Search engine optimization (SEO) is the the method of getting a website ranked organically in search engine results. There are key elements that go on-page and off-page SEO, including link building, page titles and descriptions, image file names, alt tags, link title tags and more. It seems easy enough, however, when using website builders such as Wix, you may run into more issues than expected.

SEO Methods and Wix

As mentioned in our article “The Do’s and Don’ts of Images“, image titles and alt tags are a large element of on-page search engine optimization. Wix will change the image file name to include scrambled numbers, letters and underscores. An alt and title tag are both available for images, however, only the alt tag should be used. The title tag does not carry any weight for SEO and are only visible when someone hovers over an image. The alt tag describes to search engines what your image is. For WordPress or HTML websites, image titles remain the same as when you uploaded them and alt tags and captions are available for optimization; additionally, image titles remain the same as when you uploaded them.

Websites built with this “do-it-yourself” tool are powered by JavaScript (JS), which makes the customization of the coding nearly impossible. However, Google values websites with clean code. Instead of using DIVs and other elements, they are put into the JS of the website, making it messy, jumbled and hard to read.

Furthermore, Wix plans can be expensive, include advertisements, have limited add-ons and mobile usability. Customers are unable to move a website to another hosting provider, so the website would have to be rebuilt.

Wix is not a long term solution for your business’ website. With jumbled coding and lack of optimization methods, organic result rankings will be complicated and take an extended amount of time, resulting in losing potential business.

Appearance isn’t everything for your business’ website and there are other options available. Our team recommends using a content management system, such as WordPress, which offers multiple plug-ins and themes to make your website function just the way you want! With thousands of plug-ins for search engine optimization, photo galleries, shopping carts the options are endless! Give us a call to discuss custom design or one of our responsive templates.

If you’re just starting with search engine optimization, you have probably been warned about black hat SEO and only using white hat tactics to increase the organic ranking of your clients. But, what exactly is black hat SEO is techniques and the strategies that fall outside of Google’s webmasters guidelines?

The Old Tricks

Invisible Keywords Stuffing – Ghosts don’t have a place in search engine optimization! By stuffing pages with invisible text goes against the guidelines laid out by Google. Previously, websites could be ranked organically by adding text that would blend into the background or setting the size to zero. There is not a specific percentage or ratio for the number of times your target is mentioned within your content. If you’re using the keyword meta tag for keyword stuffing, this tactic is outdated and the meta tag holds little weight for search engines.

Paid Links – You wouldn’t give someone money for a fun-sized snickers bar out of their trick or treat bag, would you? There’s nothing fun-sized about the links you buy from link farms, in fact, you will be penalized! Your links should all be organically built, and not based on page rank.

Duplicate Content – Avoid toil and trouble by creating content that is unique to your services, website and business practices. It is vital to your search engine optimization to create pages that are relevant to your services and are not plagiarized with content from other websites.

Comment Spam – You may notice spam advertisements being posted if your blog allows comments. The author will most likely have a URL linked for their name or within the body of the comment itself. Monitor your comments, just as you would your bag of Halloween goodies.

Cloaking – It is important to remember to build your website for your customers and not the search engines. Cloaking is a black hat technique that essentially lies to both customers and search engines as to what your content is about. Being invisible may be a cool super power, however… for search engine optimization, this may be a party trick you want to avoid!

Sweet, Sweet Treats

When it comes to optimizing your website, there are a few tools that will make your life easier.
Moz’s On-Page Grader – is a great tool that will let you know if you’re missing anything, from H1’s, images without alt tags, links without title tags.

Google AdWords Keyword Planner and Trends – Google Trends is a great way to see when your services are being searched for the most. Whether you opt for an AdWords campaign, or increase your optimization efforts, you may find something a little surprising in these results.

Webmaster Tools and Analytics – What are users searching to find your website and how many impressions are you getting? By combining this tool with Google Trends, you’re bound to find a new avenue!

Happy Halloween from our search engine optimization and web design team to yours!

Color is a powerful element that can make or break a design for websites or print. When you’re using a color palette that does not compliment each other or causes a negative reaction, you are risking not making a conversion.

The color spectrum is separated into cool (blues, purples and greens) and warm (yellow, orange and red) tones. Depending on the tones you are using, this can cause reactions such as excitement, confidence, anger or discomfort. Due to this, the overall idea and goal of the project should be taken into consideration when choosing your color palette. You should always ask your self: what are you wanting your audience to feel when they see your design?

