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Accessibility, Performance, Best Practices and SEO when building a wordpress website

Accessibility, Performance, Best Practices and SEO when building a wordpress website

by | Jan 27, 2024 | Best Practices, Search Engine Optimization, Website Accessibility

Introduction

When it comes to building a website, there are several key criteria that must be considered to ensure its success. In this article, we will explore the four essential criteria that every website developer should focus on: Accessibility, Performance, Best Practices, and SEO. By keeping these factors in mind, you can create a website that not only looks great but also functions flawlessly and attracts the right audience.

Accessibility: Making Your Website Inclusive

Accessibility is all about making your website usable for all users, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. It is crucial to ensure that your website is accessible to everyone, including those with visual impairments, hearing impairments, motor disabilities, or cognitive impairments.

Our team follows the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure that your website meets the necessary standards. We pay attention to factors such as color contrast, keyboard accessibility, alternative text for images, and proper heading structure. By prioritizing accessibility, we aim to create an inclusive online experience for all users.

Here are some key accessibility considerations when building a WordPress website:

  • Use proper heading structure to provide a clear hierarchy of content.
  • Include alternative text for images to provide context for visually impaired users.
  • Ensure that color contrast is sufficient for users with visual impairments.
  • Make sure that your website is keyboard accessible for users who cannot use a mouse.
  • Provide captions and transcripts for audio and video content.

Performance: The Need for Speed

Website performance plays a crucial role in user experience and can greatly impact the success of your WordPress website. A slow-loading website can frustrate users and lead to high bounce rates. To address this, we utilize premium plugins such as WP Rocket to optimize your website’s performance.

Here are some tips to optimize the performance of your WordPress website:

  • Optimize images by compressing them without compromising quality.
  • Minify CSS and JavaScript files to reduce file sizes and improve loading speed.
  • Utilize caching plugins to store static versions of your website and reduce server load.
  • Enable Gzip compression to reduce file sizes and improve loading speed.
  • Choose a reliable hosting provider that offers fast server response times.

Best Practices: Building with Quality in Mind

Following best practices when building a WordPress website ensures that your website is well-structured, secure, and easy to maintain. Here are some essential best practices to consider:

  • Keep your WordPress core, themes, and plugins up to date to ensure security and compatibility.
  • Use a child theme to make customizations without modifying the parent theme.
  • Organize your content with categories and tags for better navigation and SEO.
  • Implement a backup solution to protect your website from data loss.
  • Regularly monitor and optimize your website’s performance.

SEO: Getting Found in the Digital Jungle

SEO is crucial for driving organic traffic to your WordPress website. Optimizing your website for search engines can help improve its visibility and rank higher in search engine results.

We utilize Google Development Tools to analyze and optimize your website’s performance in search engine rankings. By conducting keyword research, optimizing meta tags, improving site structure, and creating high-quality content, we can help your website rank higher in search engine results.

Here are some SEO tips for your WordPress website:

  • Research and target relevant keywords for your content.
  • Optimize your page titles, meta descriptions, and URLs with targeted keywords.
  • Create high-quality and engaging content that provides value to your audience.
  • Optimize your images with descriptive file names and alt tags.
  • Build high-quality backlinks from reputable websites.

By implementing these accessibility, performance, best practices, and SEO strategies, you can create a WordPress website that not only looks great but also provides an excellent user experience, performs well, and ranks higher in search engine results. Remember, building a successful website requires ongoing maintenance and optimization, so make sure to regularly review and update your website to stay ahead of the competition.

Contact 360 Web Firm for your website Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices and SEO.

The Importance of Keeping Your Website Content Updated

The Importance of Keeping Your Website Content Updated

by | Jan 4, 2024 | Best Practices, Search Engine Optimization, Website Content

Getting more engagement and traffic from updating your content and creating and maintaining a blog. Here are Two articles in one to help you.

Having a website is essential for any business or individual looking to establish an online presence. However, simply having a website is not enough. In order to attract and retain visitors, it is crucial to keep your website content updated and regularly add new content, such as blog posts.

Adding blog post to your website to increase your website traffic and keep content fresh and updated

Adding blog post to your website to increase your website traffic and keep content fresh and updated

The Importance of Keeping Your Website Content Updated

1. Improved Search Engine Rankings

One of the main reasons to keep your website content updated is to improve your search engine rankings. Search engines like Google prioritize websites that provide fresh and relevant content. By regularly updating your website with new content, you signal to search engines that your website is active and worthy of higher rankings.

Additionally, adding new blog posts allows you to target specific keywords and phrases related to your industry or niche. This can help improve your website’s visibility in search engine results and attract more organic traffic.

2. Increased User Engagement

When visitors come to your website and find outdated content or a lack of new information, they may quickly lose interest and leave. On the other hand, regularly updating your website with fresh content keeps visitors engaged and encourages them to explore further.

