There’s a new kind of web developer in town.

He (or she) could prove to be one of the most important members of your digital marketing team. That’s because he’s has taken the time to learn skills usually associated with a marketer instead of a programmer.

We call this new specialist a SEO Developer. Here’s a look at why you need him, how she can help you and where you can find a great SEO web developer.

What Is a SEO Developer?

Ten years ago, when you hired a web design firm to create a website for you, they had graphic designers on staff who could create the front end look and feel of your site. They also had back end developers who could program your site to complete the complex tasks associated with running your operations.

Once your site was built, you may have turned to your own in house marketing team or to an outside consultant to help you get your site noticed by people in the search engines. All too often, a search engine optimization (SEO) professionals would tell you they needed to change some of the things your web developer had just done, or request that you have that developer add things to improve your search visibility.

There’s a lot of overlap between the two roles. There’s also a lot of compromises that can and should be made between the two to arrive at a successful balance between performance optimization and search optimization. An SEO Developer has experience in both worlds and can make many of those decisions for you.

What an SEO Developer Does

There are three sides to a search engine optimization campaign. One focuses on offsite growth; building backlinks, social signals and engagement. Another focuses on the structure of the pages that make up your site and the content that is on them.

Our new SEO developer would work on the third side that focuses on sitewide and on page optimizations code changes. This has traditionally been known as the “technical” leg of SEO.

Because they are programmers as well as marketers, an SEO Developer can do the actual hands on work required to optimize your site. Here are some of the things they would or could actually touch:

• site structures
• sitemaps and robots.txt files
• url structures
• page load speeds (external javascript and css files as well as image compression)
• server side coding for 301 redirects
• canonical tags
• responsive web design coding
• social media cards and tagging
• schema markup

Don’t worry if you don’t know what half the terms on this list mean. There are dozens of online seo technical glossaries for marketers. You can also allow your SEO Developer to tell you which ones are most applicable to your site and should be prioritized.

Where to Find an SEO Web Developer?

There is actually a job description template for an SEO Developer your HR team can use to help you try to locate one of these specialists to hire. However, there aren’t too many of these specialists out there. Nor are there formal classes and degrees being offered in this area.

Your best bet is to do what you did 10 years ago to get a great website built. You should consider outsourcing these duties to a web design and development firm. You will save yourself a lot of time and money if you do. Here are ten more reasons why you should outsource this and all your web development needs.

Do you want your website on top of Google? Our team is here to help you!

Contact us today to see how The Web Ally can help your business succeed.

Contact Us

If there is one thing your business needs, it’s a website. Based on studies, current trends predict that over 51% of purchases will be made via mobile devices by 2021.

Maybe up until now, you’ve done well with your networks, circles of influence, social media, events and/or consulting. At the same time, you’ve known deep down inside there is a missing ingredient – a website. You want more free time to spend enjoying your life.

A website works for you 24 hours a day seven days a week and it doesn’t need to sleep as we do.

Connection, communication, consulting, cultivation of relationships are all possible with a business website. Let’s explore why there are more reasons than one as to why you need a business website.

The Missing Ingredient: Why You Need a Business Website

We’re sharing the most compelling reasons why you need a business website. We are also giving you helpful tips, tools, and technology to make it simple and easy for your business website to start and grow.

In today’s hyper-connected world, having no website could mean losing business. You and your team may have some insight into why you need a business website.

However, when is the last time that you took a deep dive into digital marketing, business websites, and the essentials for success in today’s online world? We are almost positive that a lot of what we share here will surprise you. Here are the basics of why you need a business website.

Start Simple

The basics of setting up your business website initially include a hosting site and website builders. There are many options out there for hosting solutions and business website builders and templates. There is no need to break the bank.

Some of the cheapest website builders you want to know are hosting and template options such as Wix and Squarespace. These website builders will help you start creating easily and effortlessly.

They are both simple to use even for a non-traditional website creator or designer. The beauty of it for the non-coders is that there is no coding required here. They offer user-friendly options at every turn.

