The 10 Plugins You Should Have On Your WordPress Website.

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems not only for blogs, but also for informational websites and e-commerce web stores as well. One feature that makes WordPress so popular is the large library of free plugins available for install on any website. Because it is an open source CMS, this means that any developer can access the source code and create plugins that will either introduce new functionality to the website, or extend functionality that may already exist on the platform. There are literally tens of thousands of free plugins available, often times with multiple plugin options available that deliver the same functionality. Not every website will be in need or be able to utilize all of the same plugins, but below is a list of 10 that any WordPress website could use to improve traffic, performance, usability or user experience.

Yoast SEO
The first plugin that every WordPress website should utilize is the Yoast SEO plugin. This plugin helps easily manage almost every aspect of your on page search engine optimization including the page titles, meta descriptions, sitemaps, internal links, permalink structure, robots.txt files and much more. The plugin also features a bulk title and description editor so that you don’t have to go page by page to update your keyword rich content, you can do it all at once from one central dashboard. The plugin also allows for easy sync with your social profiles, Google Webmaster Tools, Bing Webmaster Tools, Alexa Tracking, Pinterest and much more. This plugin is perfect for a web master just getting started with SEO as well as seasoned SEO professionals as it focuses on some of the most important aspects of any websites on page optimization efforts. There are also many paid extensions available for the Yoast SEO plugin that deliver even more SEO features, but the free version is more than enough for anyone to start optimizing their page properly. Proper on page optimization is crucial when it comes to the success of a website, and this plugin takes away a lot of the guess work.

Advanced Custom Fields
One of the things developers love about WordPress is how easy it is to create Custom Post Types and just how versatile and easy to work with these Custom Post Types can be. Advanced Custom Fields is a plugin that will make any WordPress developers life considerably easier as it allows you to add in custom input fields of any type to any post type, page type or custom post type of your choosing. For example, lets say we have created a new Custom Post Type called “Properties” for a real estate website. In our “Properties” page template, we need to make sure to include a property map, a youtube video, and links to three similar properties along with the properties main description and main image. With Advanced Custom Fields it’s as simple as creating the new field type, creating the three new input types and associating them with the specific post type “Properties”. Now in your page template all you will need to do is echo the field in your loop to display the contents.

For example, if the “Youtube Video” field is named “youtube_video” and is supposed to accept a Youtube embed link, the code inserted in your page template would look something like this:

echo get_field('youtube_video'); 

This allows you to create as many custom fields as you’d like for any custom post type with inputs including text fields, text areas, WYSIWYG editors, select dropdowns, radio buttons and much more. There are also multiple paid extensions available that further improve the functionality, allowing you to easily add in repeater fields, photo galleries and much more. Advanced Custom Fields is a must have extension for any WordPress developers tool kit.

W3 Total Cache
One problem a lot of WordPress website owners will see is slow loading pages and slow load times to first byte. This can be due to many reasons, but is usually due to the number of scripts being loaded on the page, the number of stylesheets being loaded on the page, the number of images being loaded on the page, the number of plugins being used on page load, and the number of database requests the page makes. There multiple actions you can take to combat these problems including compressing your scripts and stylesheets, caching your scripts, caching images, caching stylesheets, enabling gzip, and many other typically server side modifications to help your website deliver it’s assets faster.

The W3 Total Cache plugin allows you to easily compress and cache a lot of your websites slower loading scripts and stylesheets, will help cache and optimize your images for improved page load times, and just optimize your website all around for the best server performance within it’s capabilities. This plugin won’t always be a better solution than actually modifying the htaccess file, or compressing and caching certain scripts, but this is a great tool for novice site owners to quickly improve page speed which is such a crucial factor in search rankings.

FS Contact Form
Every website has a contact page and every contact page should have a contact form to allow for users to easily email the site owner with questions, requests or concerns. Our go to Contact Form solution is Fast Secure Contact Forms each and every time. FS Contact Forms allows you to create multiple forms with varying input fields so that you may gather different information from your users depending on what page they’re on. FS Contact Forms is easy to style to match your websites look and feel with all of the styling options available right inside a tab of the plugin. Best of all, the plugin generates a custom short code that can be included in any page, post or widget on your website as well as within a template. The plugin takes about 5 minutes to set up and include and will deliver a much improved user experience for anyone visiting your website looking to make contact.

