Getting the most out of your cloud hosted website

Here are some basic steps for getting the best out of your website. We know from firsthand experience that when we get our clients to implement just a few key things on a regular basis, the results are dramatic.

Firstly, we assume you have a responsive, mobile friendly website, hosted on an easy to use content management system that includes e-commerce and has search engine optimisation tools built in that help boost your rankings. If that’s the case, what we suggest won’t cost you a penny, but you will need to find a bit of time over the coming weeks and months to take it all in and do it properly.

1] Check your Page Titles, Descriptions and H1 headers so that Google indexes them correctly and ranks you higher. You can do this over a few days or weeks, but where necessary, make sure your page titles are strong, that you have good page descriptions, and your H1 headers and page content are good.

2] When you add content, or add a product into your shop, take the time to write a good, clear, short description written in good English. This is your chance to sell your product, so sell it – don’t just describe it! This content gets indexed by Google. Make sure the images are properly sized and cropped (there is a cropping and resizing tool in our platform) if need be, and all images should have a descriptive alt tag as this gets indexed by Google, just like your text content does.

3] You need to ensure that your element titles and product listing titles (ie the category name) are strong and not hidden. Google reads these too!

4] Use a Blog – and here’s how and why this is especially important to you.
a) You can write a short blog article to promote a specific item you have just got in stock. This is a chance to promote it, and if you write a good article about it, and link it to the appropriate page in your shop, you are building up page rankings. Even if the item is sold, it still links back to your shop.
b) If you have news, a promotion, a special event, or a specific project on the go that people might find interesting, use a blog to promote it.
c) You have a wealth of knowledge and advice. Use your blog to provide advice to potential customers.

The more you get known as authorities or market leaders on a subject, the higher you will rank with Google. Articles or descriptions about new items need to be well written, with the blog post having a headline that is relevant to what you want people to search for in Google. Google also gets to know that you update your website often, and learns to return regularly. It is the fastest way of getting news about a new item out there.

All these are little steps, but taken together they make a difference. Invest the time now and you’ll see results down the road.

As an example of how a blog works, type in “grotto stone ball fountain” in Google, and you’ll see a blog article for John Robbins Garden Antiques that was only posted up a few days ago. It describes the piece, is written using good English, and in case his article is being read several years in the future, and thus the item already sold, it links to his In Stock page so it draws people back into his main site. You could do that with any interesting item and searchers would be able to find it within a few days – plus all the people that visit and return to your site each day too.

The good news is that none of this costs anything if you want to implement it yourself. However, if you don’t have the time or inclination to do this, Independent Web Marketing provide a site marketing setup service that covers all the key fundamentals and gets your site indexed. Costs start from £750 plus VAT. For more information, call 01526 352919, or email seo@web-marketing.co.uk.