They also offer incredible templates by themes, industries, and categories that allow you to simply input text, images, and videos. You will find yourself with your first website in no time.

Branding Enhancement

As the old saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. You may want to think of your website as your first impression because often times it is. A business website gives you a visual platform and digital location where you get to control what you present visually to people.

Your business website will include the theme you select, your colors, your bio, your writing, your testimonials, what you offer, FAQs, your location, and email to name a few parts that will help you enhance your brand and credibility.

Enhance Credibility

In today’s online world with increasing information at our fingertips, it is important to enhance credibility. By having a website, you automatically increase your credibility. Your business website provides information to help people learn about you.

One of the biggest fears people have is fear of the unknown. When you have a business website, it helps alleviate this for people. They may see information about your business, your biography, your blog, testimonials, where you are located, and more without even talking to you face to face.

Not only may you include information about you, but you may also easily add backlinks to press features, videos, and testimonials to help build your online presence.

Attract People

The primary reason you want a website is to attract people, create value, and engage people in a deeper relationship e.g calls to action and conversions. Did you know that over 81% of people will do research online before deciding to make a purchase? It gives a whole new meaning to “window shopping”.

That is why it is essential that you are clear on who you are, what you offer, and who your target market is. You also want to be sure you are communicating this clearly on your website.

The ability to attract people is increased when you know who your target market is. It is easier to position the information when you know who you are speaking to and what you are offering them. Think about what pain points you alleviate, what problems you solve, and what solutions you offer.

So, if you have a business website, you will attract new people, create a relationship, set yourself up to grow your business, and save time.

Save Time

Who doesn’t love to save time? Think about how much time you may currently spend on phone calls, networking events, and face to face meetings. Maybe you do an experiment this week or for the next month to track it? A website will give you the ability to dramatically reduce that especially with initial overviews, about, and FAQ sections.

You may want to think about what time you spend manually now on initial client information. You may also incorporate Google Forms as an intake process via your website via a button. You will also want to think about how your business adds value.

Add Value

The missing ingredient may be a business website, but you don’t want people to simply come to your website and bounce off within less than 30 seconds. You want to get people to your website and keep them there.

You get people’s attention by adding value. Let’s say you have a consulting firm. You may want to creatively express yourself, and your value by starting a blog and contributing to it regularly. You may want to tie themes on your blog to what you offer so it also increases credibility and shares value upfront.

If you have a blog, it will increase the know, like, it trust factor and keep people on your website longer. It will also make it likelier they will return. This then increases the probability of them working with you and spending money.

Get Social

People may find your website via Google, but that isn’t the only way. Another great way to add value and invite people to visit your website is via social media platforms.

This could be sharing short stories, posts, testimonials, sneak peeks, highlights, and behind the scenes on social media. Each Social Media platform offers different features, interactions, and demographics. If you aren’t on any platforms yet, you may want to outline a strategy and start with 1-2 platforms. Each social media platform also offers a way to integrate your link or website.

If you don’t integrate social media platforms with your website, and vice versa, you may be not only missing out on social proof but also on conversions. If you miss out on conversions, you miss out on more people, impact, and money. This could range from .5% to 8%+ on various platforms and search engines like Google.

Speaking of which, you may be curious about how to have your business website be Google friendly.

Google Friendly

With all the websites out there, how is it possible to get your business website on Google? For starters, you may be particularly interested in setting up SEO and/or improving SEO from the start to improve rankings on Google.

This includes everything from strategically outlining your content with themes, keywords connected to your target markets, blog posts with keywords, consistent content creation, credible backlinks, and tracking your metrics on Google.

You will want to track Google Analytics to improve the experience people have when they visit your site. Google Analytics offers extensive data at your fingertips to track on your business websites like users, sessions, bounce rates, session duration, traffic sources, goal setting, conversions, and more.

Did you know that the average person spends over 4 hours a day on their phones? You will also want to increase your exposure, visibility, and access via a mobile-friendly site.

Mobile Friendly

Perhaps you get to the point that you’ve set up your hosting, template, target market, and adding value. You will want to make sure your business website is mobile-friendly as well.