Contact Form DB
Once you install the Fast Secure Contact Form it’s important that you also install the Contact Form DB plugin. This plugin, once installed, will automatically sync with FS Contact Forms, as well as many other contact form plugins, so that all contact form submissions will also be easily stored in the database. This plugin provides a safety net for those unexpected and unwanted times when we lose all of our emails, our websites go down, our computers get viruses, and any situation in which you could lose valuable email leads stored in your inbox. The plugin creates an easy to access dashboard where you can see a running list of all contact forms submitted, who submitted them, the time and date, the message and much more so that you never have to worry about missing out on an important lead.

Options Framework
The Theme Options plugin is another great plugin that every web developer should have in their tool kit. This WordPress plugin easily allows for a developer to create an admin section under the “Appearance” menu option titled “Theme Options” that can store a lot of general and global page information that may not be suitable for a custom post type. For instance, we may want to include an upload field so that the website owner can easily upload a logo, a “copyright” field so that copyright information can be managed, and a “Call To Action” field so that we can place and edit one call to action statement globally throughout the website.

Once installed, you’ll need to modify the ‘options.php’ file to include the different input areas to your needs and then upload back into your server via FTP. This will require some working knowledge of PHP but as you’re just modifying the file, not rewriting all of the code, it’s pretty straightforward and easy to manipulate for your needs. Once the file is placed back on the server, you’ll see all of your new theme options within the “Theme Options” tab.

Now that you can insert content into your theme options, you’ll need to be able to show this content on your website. Simply navigate to the template files you’d like to include the options in and add in the following where your option goes:

of_get_option($id,$default);

Where ID = your option ID.

Post Types Order
Often times when creating multiple posts throughout post types and custom post types, you’ll need to deliver those posts in a loop that requires a specific order. For instance, if you are building a site for a law firm and you are creating a custom post type for “Lawyers”, you may need to change the order in which the posts are shown so that certain lawyers are shown first in the list, even if their posts were created last or vice versa. Post Types Order is a plugin that makes it easy for any admin user to quickly change the order of any posts within any post type so that the content will display exactly as needed on the front-end. The plugin adds in an additional “Reorder” option to each post types admin menu, that when clicked, makes it easy to drag and drop the posts into new positions. This plugin removes the need for manually modifying publish times within posts or introducing jquery or template hacks.

Wordfence Security
Website security should be a concern for any website owner, but especially for WordPress website owners as it’s popularity alone makes it an easy to identify target. The Wordfence Security plugin has both a free and paid version, but the free version will provide more than enough security for most site owners. Some of the great features included are automatic emails sent whenever someone logs in to the system as well as when someone tries to log in unsuccessfully too many times. It will allow you to block specific IPs, specific countries, and scan your site for potential issues and needed upgrades. It also gives you opportunities to improve site performance by offering advanced caching methods. This plugin is lightweight, easy to use and a great line of security between hackers and your website content.

Social Share Boost
Social Share Boost, or SS Boost, is a simple plugin that, once installed, allows you to sync with multiple social platforms including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. Once synced, it will add an additional dialog box to all of your posts that will allow you to publish all of your new posts directly to your social profiles at the same time they are published on your blog. This will not only save you an immense amount of time, but will ensure all of your blog posts, articles and pages get as much social share and exposure as possible.

Google Sitemap
The final plugin on this list is one with one simple function, but one that should be included on every WordPress website, Google Sitemap. The Google Sitemap plugin allows you to quickly and easily create a sitemap of your website including only the pages, posts and categories that you want to, excluding the others. It also updates the sitemap regularly with any new pages or posts so that whenever your sitemap is crawled by the Google crawlers, it’s going to be given the most recent version. This is extremely important when it comes to Google’s understanding of your page content as well as how many pages Google will index from your website. It’s no secret that the more high quality pages your website has indexed Google, the better your rankings will become. This plugin makes sure that any and all new pages will be indexed as quickly as possible by Google.

As I had mentioned, these are only 10 plugins of the tens of thousands of plugins available in the WordPress plugin library. These 10 plugins will help improve both usability for you, the admin, and your users ultimately resulting in a better user experience and more leads through your website.

