Why Do Websites Need Optimized Images?

Why Do Websites Need Optimized Images?

by | Oct 26, 2022 | Web Design

Optimized Images on a Website

When people search online, whether it is for an item to buy or information to help with their work, they will likely come across an image as part of the search results. These images are important, because they can make the difference between someone clicking on your site and them clicking away to another site. However, they also require some optimization if you want to ensure your images look their best when the user arrives at your site. 

Related Blog: Using Images in your Blog

This guide will explain what image optimization is and why it is so important for your website:

What is Image Optimization?

An image is worth a thousand words, right? Well, then, shouldn’t it be optimized? 

Image optimization refers to resizing and compressing digital photos to make them take up less space and load faster. When someone lands on your site, the first thing they will see is your images. So you want to optimize them so that they will render more quickly. This will give you a huge advantage over your competition that may not have this streamlined process in place for their own images. 

Luckily, ensuring that your media files are correctly optimized for fast loading times and optimum browsing experience does not take long. 

Importance of Optimizing Images  

Adding images to your website can make it more visually appealing and interesting. But, if the images you use are not optimized properly, they can also cause some major problems. 

The most common reasons to properly optimize the images on your site include:

Improves Page Load Speed

It is important to optimize your images, because of the dramatic impact they can have on a site’s page loading speed. The typical page load time for a well-optimized website is less than two seconds, but it could take up to four seconds for an unoptimized site. 

All businesses want to find a way to improve their conversion rates, and some believe that optimizing their images can help get them closer to their goal. Page load speed is the most highly correlated factor with conversion rates; studies show that people are far more likely to convert on websites that load in three seconds or less, but if the website exceeds three in loading time, they are significantly less likely to buy. In fact, half of all potential customers will abandon the purchase process if they have to wait longer than that!

By optimizing your images, you will notice faster loading speeds from your site, meaning more time for customers to spend looking at what you have to offer them. If a potential customer is waiting impatiently while your site loads, they may leave without taking the opportunity to learn more about what you have to offer. 

Improves SEO Ranking

In the competitive world of inbound marketing, search engine algorithms prioritize those sites with fast load times. These sites are usually developed on responsive frameworks to make it easier for a visitor to interact with any screen size and utilize visual content which can be quickly loaded on both computers and mobile devices. To remain competitive in this area, businesses will often optimize their images for each page on their website.

Images optimized for the web allow Google to crawl and index them more easily; this will help increase visibility in the search engine results pages (SERPs). It also makes it possible for potential visitors to locate what they are looking for faster than if the images were not optimized. 

Enhance User Engagement

You have found the perfect image and want to add it to your website, but it is not as high quality as you want. Should you still use it? You might be tempted to make it smaller or find another already at a lower resolution, but keep user engagement in mind before doing so. 

If a visitor lands on your page and spends time downloading a low-quality picture that takes a long time to view, they will probably lose interest and leave the site. On the other hand, adding a high-quality image to your website will only increase your visitor’s interest in reading more of your content. If they want to see your image better, they will simply click on it and allow it to load faster. Then, when they land back on your page, you have their full attention once again.

How to optimize images for your website?

Optimizing an image on your site is simple enough. 

First, when uploading an image to a webpage, it is important to upload the correct file type and size. Choosing the right file types and sizes can make all the difference in how well your images load, how many errors you will have with them, and how fast they will appear on the page.

Compressing an image will also help it load faster and use less data (as more information is taken out) while preserving the visual quality. There are many free tools available online that allow you to resize any image with just one click (such as TinyPNG ). Whatever tool you choose, the best way to ensure maximum optimization is by using lossless compression, which preserves all of the original data from the file without degrading its quality.

Conclusion

As an Internet marketer, you are probably well aware of the critical role that images play in your content marketing efforts. Images enhance user experience, and they help to convey more information than just the text itself can provide. However, since the visual information they provide is so important, it is also vital to ensure that your images are optimized as much as possible to get the most out of them. 

Contact Print And Web Designer (PWD) today!

Print And Web Designer’s staff of website/print design experts is dedicated to building and maintaining websites that help businesses succeed in reaching their goals. In addition to creating aesthetically pleasing, fully responsive, and search engine-friendly sites, our team offers comprehensive online marketing services that give you an edge over your competition. This includes web design, content marketing, brand design, brochure design, and magazine design. Call us at (336) 684-6505 or fill out this online form to learn more about our services!

Why is Website Maintenance Important?

Why is Website Maintenance Important?

by | Sep 26, 2022 | Services, Web Design, Website Security

Print and Website Designer - Website Maintenance Importance

A well-designed website is essential to the success of any business or organization. It is the first impression that many people have of your business, so it is crucial to make sure it is designed right. 