With people spending over 4 hours a day on their phones, it is likely their first impression of you may be via a mobile website first. You also don’t want to miss out on making the first impression a great one with your business website.

Lucky for you, to help make this simpler than you ever thought possible, Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress and other business website templates and tools often include easy adaptability process between the desktop and mobile website.

E-Mail Marketing

There is another compelling reason why you need a business website, and that is e-mail marketing. Maybe you are ready to connect with customers directly with personal messages. If so, email marketing may be next for you.

You may find it interesting and surprising that over 59% of Business to Business Marketers said e-mail is their best marketing channel for revenue generation. As a result, you definitely want to pay attention to this channel.

Email marketing works because you are connecting with people who already chose to connect with you on a deeper level by subscribing to your email list.

It is also a great way to keep people on your website engaged and offer more value. It is very simple to give them an invitation to opt-in to a freebie with even more value at the end of your blog post. This could be a free guide, webinar, whitepaper to name a few options. This then makes it easy to transition to e-commerce with online offers among others.

E-Commerce

The natural flow for your business website after e-mail marketing is e-commerce. This offers a deeper way for your community and clients to connect with you. This could be guides, online courses, and online sales for physical products to name a few options.

A great brainstorming session could be sitting down and writing down what blogs, guides, online courses, or physical items you could share and sell online to people.

Many businesses now start as solely an online business. They see the lower overhead as highly advantageous vs. investing in a brick and mortar. Some of those businesses never open a brick and mortar due to the ease and success now of solely e-commerce options.

The basics of what you will need will include an online storefront, shopping cart, and payment processor.

This will help your business with security, insights, sales, and return on investment. You will wonder how you ever survived without e-commerce with your business.

The Missing Ingredient: Why You Need a Business Website

You may see clearly now from every angle why you need a business website. It functions 24/7, attracts people to your business, saves you time, enhances credibility, increases exposure, offers digital options for sales, and more.

Imagine the connection, communication, and community that could form with time the more you apply this information. When you think about it, figuring out why you need a business website isn’t complicated. It’s simple.

You likely agree now that you need a business website, and it is the missing ingredient. However, what action will you take next? The importance lies in implementation. You will want to think about the next action item you will take and by when.

Don’t you owe it to your business to take this seriously? Don’t you owe it to yourself? Don’t let this simply be another blog post. Take action now.

Please comment what was your favorite tool and tip down below!

Check our blog for more on Digital Marketing, Website Insights, SEO, E-commerce, and more.

Do you need a Business Website?

Reach out to us today so we can build a website that will give your company the results it deserves.

Contact Us

You’ve worked hard to design your website, learned everything you can about your target market, and built your overall branding strategy.

However, if you don’t develop a strong SEO strategy, all of your efforts will be for nothing.

But what is SEO, and how does it work?

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.

In a nutshell, it means taking certain SEO tactics to make sure that your website ranks as high as possible in the search engine result pages (SERPs) for short. But it’s not only about getting on the first page of Google.

It also helps to get your website’s content — and the products and services you offer — in front of the people who are most likely to buy or book.

When you use a billboard ad, for example, you just hope that someone who happens to be interested in what you’re selling drives by. But in SEO? You’re directly targeting people who are actively looking for what you have.

This means more growth, higher rankings, and of course, bigger profits.

Read on to learn more about the top SEO tactics that you can implement today.

1. Focus on Website Speed

Many professionals don’t fully realize the influence that website design — and more than anything else, website speed — have on their search engine rankings.

If your website takes even longer than one second to load, users are going to click away from it. This increases your site’s bounce rate — and search engines take that to mean that either your website isn’t well-designed or that it doesn’t offer useful information to consumers.

This means your website will fall in the search engine rankings.

In addition to focusing on intuitive, clean website design, you also need to make loading speed a priority.

To do this, always enable browser caching, enable compression, and minify your HTML requests. You should also limit the number of website plugins you use. You may even decide to work with a content delivery network (CDN) to ensure that your site loads as quickly as possible.