Group Custom Post Types in a Top Level WordPress Menu

There are many times when I’m working on a custom WordPress website that I find myself having to create several custom post types to improve the clients user experience. In most cases I find that some of these post types would make sense being grouped together under a single menu item. Not only does this help keep the WordPress admin menu from being cluttered with too many items, but it also helps to logically group related content together.

When I first looked up how to create this relationship between post types, I had trouble finding what I was looking for. It turns out that $args argument for the register_post_type function has an option called show_in_menu. This allows us to specify a parent menu for the custom post type to be located under. I found that I usually don’t need a real relationship between the post types, as long as they are grouped together in a way that makes sense to the end user.

Creating a new menu item in the WordPress admin panel

The first thing we need to do is create a new menu item that we will use to group our custom post types under.

For example, if we had post types related to cars we might have a top level menu called cars, and then have custom post types called ‘muscle cars’, ‘exotic imports’, or ‘hybrid cars’ grouped together under this menu item.

We need to use the add_menu_page function to create our top level menu:

add_menu_page takes several parameters: add_menu_page( $page_title, $menu_title, $capability, $menu_slug, $function, $icon_url, $position ); the $menu_title parameter is what the name of our top level menu item will be and $menu_slug is the name that we will provide to our custom post types.

So for our cars example we could do this:

add_action( 'admin_menu', 'register_my_page' ); 
function register_my_page() { 
add_menu_page( 'Cars, 'Cars', 'edit_others_posts', 'cars_menu, function() { echo ‘cars page’ }, dashicons-arrow-right, 6 );
}

How to add a custom post type to our new menu

Now when we create the $args for our custom post types we just need to make sure we have:

‘show_ui’ => true,
‘show_in_menu’ => ‘cars_menu’,

We provide our menu slug name to the show_in_menu parameter and our custom post type will show in the cars menu item in our WordPress admin page.

Hopefully this WordPress pro tip will help you improve your custom templates as much as it has ours.

Responsive Web Design Why is it Important?

Have you ever wondered how one website has the same display on your tablet, phone, and computer? It is able to fluidly resize because it is a responsive web design. A site designed with responsive web design can adapt its layout to the screen size that it is being projected on through proper development. This development is mainly done through CSS media queries. CSS is the coding that dictates the way a webpage is presented. Another way responsive web design is done is through fluid layouts, which uses sizing in percentages rather than pixels or points.

Why is a Responsive Web Design Important for your Website:
Having a responsive website has become one of the most important components in website development. This is because the use of tablets and mobile web has increased significantly in the last two years. When building a website user experience is key. The ability for a site to adapt to all screen sizes allows for optimal user experience. For example when viewing a site on your phone and then switching to your desktop you never have to worry about seeing a lesser version, or having to search for the desktop URL of this site. That is because with responsive web design regardless of where you are viewing the URL remains the same. It is also important to have a responsive web design for SEO purposes. When you don’t need multiple sites for desktop and mobile you don’t need multiple SEO campaigns.

Site conversions increase greatly when you have responsive web design. When your user doesn’t have to work as hard for what they are doing they are more likely to come back. Having a responsive web design can keep you ahead of your competition because many people don’t believe that it is necessary to have a mobile friendly site. However, what they don’t realize is a lot of traffic starts as mobile and is then converted to web.

Advantages of a Responsive Web Design:
Your sites content and design, as a whole is the same from desktop version to tablet, and mobile. This means there is no need for the user to relearn anything when using the site. The URL for the mobile site and desktop site is the same allowing analytics to be easily tracked, and users to easily access the site from any device. Having the same URL can also be good for SEO because it will still be ranked despite where the traffic is coming from. On a development side there is only one site to maintain as opposed to having a mobile and desktop version. This is also true for a content management perspective.

Examples of Responsive Web Design:
Some big name examples of responsive web designs are sites such as; www.DSLRPros.com. The best way to figure out if a site is responsive or not is to adjust the size of your browser. If the screen doesn’t change at all chances are it is not responsive. However, with DSLRPros the smaller you go the more it changes in order to keep everything on the same screen. Another example is www.mashable.com if you visit this site from your phone rather than having a mobile link it shrinks from its three columns to one column. Allowing mobile and desktop viewers to get the same experience from the same URL.