By adding new blog posts, you provide valuable and informative content that can educate, entertain, or inspire your audience. This not only keeps visitors on your website for longer periods of time but also encourages them to return in the future.

3. Establishing Authority and Expertise

Adding new blog posts allows you to share your knowledge and experiences with others, positioning yourself or your business as an authority in your industry. By consistently providing valuable and well-researched content, you can build trust with your audience and establish yourself as an expert.

When visitors see that you regularly update your website with insightful blog posts, they are more likely to view you as a credible source of information. This can lead to increased brand loyalty, customer trust, and even potential partnerships or collaborations.

4. Increased Social Media Engagement

When you regularly add new content to your website, such as blog posts, you have more material to share on your social media platforms. This can help drive traffic back to your website and increase engagement on your social media channels.

By sharing your blog posts on social media, you can attract new visitors who may not have discovered your website otherwise. Additionally, engaging with your audience on social media through discussions and comments on your blog posts can help foster a sense of community and further establish your online presence.

5. Keeping Up with Industry Trends

The online landscape is constantly evolving, and new trends, technologies, and ideas emerge regularly. By regularly updating your website content and adding new blog posts, you can stay current with industry trends and provide your audience with the latest information.

Keeping up with industry trends not only helps you stay relevant but also positions you as a forward-thinking and knowledgeable resource. This can attract a wider audience and help you maintain a competitive edge in your industry.

Why Create a Blog with Posts on Your Website and Share Those Posts on Social Media

Creating a blog on your website and sharing the posts on social media can have numerous benefits for your online presence and business. In this digital age, having a blog has become an essential tool for businesses and individuals alike. Let’s explore why creating a blog with posts on your website and sharing those posts on social media is so important.

1. Establishing Expertise and Authority

By regularly publishing informative and valuable content on your blog, you can establish yourself or your business as an expert in your field. Sharing these posts on social media platforms allows you to reach a wider audience and showcase your knowledge. This helps build trust and credibility among your target audience and potential customers.

2. Increasing Website Traffic

Creating a blog and regularly updating it with fresh content gives people a reason to visit your website. When you share your blog posts on social media, you attract more visitors to your website, increasing your overall website traffic. This increased traffic can lead to more opportunities for engagement, conversions, and sales.

3. Improving Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Blogging is an effective way to improve your website’s search engine optimization. By creating keyword-rich content and regularly updating your blog, you increase the chances of your website appearing in search engine results. When you share your blog posts on social media, you also increase the chances of others linking to your content, which further boosts your SEO efforts.

4. Engaging with Your Audience

A blog provides an excellent platform for engaging with your audience. By allowing comments on your blog posts, you can encourage discussions, answer questions, and gain valuable feedback. Sharing your blog posts on social media platforms opens up even more avenues for interaction, as people can like, share, and comment on your posts, thereby increasing engagement and building a community around your brand.

5. Building Brand Awareness

Consistently sharing your blog posts on social media helps increase your brand’s visibility. When people see your posts on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, they become familiar with your brand and what you have to offer. Over time, this brand awareness can lead to increased brand recognition, loyalty, and ultimately, more business opportunities.

6. Generating Leads and Conversions

A well-crafted blog post can serve as a lead generation tool. By providing valuable content, you can capture the interest of potential customers and encourage them to take action. Including call-to-action buttons or links within your blog posts can direct readers to relevant landing pages or product pages, increasing the chances of conversions and sales.

7. Staying Relevant and Competitive

In today’s fast-paced digital world, staying relevant and competitive is crucial. Creating a blog and sharing posts on social media allows you to keep up with industry trends, share insights, and showcase your unique perspective. This helps you stay ahead of the curve and positions you as a thought leader in your field.

In conclusion, keeping your website content updated and adding new blog posts is crucial for various reasons. It improves your search engine rankings, increases user engagement, establishes authority and expertise, boosts social media engagement, and helps you keep up with industry trends. By investing time and effort into regularly updating your website, you can reap the benefits of a thriving online presence.

Creating a blog with posts on your website and sharing those posts on social media is a powerful strategy for establishing expertise, increasing website traffic, improving SEO, engaging with your audience, building brand awareness, generating leads, and staying relevant and competitive. By leveraging the combined power of a blog and social media, you can enhance your online presence, reach a wider audience, and achieve your business goals.

Basic SEO Must Be Done First On Your Website

Basic SEO Must Be Done First On Your Website

by | Dec 27, 2018 | Search Engine Optimization

Get the basic Search Engine Optimization done first.

Every website created should have the basic SEO done in order to stand a fighting chance in the search engines like Google and Bing.