2. Consider the Rise of Voice Search

By the end of 2020, roughly half of all searches will be conducted via voice.

This means that Siri, Alexa, and the Amazon Echo are your new best friends. It also means that you’ll have to adjust your keyword strategy to fit with this sudden rise in voice search.

Don’t worry — this essential SEO tactic is much easier than you think.

Focus on keywords that mimic the way people actually speak, not the way the type. For example, it’s pretty common for someone to type a phrase like “best shoe shops Malta” into a search engine. But no one would say that out loud.

Instead, try to adjust the keyword phrase to include “who, what, where, when, why, and how.” So, a voice search-optimized option of that same search query might be:

“What is the best shoe shop in Malta?”

Include that phrase and others like it in your written content, and you’ll have a much greater chance of being featured in the snippets. This means your content will actually be read out loud.

3. Rethink Your Definition of “Local”

It’s no secret that local SEO is one of the most important parts of your digital marketing plan as a whole.

But the definition of the word “local” — at least, as it relates to SEO — is changing.

It’s no longer “local” enough just to list the country, the city, or even the region where your business is located. Now, you need to choose keywords that include the names of other businesses near your location, local landmarks, your street name, and the name of your neighborhood.

This is known as “hyperlocalization,” and it’s absolutely the next big thing in the world of local SEO.

4. Claim Third-Party Business Listings

One of the top things you can do to boost your SEO strategy is to claim your third-party business listings.

These are things like Google My Business, TripAdvisor, Yelp, and even pages in an online community directory.

Countless consumers read reviews of your company before they decide to do business with you — and third-party listings allow consumers to write about their experience with working with your brand.

They also list your hours, nearby transportation options, accepted payment methods, and even include photos of your storefront.

5. Include Keywords in Headers and Titles

It’s not just about choosing the right keywords — it’s also about making sure that you put them in the right places on your website.

You should absolutely use keywords in your page and post titles. But make sure that you also use keywords in your headers.

Doing so won’t just give your site a boost in the rankings. It also breaks up your posts and pages, making them much easier for readers to digest.

Be honest: would you really interested in reading a wall of text?

We didn’t think so.

6. Create a Consistent Posting Schedule

If you want to understand how SEO works, you need to realize that search engines don’t just look at the keywords you use and the websites you link to.

They also look at the frequency with which you post.

Even just dashing out a quick blog post tells search engines that you’ve “updated” your website in some way. Search engines have been programmed to “think” that sites that have been recently updated will provide the most accurate and most up-to-date information to users.

So, sites that are marked as frequently updated or recently updated will rank higher in the search engine results.

We understand that it can be seriously tough to post every single day.

That’s why we strongly suggest creating a content calendar. Come up with blog content ideas, dedicate a weekend to writing them (or hire experts to do your content writing for you) and then post them throughout the month, not all at once.

While you’re doing this, also consider creating a social media posting schedule.

7. Always Optimize for Mobile Traffic

How does SEO work?

In today’s world, on a mobile-first scale.

Since more people now use mobile devices than desktop computers to access the Internet, search engines look at how well your website loads on things like tablets and smartphones to determining your ranking factor.

In short, how well your site loads on mobile devices is now more important than how well it loads on desktop computers.

To optimize your site for mobile, get rid of pop-ups and banner ads. Ensure that buttons are large enough to be clicked on mobile devices, and that your content loads quickly and completely on mobile.

You may even consider creating a mobile app for your brand, or at least enabling Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to improve the mobile user experience.

8. Include Google Maps

Google Maps is six times more popular than all other navigation apps combined.

In short?

Chances are pretty high that your target market is using Google Maps to help them find out the best way to get to your store from their current location.

That’s why it’s so important — especially when it comes to local SEO — to include a Google Map on every page of your website (the homepage alone isn’t enough.) This is also a great time to ensure that you have your contact information on every page of your website.

Visitors don’t want to have to comb through your entire site just to find your phone number or address.