5 Things to Look for When Choosing a Web Development & Marketing Company

There are a lot of reasons people choose outside help when it comes to their web development and marketing. The main reason is they don’t have the background, knowledge, skill, or most important time to do these things. Much like their clients turn to them they turn to professionals. Choosing a reliable fit is no easy task, and finding the company that represents your business properly can be hard. Here are 5 things to look for when choosing the right web development and marketing company for your next project.

Clearly Identify Your Objectives:
By knowing what you want your final outcome to be you can narrow your choices. Ask yourself what are your goals for your web development and marketing? What do you want from your web development and marketing company? Make your goals realistic don’t just say you want to be the first on the search engine. A good web development and marketing company will sit down with you, and discuss potential long-term and short-term goals you should expect. Ask them what they can do for you along with what you want you want them to do for you. For example what kind of site you want, and what kind of marketing you want to achieve.

Make Sure They Actually Built Their Own Website:
Some companies use short cuts when building websites like buying already made themes and customizing them to fit your needs. This isn’t web development this is cheating you. When paying for web development you want something unique, and specifically customized to you and your business. Anyone can learn to change the colors, fonts, and photos on a premade theme. Plus now you have a website that is probably already out there who knows how many times with multiple business names on it. Ask to see a portfolio of past and present work. This way you can get an idea of what you can expect for you site. Ask if the company uses premade or original themes.

Do They Provide Communication and Support:
When working with your web development and marketing company it’s important both of you are happy with the work. Are they listening to you and your ideas? Are they making the changes you want? It is also important that the company you choose is available if you need them. Do they respond well to your calls, or emails? Can you trust them with your site? How long after your site is done does the support last? These are all important questions to ask and research when choosing the company for you. Asking someone who has used this company before it is a smart way to get the answers you need.

Can You Manage Your Own Content:
A lot of the time websites are built on a CMS (content management systems). This enables you to easily access content on your site, and update it whenever you need to. The right web development and marketing company will give you the proper training and support to do this after creating your website. This also allows you to manage your site and keep it up to date without any additional costs.

Is On Page SEO (search engine optimization) Included:
Making sure the company you choose knows how to properly perform SEO is important. Is it built into your website? How do they decide on your keywords? Are they as good as they say they are? SEO is important to your marketing and your website overall and it is important you ask as many questions as you can. If you don’t get answers or you feel you can’t trust this person with your SEO you should consider a different company. Some companies offer copy writers and content writers to help with SEO and websites overall. These are the companies to take a closer look at.

Three Questions To Ask Your Web Designer Before Starting A Project

When you’re deciding on the right web designer to work with for your website development, it’s a good idea to open the lines of communication so all expectations are in the open as the project begins. We like to make all of our projects as transparent as possible, laying out the exact project design vision, work flow, and list of components and functionalities, before website production begins. Here are three of the main questions and concerns our web designers address with all of our clients before a web design project begins.

Do We Share A Vision For This Web Design Project?
As a reference, ask your web designer for a portfolio of their recent work to get an idea for their design style and the quality of their work. Take a look at other websites and talk with your website designer about elements of the sites that you like and don’t like. You may not have the vocabulary to simply state what you are looking for, so being able to visualize particulars with the designer will ensure they have a good understanding of your preferred aesthetics, and there will be no surprises when the project is completed. Also, it’s important that you ask the web designer for their input as well. While it’s good to be involved in your web design project, it’s always best to allow the designer to direct the projects design – after all, they know a great deal more about what is available and are knowledgeable of what the trends are for great website designs.

Get to Know Your Designer’s Capabilities
Find out just how proficient your prospective web designer is. Will your website development be handled by an individual or a distributed team? Find out what platform your website will be built on, whether or not the person you are speaking to will be doing the development, and how they plan to build the site. Most websites need to be built to scale for content, traffic, users, and more. Trying to save a bit of money on the front-end by enlisting the services of an amateur website designer could end up costing you more money in the long run in revamps, redesigns, marketing and more. Making sure that your web designer is a talented and competent developer that builds standards based websites will only ensure a stronger end product.