Now, you may think that the job is done after you have designed and launched your new website — but this is not the case. Though your website is live, there is still work to be done to ensure everything runs smoothly. This means regularly checking in on what pages are doing well and which ones need improvement, as well as keeping up with any new features or tools that could improve how customers interact with your site.

A comprehensive article about the basics of website maintenance to better understand the process.

Here are 8 aspects to keep in the back of your mind while designing and maintaining your website:

Keep your site secure 

WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS), powering almost 40% of all websites. Unfortunately, this also makes it the most targeted platform when it comes to hacking. Hackers are constantly looking for vulnerabilities in WordPress websites; if your site is not properly maintained, it could be an easy target. 

When you neglect website maintenance, your site becomes more vulnerable to security threats. Outdated software can leave you open to attack, and expired security certificates can make it easy for hackers to access your site. By staying on top of the latest security patches and software updates, you can help prevent security breaches before they happen and keep your site secure. 

You should also create backups of your website so that you can restore it if it is hacked or taken offline.

Keep the downtime to a minimum

Downtime is inevitable, but you can minimize it by creating a maintenance schedule and sticking to it. Regular site maintenance will help ensure that your website is always up and running. If you neglect to maintain your site, it could eventually become inaccessible to your users. This could lead to lost customers and revenue. 

Improve your SEO rankings 

Your website is the cornerstone of your online presence, and SEO is the key to ensuring it performs well. Search engine optimization is an inbound marketing strategy that ensures that your site is visible to potential customers when they search for keywords related to your business. A well-optimized website will attract more visitors, leading to more customers and sales.

If you want your website to rank well in search engines, you need to focus on these factors:

  • Targeted keywords
  • Dynamic (or adaptive) content
  • Responsive design 
  • Page load time
  • Social media engagement 
  • Link building

One of the best ways to ensure your website is SEO-friendly is to use the Google Analytics tool. This tool will help you monitor your traffic and user behavior, so you can identify your best-performing pages as well as find and fix landing pages with high bounce rates. 

Improve user experience 

Failure to keep your site well-maintained can result in several issues, including 404 error pages, broken and malicious links, slow load time, incorrect information, and more. All of these things can lead to a poor user experience, which can, in turn, lead to lost customers and revenue.

Establish a professional image 

Your website is often the first impression potential customers have of your business. You want that first impression to be a good one! A well-maintained website conveys that you are a professional, reliable business. On the other hand, an outdated or neglected website can give visitors the impression that you don’t care about your business or are not keeping up with the times.

Build customer loyalty

A website that is well-maintained and up-to-date builds customer trust and loyalty. If your website looks outdated, customers may question the quality of your products or services. Furthermore, if you have an eCommerce website, customers need to know that their personal information will be safe on your site. Regularly updating your website shows that you are keeping up with the latest trends and technologies, which can only improve customer confidence in your business.

Always have a backup

Losing your website can be a nightmare. If you don’t have backups of your files, you could lose everything — all your hard work, content, and images. That’s why it is important to regularly backup your files. You never know when something could happen to your website, so it is better to be safe than sorry.

Choose the right website maintenance partner

Just because your website is up and running does not mean the work is done. In fact, now the real work begins. To ensure your website continues running smoothly and efficiently, you will need to perform regular maintenance. 

But how do you choose the right partner to help you with this crucial task? 

Here are a few things to look for: 

  • Look for a company that offers around-the-clock support.
  • Make sure they have experience with your type of website and platform. 
  • Find out what kind of monitoring they do on their end. There are many options, including checking for potential vulnerabilities or scanning your site’s code to find any issues. 
  • See if they offer any training or education opportunities. The more knowledgeable your in-house team is, the better off you will be when something goes wrong and you need assistance from someone who understands what needs to be done to fix it.
  • And last but not least, consider the rates associated with their services and the length of time each package lasts before expiring (typically ranging from monthly packages to annual ones). 

With all these considerations in mind, finding a reliable partner will hopefully be much easier than you expected!

Conclusion

A website may be one of the most critical tools in your business arsenal, but that does not mean it will take care of itself. Website maintenance tasks can be time-consuming, but they are necessary to keep your site secure and running smoothly. 

Contact Print And Web Designer (PWD) today!

Print And Web Designer provides businesses in North Carolina with a comprehensive array of website/print design and marketing services, including Triangle/Durham/Cary web design, content marketing, brand design, brochure design, and magazine design. We have the knowledge and experience to keep your website up-to-date and running smoothly. We can also help you troubleshoot any problems that may arise. 