What Colors Mean

Cool Tones

Green – Commonly associated with money, green is a color that symbolizes growth. A yellow-green can indicate illness while an olive-green is usually a color of peace.
Blue – Blue conveys sadness, calm, secure or professionalism. This color works well as an accent color but can also be used as a main color.
Purple – Many will associate this deep color with royalty, wealth or luxury.

Warm Tones

Red – Using reds are going to bring in strong emotions, usually associated with either anger or love. It is a fine line when using this color, but when used correctly it can be very impacting.
Orange – Orange is a warmer tone that draws attention to specific areas of your website, it brings forth emotions of excitement or enthusiasm. Website examples:
Yellow – If you’re looking to bring a cheerful color palette to your design, yellow is the way to go! (Although, it can also have the same effect as the red tones and cause anger.) Yellow is similar to white, in that it is going to be harder on the eyes so this color should be used sparingly.
Black – Although this color is usually thought of as grief, mystery or the unknown, black is a great formal and elegant color perfect for galleries or portfolios for videos, photos, digital art or web.
White – Cleanliness, innocence or purity are what come to mind if you ask someone their opinions on white. White can be harsher on the eyes, so it is important to have a nice balance of contrasting colors.

Our Favorite Color Resources

Kuler – Choose your color rule, analogous, monochromatic, triad, complementary, compound or shades so select a color palette perfect for your project!
Colour Lovers – Using Colour Lovers, you’re able to find palette for your home, web, print or digital art. You can even build your own color palette and share them with the design community.

Other resources include Paletton – and Coolors.

As mentioned in our “Social Media’s Importance in Your Business” article, social media allows you to expand your audience, improve customer service, establish trust with customers and increase your organic search engine rankings. As social media becomes increasingly important for business, you may be trying to decide which platform is the best for you. While it is important to cultivate as many avenues for customer engagement as possible, it is even more important to start with the platform(s) that would most align with your business needs.

Facebook: By using Facebook your company is able to answer any questions via messages or comments. As an incentive, you may offer specials for users that like your page or provide reviews. Users tend to use Facebook to look up a company and will follow brands they’re loyal to. Facebook now allows the ability to leave up to 5-star reviews which many use when doing their research for a certain product or service.

Twitter: Twitter allows you to offer easy customer support (in 140 characters or less) or via direct messages. Stay up to date on specific trends in the industry and drive traffic to specific pages on you website. Don’t let the limited character count sway you from not using this platform. Utilizing url link shortners (such as bit.ly or goo.gl) allows you to save on character count space.

G+: Before Google+ for businesses, Google Places was extremely limited on what you would be able to do. The days of only being able to add business hours, categories, contact information and location are long over. With Google+, businesses are able to add photos of their business, services, products and location. Reviews left by customers are not able to be removed, however you can reply to them which would show other potential customers that you are involved in your customer service.

LinkedIn: This platform is mostly for business to business services. With LinkedIn your business is able to improve its reputation, create visibility to businesses and generate leads.

Instagram: Instagram is perfect for businesses selling products or services by using photos. While building your portfolio with photos or videos (up to 60 seconds), create your own brand hashtags and engage with your following. Tip: Add your hashtags in the first comment of your post and keep your photo descriptions clutter-free!

For more information on this topic, read our post on why social media is important to your business. And follow us on our social media to keep up to date with our newest content!

With over 46,000 plugins to make website maintenance easier, WordPress is our choice for a content management system. The plugins we use depends on our client’s needs, from booking calendar, volunteer sign-ups to photo galleries. Here are our team’s choices of plugins when we first set up your WordPress powered website:

Our Top Three WordPress Plugins

Wordfence Security – Wordfence’s constant updating feed keeps your website from getting hacked. The live traffic view tracks users that have navigated your website, the pages they navigated to, etc. Be sure to add your email to the notifications to receive updates on invalid logins, major site changes, and more. Recommendation: Avoid using “Admin” as a username to increase the security of your website.

Yoasts’ WordPress SEO – Our search engine optimization analyst’s go-to SEO plugin is Yoast. Duplicate titles and descriptions can cause problems for your search engine optimization. By using Yoast you’re able to set a unique title and description for your pages and posts. Other features include no-index, no-follow, canonicalization and more!

Total Cache – The speed of your website is extremely important to your search engine optimization; test the speed of your website by going to Google’s Page Speed to see how your page performs. Install this plugin, refresh and see the result!

What are some of your favorite SEO plugins? Let us know in the comments or on our Facebook. For additional reading, read our post on The Basics of a Website and get started today!