9. Optimize Your URL

One of the top quick and easy ways you can boost your overall SEO score and get more targeted traffic to your website is by optimizing your URL.

We’re not just talking about your actual website address — though of course, that matters, too.

Instead, we mean including keyword phrases in your actual URL structure.

For example, let’s say the keyword phrase you wanted to target was “best dive shops in Malta.”

You’ve written a blog post ranking the top 5 dive shops in Malta, and you want to make sure those who are ready to book a dive ASAP see it.

Instead of just a URL address that’s a bunch of random letters and numbers, try a URL for the post like:

www.YourWebsite.com/blog/5-Best-Dive-Shops-in-Malta

This is an awesome way to get the right kind of traffic to your site and to increase your conversions (AKA, make more sales) in the process.

10. Include Links to Your Site on Social Media Profiles

Many people struggle to understand how SEO works with their brand’s social media profiles.

The best way to think about how your social media accounts direct traffic to your website, increasing your ranking as a result.

This is why it’s so important to include links to your website in your profile’s bio or even in specific posts.

Embrace the “shoppable posts” trend by allowing your followers to click on social media images directly to be sent to the page of your website where they can buy them.

Share blog posts on your Facebook account to encourage followers to read them on your blog.

Remember the power of dark social, too. If users share links you’ve posted on social media in messenger apps, email, or even through text messages, you’ll still get a boost to your overall SEO score — even if these shares are a bit harder to track.

11. Rethink Your Images

One of our easiest search ideas?

Optimize your images for SEO in every way. Begin by using one of your keywords as the image’s file name. Include keywords in a caption underneath or alongside the image, as well.

Use JPEG image files whenever possible, as they’ll still look great even when resized.

You also need to consider how the size of the image will impact your SEO score. Compress images to decrease their overall file size without compromising the quality of the pixels.

In general: just stay away from oversized images whenever possible. Usually, the picture doesn’t really need to be that big to get your point across.

These tips will also help you to understand how to optimize your images.

12. Never Stop Monitoring Your Site

Remember that popular SEO tactics — and even search engine algorithms — are constantly changing.

The same goes for the ways in which people search for things they need online.

To ensure that you’re keeping up with the times and that your current strategies are still effective, you need to constantly monitor your website.

Look at your most and least popular pages. Be aware of the average amount of time a user spends on your website. Check your site’s speed and mobile-friendliness by using tools like this one. Ensure that links are still functioning and that the keywords you’re trying to rank for are still the best options.

Remember, it’s not just about getting to the first page of search engines. It’s also about staying there.

Try These SEO Tactics and Watch Your Rankings Soar

This post has given you an excellent understanding of some of the most important SEO tactics you need to implement in order to outrank your competitors and make more sales.

But here’s the thing.

Most companies — regardless of size or industry — don’t actually have the time to implement all of these SEO strategies on their own. They have to make meetings, pitch clients, go to industry events, and create and test new products and services.

But even if they do have the time, they often don’t really have the expertise needed to succeed.

That’s where we come in.

We offer a wide variety of the top SEO services that you can’t afford to do without.

Reach out to us today to start creating an SEO and overall digital marketing plan that will give your company the results it deserves.

Contact Us

Which is more important: a website that makes human visitors happy or one that makes the search engines happy?

If you’re like most business people, you don’t really care. You just want a website that supports your business and makes you money.

Unfortunately, if this is the objective you’ve given your web designer for your new site or site redesign, your website may not do a great job at either supporting you or making you money.

The problem is that web development and SEO objectives can sometimes be at odds with one another. One team wants to just please people, while the other sees that many of these efforts to please people hurt your efforts to be found in the search engines.

Let’s take a look at where and why these conflicts occur. Then let’s talk about how you can get web dev and SEO teams working together to give you a truly “best at everything” website.

Web Design and Development Teams

Web design and development efforts are all aimed at making your site look and act a certain way. The web design team handles the front-end work that your visitors see.

Designers want your site to lure people in with a fresh and interactive look and feel. They want that smooth scrolling, single page site that looks great on a mobile device and cuts down on (or eliminates) all the clicking and page loading that can slow a visitor down.