Support After the Site Goes Live
Lastly, make sure you come to an agreement of what happens after the website goes live. A dependable developer will have a rider in the contract for maintenance services for a fixed period while any minor bugs may need to be worked out after launch. Many websites don’t require routine maintenance and upgrades, but most require content updates and improvements. Having a management plan in place before launch is a great way to avoid any unforeseen site errors or outages.

Elements To Look For In Solid Website Design

Your product is just what your customers have need for, and now is the time to present your branding and marketing strategy to an online consumer audience. The last thing you want to do is slap up a website without considering how it will function, and to avoid this, you will want to find a web developer who knows the ins and outs of website design to bring as much attention to your message as possible.

A website might look great to you, but if the elements of a solid website design aren’t in place, you will never realize its full potential. Companies such as Bricks & Mortar Creative can provide you with the service you need, and here’s how.

Website Load Times
Often overlooked by amateur designers, a page’s loading time is critical for customer retention. When a potential customer clicks on a link to bring them to a section of your website, they’re not going to hang around for long waiting for it to load. There are too many other options out there, and they want nearly instant gratification when it comes to seeking information. Your prices might well be the best out there, and your products may be exactly what they need, but if they have to wait for a slow page to load in order to discover this, they will simply click to another site instead.

Credibility
A customer is coming to your website to find a particular item or piece of information. If they are instead first bombarded with silly bits of ‘entertainment’ or a flurry of revenue generating adds they aren’t going to be pleased. Your site should be designed to give someone exactly what they want, when they want it. If they’re not getting it, the credibility of your branding has just been flushed down the toilet.

Clear Message
On the same note, make sure your content gets straight to the point. If you want to sell your customers a product, make it readily available for them to buy it. A main page with your company’s branding message should be the landing page, but then clearly marked sections should be available for the customer to go to exactly what they want to see. You may wish to forecast what else they would be interested in that relates to the product they’re looking for, but don’t go overboard. Trust your customers and your site designer to provide the right amount of information without muddling up your message.

Logical Design
Your brand is important to you and your customers, so ensure the design of the website matches your message. If your client demographic is adults between the ages of forty and sixty, you will want to ensure your graphic designs are fitting for that group. For example, you wouldn’t be utilizing a trending hip hop image to support selling timeshares in Boca Raton, Florida.

Finding The Right Web Designer for Your Next Web Design Project

Whether you’re developing a brand new website or just doing a website redesign, a bit of research into what can be offered is a solid first step to getting exactly what you want out of a contracted web designer. There are several options and sites dedicated to matching clients and designers based on price range, but you will want to focus primarily on the quality of work and the reputation of someone as your main consideration.

Know the Market Value of Web Design
It may feel like you are snooping around, but ask others in your industry what they paid for their website projects. Compare these costs to the final product and seriously ask yourself if that price seemed like a good value. Take into consideration not only the more obvious elements such as graphics and ease of navigation, but also the underlying design elements such as search engine optimization and page load time. These hidden aspects are crucial to receiving quality traffic and keeping visitors on the site in order to purchase or retain your site’s message. A slow loading page or one that can’t be found may look great, but it’s not doing what it was designed to do. For examples of top notch work, check out the excellent services offered on our portfolio.

Ask for a Portfolio
Every web designer is going to have a project they are most proud of, but it is in your best interest to investigate the scope of their projects. Ask for referrals, and when you receive them, contact them. You can find some important information simply by asking a few questions. Was the work completed on time? Was the price favorable in relation to the end product? How accessible is the designer when it came to adjustments and changes?

Another question to ask of the web designer is if they would be willing to share their least favorite project. Then, ask them what they didn’t like about it, and what they learned from the experience. No one starts a career as an expert, and having your potential designer walk you through what they would have done differently is a great way to determine what your project may look like in the end.

Getting Down to Brass Tacks
Lastly, have a frank conversation with your possible web designer concerning expectations. It is a given that you will share your requirements, but you will also need to know what they need from you and when. If a deadline is pushed because they were waiting to hear from you with vital information of a decision on a design question, you can’t rightly hold them at fault. Keeping a clear line of communication open is one way to ensure a great product when all is said and done.