I call this Static SEO ( Search Engine Optimization )

What is SEO –  Search Engine Optimization is a way to improve the visibility of your website pages in search engines like Google and Bing. The reason we do SEO is to drive FREE traffic to a site that converts into sales of goods and services. This is normally called generic traffic, being found in Google and/or Bing without paying for advertising.

At times we concentrate on so many things to improve our website traffic and stats. These things might be Social media, advertising, promoting and marketing. We might use Google Ad Words or Facebook ads to get traffic for potential sales. These are all great things to do for your business website, but we neglect the most important thing, the basic SEO on our website.  The basic SEO should be the most important thing to start off with.

I wanted to create this article in order to help small businesses start off on the right foot for SEO.  This article is created from years of experience and from happy clients who have gained more exposure, traffic, and sales.

I have broken down the steps I do in order to perform the basic Search Engine optimization on my clients websites.

Please note *** – These steps are what 360 Web Firm does and what we believe in. We are sharing these with you as a courtesy. If you decide to use any sugesstion in this Article, you are 100% responsible for any issues that may happen. Please ALWAYS take a complete backup of your website files and database before doing any major changes or updates to it.

  1. Create a website using a CMS ( content management system ).
  2. Utilize a SSL for complete website.
  3. Use keywords or phrases on each page and make content unique.
  4. Set up Meta tags and Header text on a per page basis.
  5. Images used on website should be optimized and have Alt tags.
  6. Make sure website content is Optimized and website is fast loading.
  7. Create a sitemap for Google and Bing.
  8. Create a Google and Bing webmasters account. Add pages to Google and Bing
  9. Create a Google my business page.
  10. What to do after Static SEO has been done.

Create a website using a Content Management System like WordPress

You can use anything you want to build your website and you can still do all the SEO you need. However, I use WordPress for most of my websites because it is widely used and is considered the #1 CMS in the world. Using WordPress also gives you benefits of adding plugins and performing SEO tasks relatively easy.

The first thing you need to do is to find a good WordPress theme that is not too heavy and will load fast. This also has to work with several plugins we need to make the site go faster and for integration of Google and Bing scripts such as analytics and webmasters tools.

Utilize a SSL for complete website.

It is a good practice to make your website more secure by using a SSL certificate. It is also widely known that Google recommends all websites now to use a SSL, even if its not an ecommerec store. If you have two exact same websites and one has a SSl and the other does not, Google will rank the one with the SSL much higher than the one without.

A SSl will make your visitors feel more secure and they might take more action on your website. Therefore, having a SSl is a must for all websites and to better increase your SEO stats and chances with Google and Bing.

Use keywords or phrases on each page and make content unique.

All pages within your website should be set up with their own unique keywords and/or phrases. This allows all your pages to have the ability to be found in the search engines. Over all, this will give your complete website more exposure. Once they are on any page within your website, they have the ability to click on any menu items such as your homepage.

Lets say for instance you have two pages. One page is search engine optimization, while the other page is website design. The search engine optimization page should have keywords and/or phrases that you would like to be found in google for that page. Examples might be: Search engine, visibility, traffic and so on. The website design page might have: website services, web development and website packages.

Each page on your website should be unique with content and have several of your main keywords within the content,  Meta Tags and headers like the H1, H2, and H3 headers.

Spend a lot of time on each page to utilize keywords within that page. The page title itself should have one of your main keywords in it.

Set up Meta tags and Header text on a per page basis.

meta-tags-view

Meta tags are snippets of text that describe a certain page’s content. These tags are added via a plugin or directly on a static web page. They are not shown on the front end of the website, but only on the backend or code part of the website. These tags are read by search engines like Google and Bing and are displayed in search results like the example above. Each page should have different Meta title and Meta description tags. These tags should have in them your Keywords and/or phrases you created for that particular page. A good tool to use in WordPress for setting up Meta Tags is Yoast.

Headers such as H1, H2, and H3 are used as headers for content or titles for content. Please note that you should ONLY use one H1 header at the top of each page. These headers are just what they sound like, headers or titles of a section, article, feed or anything else that should utilize a heading. Again, these should use your Keywords and/or phrases for that page only.

Look at the top of this section, I have “Set up Meta tags and Header text on a per page basis.” This is a H3 header I have used to separate each section or topic.

H1 should use your page keywords and /or phrases, while H2 and H3 should be used for each section or titles on that page.

Images used on website should be optimized and have Alt tags.

All your images you add to your website should be optimized at a certain size for speed. Your images should also be clear and understandable for what message you are trying to show your readers. Once the above is done, your images should then be set up to use a proper Title and also a description (Alt ) attribute for screen readers and visual impaired people.