Web Developers work in the backend code that supports these front end objectives. They make sure that all the functions of your site, like collecting email addresses from prospects and playing videos to handling sales orders all work perfectly. In addition, they make sure these functions all work perfectly with each other and with that nifty layout with the hidden, then exposed content.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Team

Years ago, search engine optimization experts referred to Google as a “blind five year old.” The search engine spiders could not see still images or video and navigated the web by touching and following links from one page to another.

Googlebot has progressed some with the growth of the Internet, but the spider still has trouble seeing and understanding some images, videos and codes. Textural content cues have become more important as the use of different media has grown.

Along the way, Google and BIng have made other adaptations to keep up with changing design trends that sometimes put SEO in direct conflict with designers.

For example, John Mueller, spokesperson for Google, said in January of 2018 that Google does see and index text that is “hidden” on a page and only revealed when a visitor clicks a tab or “read more” text. He also said that Google discounts the importance of this text because it is initially hidden.

Web Development and SEO Can Work Together

In order to avoid as many conflicts as possible, you want to get your web development and SEO teams talking with one another as early in the process of designing your new site as possible. Both these experts can then look at ways code and content can work together to please both audiences.

In our hidden text example above, this could mean changes are made to both code and content. The code could be rewritten to display the first three lines of the content on the page before a “read more” link needs to be triggered. The content can also be rewritten to ensure the most important keywords and thoughts appear in those first three lines.

Page load speeds, site structures, and url structures are just a few of the other areas where web dev and SEO compromises can have big benefits for your website’s performance. Here are even more ideas of how you can push your site to peak performance when these two work in harmony.

Do you want your website on top of Google? Our team is here to help you!

Contact us today to see how The Web Ally can help your business succeed.

Contact Us

So how do you budget for SEO services in Malta?

According to Internet Live stats Google averages over 69,000 searches per SECOND.

With billions of people searching on Google every single day – you know that your business in Malta can’t afford to miss out on such a huge number of potential visitors to your site.

Why top ranking is important.

You have a website, you’re online. Now here comes the tricky part – so are your competitors – and they are ranking higher than you are.

A recent article on Forbes explains that the further back you’re listing appears on Google, the less likely you are to receive clicks.

Back in 2014 Moz confirmed that the first page of Google’s results captured 71% of all traffic links. Today that’s reported to have increased up to a huge 92%. What it means is that second page results only count for about 8% of links and less.

And don’t include ads or searches into that either. Firstly, banner-blindness really is a thing, and secondly only a measly 15% of users ever bother to click on ads.

Wait for it. You can break it down even further.

Let’s look at the first 10 results on the first page. The top 5 get 67.7% of clicks – whereas the bottom 5 results – they only get 3.73%.

By this point you know you need get your business to rank high to start seeing some results.

But then there’s that ever-elusive question…

A question that hounds CEOs, CMOs and business owners across all types of industries.

What portion of your annual budget needs to be dedicated to SEO in Malta?

Here’s the deal.

If you’re reading this and expecting a simple figure – I’m sorry to disappoint you.  There isn’t a one size fits all answer.

It’s entirely dependent on the objectives that you have for your campaign or website, which influence the requirements, and therefore how much money to inject into SEO.

Let’s try this another way.

Have a look at where your competitors rank and then compare that to your own site’s position.

You might be happy and simply want to retain that position or you might be on a mission to rise-up the ranks and to do so quickly. In either case, it’s those two goals which greatly influence the overall spend you need to allocate.

So how much is that exactly?

First let’s manage a few expectations.

What is every other small to medium sized business spending on SEO in Malta?

Based on my contacts within the SEO field and from the requests I receive from companies looking for SEO services in Malta, most businesses think that a budget anywhere around €50 to €100 a month is enough.

And that’s only from those that even think of working SEO into their annual figures.

So, either they think SEO costs nothing and don’t need any budget for it. Or they think that anything over €100 budgeted towards SEO is too much.