Five Tips For Leading An Efficient Web Design Project

After determining the website’s purpose concerning message, branding, and content, there are still a few outstanding elements that need to be considered when building or re-launching a website.
First, you’ll need to investigate audience reach, search engine optimization, traffic patterns, customer engagement, and a whole plethora of finely tuned details that will come together to make your online presence a success. Your first step should be contracting a web design and internet marketing company to get the biggest bang for your development buck.

Make a list of goals you would like to achieve, content you would like to share, and information you would like to include so that when development begins, everyone is working toward a clearly defined and shared goal.

Get Everyone On the Same Page
No matter how large your web development team is, make sure everyone has their clearly defined job and then get together and review what the goals are for the project. Start with an audit of the current website if there is on and an overview of what the marketing strategy is. Then look for what is missing, what could be added, and what general brainstorming around the aesthetic.
If possible, bring up the site on an overhead projector and use it as a customer would, noting what is working well, what isn’t, and what you would like to see. Reviewing these elements early on will bring everyone on board with a common vision for your web design project.

Have a Firm Number for Your Web Design Budget
Knowing how much you wish to spend is a great way to keep a project in control. You will need to determine how much will be spent on graphics, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, creative content licensing, and a whole host of other incidentals. You may also want to determine how much can be done in-house, and how much your web design and marketing contractor will need to accomplish.

It’s always best to go with a professional when in doubt. Often times you will find yourself spending twice the money when you try and get a good deal with a “cheap freelancer”. In the world of web design and web development, you truly get what you pay for, so make sure you find a web design company with a promising track record.

Identify Your Customer Base
Current analytic information for your current website can be essential here, as you may not be reaching the audience you initially designed your project around. Also, you can take the time to determine why certain demographics aren’t being reached – examples of this would be a youth orientated site that requires credit card verifications. If your audience doesn’t have a credit card for age verification, then how can they interact with your message?

It’s best to have someone either in-house or on contract who can modify and easily add new content to your website, so that when any adjustments are needed in order to better communicate with your audience, they can be made.

Be Prepared to Adjust Your Initial Plans
As your web design project takes shape, it may become necessary to insert new elements, change functionality, add additional content, remove elements or a number of other situations in order to have the project ‘flow’ more smoothly. Your initial brainstorming sessions will prove invaluable, but nothing should ever be set in stone. Be ready to compromise in the best interest of the web design project.

However, the more preparation you do before production starts, the less likely project detours will be. The more precise you make your planning in the beginning, the easier it will be to identify potential flaws and issues, allowing them to be addressed during conceptualizing, as opposed to on the fly during project production. This will save you time, money, and lots of headache in your project.

Know What the Next Step Is
Once your site goes live, you will want to be ready for the follow up tasks, such as marketing, branding, and gaining traffic. Knowing how these elements will be accomplished. It’s always best to start right away with your search engine optimization efforts, but depending on the size of your site and marketing budget for your web design project you may not be able to dive right into a PPC campaign. There are a number of more inexpensive methods including social marketing, social content marketing, content marketing, video marketing, content creation and more, that can help you develop an audience. Once you have a large enough audience, you can make more educated decisions on your advertising buy’s, allowing you to proceed with more confidence.

Free SEO Guide and Checklist For Web Designers

When creating a new website for a client, you should optimize it for a couple of keywords to get them started becoming indexed in the search engines. Start at the beginning and do as much or as little as you’d like.

First…
Determine whether they’ve already purchased a URL. The URL is very important for a websites search ranking as it is the first indicator as to what a website’s content is about. If your client has not already purchased a website URL suggest a few to them that are keyword rich, but not spammy. If the client already has a URL purchased, you can still optimize the URL’s of the sub-pages.

Before you start optimizing think you should first plan a few things out. The first step in this SEO guide, develop a list of a few keywords that make up the core content of your website. Once you have this list you should single out a “core keyword” for each page. This core keyword should be included, or tried to be included, somehow in all of the areas mentioned below. For the purposes of this starter SEO guide, our sample core keyword will be “Fort Lauderdale Web Designer”.