Contact us at (336) 684-6505 or through this online form to learn more about our web maintenance services! 

What are Meta Keywords?

What are Meta Keywords?

by | Sep 1, 2022 | Keywords

Meta KeywordsImproving search engine optimization (SEO) is about as important as it gets for inbound marketing. Any website or blog would try everything possible to get high ranks on the search engine result pages (SERPs). You can find all sorts of information online to help you improve your SEO strategy — including things you should do and things you should avoid doing. Meta keywords are one of those debatable topics.

Though many SEO experts believe meta keywords are a relic of the past, many still use them. In this blog, we will explore why meta keywords are a subject of debate among SEO experts today.

Related read: Common Misconceptions about SEO

Definition of meta keywords

You may think of meta keywords as a subset of metadata tags that reflect what your content is about. Tags are something that most people are already familiar with — thanks to social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Because they provide information on the data on your website, these tags have been given the name “metadata.”

Meta keywords are not included in the content of a web page in the same way that primary keywords are. They are only readable by search engine bots (and not humans), so they are only visible in a web page’s code (HTML). The meta keywords you use provide the search engine with instructions on how to rank your website depending on the keywords you have used.  

You can get this information by right-clicking anywhere on any webpage and selecting the “view source code” option.

To summarize, meta keywords are a list of keywords that you enter into the code of your webpage to inform the search engine about the subject matter covered on the page.

What was the problem?

Meta keywords were valuable for better SEO results back in the day when web searching was still a relatively young industry. However, those days did not last for very long.

You know how some people believe that everyone is born innocent and simple, but as they get older, they become more convoluted and disingenuous? That is — to a great extent — how things turned out with web searching. 

So do Meta Keywords still matter?

Using meta keywords allowed website owners to “directly command” a search engine to rank their content depending on the meta keywords they used. 

You probably already have an idea of what happened next.

Website owners started to manipulate the tool as the search industry became increasingly popular and, as a result, more commercial. They started to include keywords that had nothing to do with the page’s content simply because the keywords in question were trending at the time and promised to attract a large number of users. In the world of digital marketing, these practices are called “black hat SEO” or “SEO spam.”

What happened next?

Google announced in 2009 that it would no longer use meta keywords to determine search engine rankings. Even though Google is notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to discussing the inner workings of its algorithm, this is one of the rare instances where the company has not been very discreet.

The decision to devalue this tool was made by Google (and other search engines) to ensure that the quality of search results is protected. They gave up on this ranking feature because websites were abusing it, which meant they could no longer guarantee that users would get relevant results for their search queries.

So should you stop using meta keywords?

This certainly is a controversial subject. There are a lot of SEO experts that believe that you should not use them at all. Nevertheless, 19% of websites still make use of meta keywords. When you consider that they do not factor into the ranking, the question of why they are still being used arises naturally.

Say there is a 0.001% possibility that search engines will look at those tags. Users will not want to miss out on the chance. As was mentioned before, the algorithms used by search engines are always kept a well-guarded secret so that the results cannot be manipulated in any manner.

Therefore, to err on the side of caution, some websites continue to use meta keywords — after all, who really knows how those algorithms work? On the other hand, there are still 81% of those who do not believe this hypothesis.

What if you want to use meta keywords?

It is important to exercise caution when using meta keywords in your code if you want to avoid being blacklisted by search engines.

Perhaps the most important condition is that you stay away from high-volume keywords that have nothing to do with your content. Not only will this get you nowhere, but it is also considered spam. 

Second, it is advised that you use no more than ten keywords — you should avoid “stuffing” your page with extra keywords in the hopes of attracting more readers.

Lastly, when it comes to selecting keywords, the most useful piece of advice is to include long-tail keywords as well as common typos (misspellings) of your primary topic in your list. Because nobody wants to see typos in the content, a good place to include them is in the meta keywords. 

Conclusion

Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo no longer rank meta keywords on their results pages. Therefore, they are virtually obsolete in today’s world. Yoast even went so far as to remove the meta keywords toggle from their updated plug-in in favor of the other SEO strategies.  

Given that using meta keywords appears to do nothing but waste your time, why would you want to continue doing so? 

Contact Print And Web Designer (PWD) today!

Do you want to uplift your SEO game? We can help. At Print And Web Designer, we offer a full suite of website and print design marketing services for businesses in North Carolina, including content marketing brand design, brochure design, magazine design, and web design. Call us at (336) 684-6505 or fill out this online form to speak with us today. 

What is Website Maintenance?

