Website Optimisation: The Dos and Don’ts for Small Businesses

Website optimisation is absolutely necessary for small businesses to succeed in the digital market and attract customers online. Your web presence can have a profoundly positive effect on attracting customers on the ground as well. So, read ahead to find out how you should go about optimising your business website and how you should not.

website optimisation

Do Know What Search Engines are Looking for
Before you optimise your site to attract traffic, you should have a basic understanding of how search engine algorithms work. Lesson number one: search engine algorithms are constantly evolving. Google, for example, is known to drastically change the rules for optimisation every couple of years or so. The only way you will stay ahead in the game is by knowing what these changes and rules are.

Search engines, in general, always prefer quality over quantity. They want to rank credible and popular sites on top. Search engines in recent years have also begun to give preference to local searches. Meaning your site should be optimised with geo-specific keywords to show up on local results. For example, if your small business is located in Queensland, hire a Gold Coast SEO consultant to tailor your site to the target local audience. Search engines will like that.

Don’t Cram Your Site with Keywords
Keyword cramming is an amateur mistake many small businesses end up making. Take it as an example. When you strive to optimise your site, do be careful about optimising your site too much. All the content on your site should be natural, not crammed with keywords and irrelevant components. Search engines are getting skilled at identifying good content over the bad. Therefore, don’t go over the top; it will work against you.

Do Make Your Site Responsive
It’s important that your website is responsive on mobile devices as well. Making your site responsive means you design it with the ability to load flawlessly on devices with different screen sizes. The number of mobile users worldwide is rising rapidly. The number of user who browse the web and shop online on handheld devices have surpassed the number of those who do the same on computers. You should assume that your customers would want to access your website on their mobile devices as well. Keeping that in mind, make your site highly responsive across multiple platforms.

Don’t Add Too Many Plugins and Widgets
One of the simplest tricks of web optimisation is making a site load fast. It may sound too simple, but sites that load fast attract and retain more customers than those that do not. So, no matter how great your site it, no one will like it if it takes forever to load. Therefore, take steps to reduce the bulk of the site. Compress all graphics, and remove all plugins and widgets that are not necessary to user experience. Compress your code as well. You can also reduce the amount of CSS files to cut down the HTTP requests the site makes.

Do Post Reviews
As mentioned above, search engines prefer credible sites. Making your site credible is simple. For starters, you can post customer reviews and testimonials on your homepage or product pages. Doing so will convince customers and search engines alike that you are legit. All reviews, however, must be 100 percent genuine.

Pay careful attention to the dos and don’ts mentioned above. Learn what you are currently doing right, and avoid the don’ts.

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