Now That That’s Out Of The Way Take A Look At The Title
The page title should be concise, coherent, and keyword rich without exceeding 60-65 characters (with a very maximum of 70). The page titles shouldn’t be stuffed or fragmented, we find they work best as summary statements of the pages content. To use our sample “core keyword” in an example we could say “Fort Lauderdale Web Designers & Internet Marketers – Bricks & Mortar Creative”. This simply states what the page is about, ‘Fort Lauderdale Web Designers and Internet Marketers’.

You don’t have to use the business name, although clients typically like to see that, and you can be more detailed, as long as you maintain the character length restrictions.

Meta Keywords… Who Cares
Use them if you want. Leave them blank if you want to save the time. Just don’t skimp on the meta descriptions.

Meta Descriptions. Google’s Page Cliff Notes
The meta description is a ~160 character summary that should not only include the core keyword, but should properly and coherently convey the main idea of the web page. It can be one to two sentences long. Don’t stuff this full of keywords, make it spammy, or write it awkwardly or incoherently. Just clearly and concisely sum up the pages contents and include your core keyword.

At all costs, avoid using duplicate meta description content. Matt Cutt’s from Google has publicly said that it’s better to have no meta tag at all rather than a duplicate meta tag. More about that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4gr88oHb-k.

Heading Tags. When And Where To Use Them
Heading tags are great places to use not only your core keyword, but core keyword variants. Keyword variants of our core keyword would be “Fort Lauderdale Web Developer”, “Fort Lauderdale Magento Website Developer”, etc. Heading tags are signaled in your code with the h1, h2, h3, h4 and so on tags and are also useful for design because you can assign different styles to each heading style to vary headings throughout your site.

The h1 tag is the most important and should only be used once throughout the page. This tag can have any amount of text but if possible should include your core keyword. Try not to use too many words as this tag is meant for headings, not body content.

The h2 tag is also a strong indicator to spiders what a page is about, but can be used more often throughout a page. While it seems there is no real negative effect from taking a few liberties with lengths of content of h2 tags, you should never intentionally be spammy. That’s not cool.

The rest of the header tags are more valuable from a design and aesthetic standpoint than a search engine optimization standpoint, but then the more organized and easily digestible your content is, the more readers you will attract and the lower your bounce rate will become, which could have a positive effect on your search engine rankings, so always be as organized as possible.

Body Content & Content Links
Your page content is extremely important in how Google will rank your website. The more engaging, relative content you include the better. You should always aim for a minimum of 500 words in whatever your publishing, but for a highly optimized page, 750 would be even better.

Page content should be on topic, relevant, well written, and include your core keyword 3-5 times so as not to appear spammy, unless it would naturally occur more often. The more engaging you make the content, the more likely it is also to receive social share, which can have a very positive effect on search. This is more in regards to blog posts/articles/videos, but it applies to regular pages as well.

Throughout your body content, you should include links to other pages throughout your site with keyword rich anchor text. Anchor text is the text clicked that links to the other page, as this indicates what the link leads to. Don’t stuff the page with these, but use 3-5 in accordance to how much content you have.

Footer Text Links
The footer area of the website often goes under utilized by web designers, not realizing how appropriate is to not only store a full index of site links, but to store valuable anchor text in these site links. You can be as brief, or as detailed as you like with these links, but at the very least it gives you an opportunity to add keyword rich, text links on every single page of your site to your desired pages without appearing as spam.

Image Alt Tags
When you’re adding an image in, whether it’s hard coded or with a CMS, you should really add a keyword in the alt tag. This keyword should be a support keyword and you could rotate through a list of 6-8 on the images of your site. This won’t have a massive effect on your search results, but does help a bit with optimization.

Rich Snippets
Rich snippets allow Google to better understand, index, and deliver certain types of content that may be present on your site like products, articles, video, music and more as structured data. This helps show reviews, price ranges, songs, photos and more for a listing.

Not every SEO guide suggests rich snippets, and they can be optional. They can help Google index product and article information more accurately but it may be a more daunting task than it is worth for some. In that case, if you can figure out how to use them, or a plugin or extension that can help, then you may as well, and if not don’t worry about it.

Website Page Speed
Another thing often ignored when it comes to a websites search performance is the websites load time and web page performance. Properly configuring your websites database, servers, and code to most efficiently deliver the content is important to do regularly as Google considers this to be important in the consideration of search rankings.

You can test page speed with a number of website tools, but if you need any assistance just contact us.