 

  • Optimize image for speed of your web page. Optimizing your website images is a process of showing the high-quality images in the right size, and resolution while keeping the smallest possible size the website will load suich as in a mobile view. Say for instance the website uses small size for that image on a desktop because the content is in a column. When you switch to mobile, the image now uses 1 column and is twice the size. The higest size that image gets, is the size you need to use for your website. Using images that are smaller and then get bigger on your website will distort the quality of the image. Alwasy use images are high quality and at correct size.  Example – If you upload an image that is 2MB in size which comes to like 5000 pixels wide by 5000 pixels height, your website will on average only use 800 pixels wide by 800 pixels height. Even though your website uses a smaller size, it will still load the 5000 px by 5000 px image each time the page loads and this will SLOW your website down. Crop the image to the largest size the webiste will use first before uploading it. You could also use a plugin that woudl help out. I receommend using the plugin Smush Image Compression and Optimization.
  • Always use an image that is revelant to the content you are using it for. Example – If you have an article on swimming pools, make sure you use an image that is related to this.
  • Set up a description or alt attribute and an image title for each image you add to your website. if you are using a CMS like wordpress, this is very easy to do which each image.  Alt – Specifies an alternate text for an image. This text appears inside the image container when the image can not be displayed for some reason. It also helps screen readers describe the image to visually impaired people. Title – is used to provide a title for your image.

Make sure website content is Optimized and website is fast loading.

There is a few steps to optimizing your website for speed and performance. The below is taking into account that your images have already been optimized.

 

  • Utimize a cache plugin. WP Rocket is the most popular premium caching plugin for WordPress. This is what 360 Web Firm uses on our website. It is easy to use and implament. This is a paid plugin, but you are can use a free plugin for caching your website. Caching is a way to speed up a website and also give the website better performance.

 

  • Enable GZIP – Gzip is a method of compressing files (making them smaller) for faster transfers from server to browser.

 

  • Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) – To make your website load faster, a CDN minimizes the distance between your server where the website files are located to the browser where the visitor is loading your website. It stores multiple cached content from your website in several locations to allow for the files to come together quicker to be viewable by your vistors. Basically, it delievers the content from your website much faster.

 

  • Hosting – This is very important because your website needs to load fast and having a web hosting account that is fast will help improve the speed of delivery to your visitors. I recommend a VPS hosting account. A shared hosting can really bog down your website and make it load slow. Shared hosting resources are normally shared with other people on the same block and if one is using too much resources, it will slow your website down. I use a VPS server for all my clients.

Here are a few links to check the speed and performance of your website. These sites are what we use for testing purposes.

 

Create a sitemap for Google and Bing

Creating a sitemap for your website is very important.  When you craete a sitemap, you then go into Google and Bing to add these sitemaps. XML Sitemaps are important for SEO because they make it easier for Google and Bing to find your site’s pages. This is important because Google and Bing ranks your pages, not just your website.

For creating a sitemap, we use a few tools. Here is what 360 Web Firm uses for our sitemaps. Please note that creating a Webmasters Account will be discussed below.

 

  • XML – Sitemaps – Just create and then go into your Google Webmasters tools and uplaod the sitemap. Do this also for BING Webmasters tools.

 

  • Yoast Sitemaps – This is also easy to do once you install the Yoast plugin. You then Just create and then go into your Google Webmasters tools and uplaod the sitemap. Do this also for BING Webmasters tools.

Create Webmasters Account Google and Bing and submit all your website pages

Creating a Google and Bing webmsters account will allow you to submit your web pages directly for indexing. It will also allow you to submit sitemaps as well. This account will show you what has been indexed and what is missing or if you have any crawl errors.  You can also use this account to request pages ot be removed from Google or Bing. Its free and easy to set up and manage. It allows webmasters to check indexing status and optimize visibility of their websites.

 

Create A Google My Business Page

You should always create a Google My Business page for better search results. This will allow people to view your business, read or leave comments and reviews, and allow people to view images of your work. The Google My Business also has a quick map address, phone and link to your website. This shows up on the RIGHT side of search engines and also the top three on the LEFT of the search results. ( see images below ).

Its easy to set up. You need to add your business with Google and then verify by waiting for a post card with a code to come in the mail. Google wants to make sure you are a legit business with a legit address.

Google My Business is a FREE tool from Google and this will help you gain much more exposure for your business.

Create Google My Business Page now

google business-two

 

google business-one

Whats Next?

In order to continue your SEO on your website and for your business, you should consider some of the following:

 

  • Run a BLOG on your website to talk about your services or your products.
  • Be active with Social Media. Add your blog articles you created above to your social media sites. Get a huge audience for your social media. Get Facebook likes, Google +, Twitter Likes, Get reviews and so on.
  • Keep your websites content up-to-date and on a regular basis.
  • Add your testimonials to your website.
  • Runs ads in newspapers, radio and even the television.
  • Run ads with Google and Bing.