ignore these basic ‘rules’ but yet continue to succeed. So what’s the secret of good design and just how much of an impact will it have?

One famous example of what many might technically as being an ‘ugly’ website is that of LINGs cars. It’s blotted with multicolour text, garish imagery and features that wouldn’t look out of place on a student website circa 1996. However, it works. In fact it works remarkably well indeed, as Ling revealed in a recent interview with Dan Barker.

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As I reported last week, Google underwent something of a stark makeover to become a far more clinical and industrial looking search engine. Now whether you prefer the fresh design or prefer the older, more colourful version, what it highlight is the potential issues a change in appearance can have.

Google, as well as updating their SERPs, also introduced (and removed) some on page elements. This included a number of search options, which help to scale down organic results and cause bigger headaches for SEOs. Whenever a site has  a bit of a shake up, not only does the design change but it also offers the opportunity to adjust the navigation.
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It can make all the difference. Sometimes you will have a page that is fundamentally fine, it just needs some tweaks to bring it right up to pace. On other occasions it is so badly flawed that you’re better off just ripping it up and starting again.

Unfortunately there is no exacting standard for each. Knowing when to fine tune your website’s page and when to start afresh is a personal call, one that needs to be made correctly too.

So let’s start with the most obvious issue, content. If your page has old, tired content that just isn’t doing anything for your rankings or your visitors, rip it down. Don’t look twice at it, get a fresh sheet, know what you want to say and make sure you do so.
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Many of us are inclined to prioritise our work. This is particularly true when we are snowed under with work and don’t have the time or resources to cope. A situation that many website owners find themselves in at one time or another.

So where does everything fit in then? What should be first and what can wait? You’ve got to plan time for designing the architecture of the site as well as the on-site aesthetics. You have to consider marketing your site, perhaps with SEO, PPC, social media or a combination of the three. You also have to fill the pages with content at some point. But which of these is most important? Well, there isn’t one simple answer sadly.

Each component is essential. You can’t have a great design and no architecture to base it one for example. But I’m here to make the case for content.
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There’s a myth going around that the Internet is a pathway to untold treasures. If anything was learnt from the last online crash a decade ago, then surely it has to be that you can’t simply get money for old rope these days. Success is possible, but it takes time, innovation and high standards to achieve it.

The Internet as it stands is overburdened with websites. Everybody thinks that they’re offering something new and original, but more often than not, it’s got more than a passing similarity to another. This could be in terms of the products they offer, or their overall business, it may just be site content; whatever it is, having a wholly unique website is not easy to achieve.
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