What is Website Maintenance?

by | Jul 27, 2022 | Services, Website Security

What is Website Maintenance

Website maintenance can be defined as the process of ensuring that your website stays clean, secure, and working properly at all times. A website maintenance plan ensures that your site will not break down and that you always have support when you need it — without any hassle or added costs of long-term contracts or upgrades that may not benefit your needs right now.

Why is a website maintenance plan important?

  • Your website shapes visitors’ first impressions: As businesses continue to use their website as an essential marketing tool, it is crucial to have a clear plan for maintenance and upgrades. When changes or improvements are made, website visitors may encounter disruptions in service. While these issues can be unavoidable from time to time, having a dedicated website maintenance plan will reduce downtime and improve your users’ first impressions of your brand. A well-maintained and modern site conveys a commitment to users that demonstrates that you are serious about your business. 

  • Your website ramps up your sales: Your website is an integral part of your business; it allows you to connect with existing and future customers, share information about your company, and, most importantly, help you make sales. 85% of customers perform online research before making an online purchase. So, without a website, you are losing out on potential clients who may be searching for a product or service like yours. Maintaining your website is the best way to keep all of these connections alive and growing. When done correctly, maintenance can add many new potential sales leads every month — which is why it is an indispensable part of your online presence.

  • Site visitors value user experience: How often do you visit a website, only to have it take forever to load? Site visitors value user experience so much that some will simply leave your site if they feel like it takes too long to load. This can happen even if they are interested in your services or products. It is a shame to think about how many potential sales were lost because of a slow-loading site! Invest in ongoing maintenance for your site to ensure that does not happen. This way, you know everything will run smoothly, and customers will not lose patience while waiting for pages to load.

  • A website maintenance plan improves security: A website maintenance plan enhances security by allowing you to identify potential security issues quickly. The earlier you know about a potential threat, the faster you can address it and keep hackers out of your site. Moreover, keeping up with patches lets your users trust that their information is secure when using your service or buying products from your store.

  • Website maintenance supports your SEO strategy: Having a website maintenance plan in place helps ensure search engines have fresh, relevant content to index, and your site will not become stale if you cannot maintain it yourself. It also supports your overall SEO strategy because many businesses that do not invest in maintenance lose rankings and traffic over time. (Related Blog: SEO Benefits of Blogging)

What does a website maintenance plan include?

  • Reviewing key metrics: Many website owners think that because they do not have a ton of traffic, they do not need to pay attention to their website metrics. This could not be further from the truth. Paying attention to these metrics and reviewing them weekly is critical for small business websites. For example, if you start seeing an increase in bounce rate, it might mean there are changes you can make to your pages that will improve it — and ultimately help your business grow.  

  • Software updates: A vital step to keeping your website safe and secure is ensuring that all of your software (including web applications, server software, and operating systems) has been updated with any security/performance fixes that may have come out since you first installed it.  

  • Site backups: At its core, maintenance simply means keeping things working. To properly maintain your website, you will want to back up all of your files regularly. Backing up your site does not have to be complicated. While more comprehensive solutions are available, basic backups involve using file-syncing services like Dropbox or OneDrive and updating these synced folders each time you make changes on your website. Ideally, you should perform basic backups each time you publish new content or update your existing content.

  • Testing your forms and checkout process quarterly: Doing so will ensure your website is running smoothly and give you confidence that your e-commerce site will not go down when it is time to close a sale. Making sure your site can handle traffic spikes at peak shopping times will also ensure you have a smooth run during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and other busy shopping periods.

  • Browser compatibility testing: Just because your site works on one browser does not mean it will work on others. Specifically, making sure your site works on older browsers that support outdated features can be challenging.  

  • Annual testing: Some people think that site maintenance should be something that is done only once and forgotten about — that is not true at all. Instead, you should check your website regularly to ensure everything works properly, making any needed adjustments as soon as possible. By testing your whole website annually, you can fix potential problems before they grow into bigger issues that cost even more money to address.

To Wrap Things Up

Just like a doctor’s appointment, website maintenance requires planning and scheduling. Just because you do not see something wrong with your site now does not mean nothing needs to be fixed! To help avoid hiccups with your site, you should schedule routine maintenance on your calendar.

Contact Print And Web Designer (PWD) today!

Print and Web Designer provides businesses in North Carolina with a comprehensive array of website/print design and marketing services, including content marketing, brand design, brochure design, magazine design, and web design. Contact us today at (336) 684-6505 or by filling out this online form.

SEO Benefits of Blogging

SEO Benefits of Blogging

by | Jun 23, 2022 | Search Engine Optimization

Backlinks - SEO benefits of bloggingThere are a number of compelling arguments in favor of incorporating a blog into your company website. For example, it allows you to share company updates and special offers, earn trust among your target customers and build your reputation as an industry expert. However, another reason to blog is that it helps improve your search engine optimization (SEO) rankings. 

Simply blogging or posting blog posts for the sake of it will not produce miraculous results since the top five organic results get 67.60% of all the clicks, and 70% to 80% of users ignore paid ads in favor of organic results. Blogging is both an art and a science, and you need to have a solid understanding of the fundamental components to be successful at it.

The following are some of the ways that blogging can benefit (and level up!) your SEO game:

Fresh, original content.

Besides your readers, guess who enjoys fresh, original content? Search engines like Google! Search engines aim to give their users the most relevant and updated information — as a result, sites that are regularly updated signal that they are most likely to provide the most time-relevant content.

In addition, publishing new content on a regular basis provides search engine algorithms with more opportunities to crawl your website and continues to keep it on their radar. This means that blogging is the easiest, fastest, and most cost-effective way of posting new content on your website.  

On the other hand, 30% of consumers rate quality content as the most important factor that adds to the credibility of a blog. It is far more likely that your readers will stay on the page for a long time if you share high-quality content, which will work wonders for your search rankings. It also increases the ‘authority’ of your website for the primary keywords used in your industry, which makes it more likely that Google and other search engines would recommend your page to users looking for expert information on related topics.

Backlinks

Backlinking can be good for businesses since each link that points back to your content tells Google that your blog has quality and credible content. If your page receives more backlinks, then there is a greater chance that its content will rank higher on the results pages. According to an Ahrefs study that analyzed more than one billion web pages, 90.63% of those received no organic search traffic from Google. 66.31% of the pages indexed did not have any backlinks.

In other words, the 2500-word research article you worked so hard on could be losing out on views due to a lack of links. However, it is also essential to focus on building high-quality links since lower-quality links may not be as helpful in improving your ranks — and can even undermine them. 

Here are some of the qualities of a high-quality link: 

It comes from a website that has never before linked to your page. 

  • It comes from a reliable and trustworthy online resource.
  • It incorporates your target keywords into the link’s anchor text. 
  • The site linking to you aligns with the topics and themes on your website. 
  • The link is marked with the “Dofollow” tag.

Keywords

Keywords are essential for bringing your products and services to the attention of your target demographic. However, while using relevant keywords may seem pretty straightforward, the competition for the top-ranking spots is fierce. So, if you are not already the most well-known brand in your industry, you should focus on improving your rankings for long-tail keywords instead.

Targeting long-tail keywords is made easy with blogging. Long-tail keywords tend to be more specific — and as a result, they are also less competitive. This means that your content can reach more qualified leads since the leads are already in the process of searching for a particular answer or query.

Of course, if you want to use keywords effectively, you should refrain from stuffing your content with too many of those. Throw in your long-tail keyword when it makes the most sense and flows naturally.

Virality

You might get lucky, and your blog post might go viral — perhaps even overnight. However, even if you publish interesting and relevant content, it does not guarantee virality.

Although you can not exactly aim for virality, publishing evergreen, relevant blog posts and mastering the use of keywords are the best ways to get your content in front of more readers. Figure out what your audience is most interested in, and then give it to them.

Due to the topics being outdated or unfamiliar to most audiences, even pages that received a large number of backlinks received no traffic from Google. Therefore, your content must always fulfill its core objective: to engage and benefit the audience you are trying to reach.  

Social media sharing

Increased traffic and recurring visits to a site signal search engines that the page can be trusted, which in turn improves the website’s authority. You need to take social media into account to use the best SEO practices. When you publish high-quality content, readers are more likely to share it with their friends and even come back to your website to join your email newsletter.

You can make it easier for users to share your blog post with others by adding social media buttons. Your SEO ranking will rise proportionately to how people will share your content. In addition, if your business already has a presence on social media, you should think about introducing new strategies to promote your content on various social media platforms.

You will be able to increase the traffic to your website, and you will also be able to interact with your target customers and build a relationship with them. This can have a significant impact on your business goals. 

In conclusion

When it all started, most bloggers stepped into the ring without any knowledge about search engine optimization or without really being aware that blogging can affect both search visibility and rankings. However, modern-day blogging —as a part of inbound marketing — is one of the most effective ways to optimize your site for search and build your business organically.

Related blog: 5 Tips for Successful Content Marketing

Contact Print And Web Designer (PWD) today!

Do you want to uplift your blogging game to boost your SEO efforts? We can help. At Print And Web Designer, we offer a full suite of website and print design marketing services for businesses in North Carolina, including content marketing, brand design, brochure design, magazine design, and web design. Call us at (336) 684-6505 or fill out this online form to speak with us today.