This is an exact replica of what 71% of small businesses in America think as well. Putting aside a spend of less than $100 a month for SEO.

There’s a sort of strange assumption that their website will come out on top, even though they are not putting anything into it to make it happen.

The false promises, we just love to believe.

Fact is, small to medium sized business owners in Malta just don’t have the time to figure out how SEO works.

And even if they conduct a quick google search on ‘average costs for SEO’ and perhaps download a guide or two – next thing they know they’re being spammed with emails about SEO ‘miracle offers’.

‘Spend just €50 a month and watch your website get to the top’.

Sounds too good to be true right? Well – that’s because it is.

If only the universe worked that simply. Or that cheaply for that matter.

Let’s take a deeper look into the mind of the business owner.

Say this person considers an investment in SEO in Malta the equivalent of ordering a taxi for their company. I’m here (point G) and I want to get here (point A).

Why take a super-fast deluxe SUV with all the extras, when a smaller sedan, at a lower price, promises to do the same thing?

And SEO spammers know the demand. Offering SEO in Malta at a price that good, well it’s kind of hard to resist.

But please do.

Cheap SEO is more dangerous in the long run. (And possibly more expensive too).

Damage from poorly conducted and obtained SEO goes deep.

Here are a few of the worst culprits the SEO vultures like to use:

Duplicate content – if search engines already indexed your page, they won’t index another page with the same information.

Keyword stuffing – Let’s give you an example of this. ‘It’s important to correctly budget your SEO in Malta, because through budgeting for your SEO in Malta, you’ll know that your SEO in Malta will improve.’

Ugh.

1. You can’t read it. 2. Google bots will think you’re trying to trick their algorithm. (Which you are.)

Link schemes – This is a total violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. In summary they place external links through PBNs (private blog networks) without ever explaining how Google could come down hard and black list your site by doing this.

Black-hat SEO tactics could mean you end up with Google penalties, in turn effectively wiping out your sites visibility.

Dangerous games.

Can you imagine the cost of starting all over again?

Keep your focus

According to Google there are 200 ranking factors in their algorithms that influence your sites position on their search engine. It’s likely that there are many more.

Trying to ensure you tick all the boxes is exhausting.

Keep your focus down to four main areas.

1. Make sure your site is designed for your target audiences.

The key is here is attractive design, functional and easy to use navigation and features that really help your audiences find what they are looking for as quickly as possible.

Design thinking of the people who are accessing your site and how they would want to interact with it. Don’t design for yourself or your management team. Design for them and google will reward you for it.

If you’re concerned about design mistakes, check out this earlier post where we cover 10 of the most common design mistakes.

2. Make sure your site has great content architecture.

Let’s break this down into bite-size pieces. Make sure your site:

• Loads cleanly and is fully optimised for different devices.
• Has a fast page load-speed. You can test yours here.
• Follows Google Webmasters Guidelines for SEO best practices.
• Is fully accessible (i.e. crawlable) for search engines.

3. Good backlinks.

Natural is the name of the game when it comes to links. As opposed to paying someone to guest post on your site or using the big no-no’s via PBNs – natural, high quality links are the best way to optimise for SEO.

Have a quick look at these 5 effective strategies to get quality backlinks.

4. Content is king.

Did you know that Google hires over 10,000 people to conduct search quality rates, essentially evaluating its search results? These guys and gals have to refer to guidelines that are around 200 pages long. If you have the time and you really want to nail your content, try and adhere to the best practices listed or talk to an SEO specialist.

Specifically, you should look at:

• Making sure your content is of the highest quality possible.
• That your content specifically answers search queries.
• That it is unique to your site and offers your readers value.
• That it can satisfy user intent.

If you’re still feeling a little confused have a look at what we define as the three pillars of successful SEO.

Eye on the ball, always.

Before you start thinking costs, put your mind onto the objectives.  What goals you want to achieve from your activity and how you will measure success.

I like to follow SMART rules.

Here’s an example: ‘I want to increase organic traffic by 10% from October to December.’

S (Specific) – Don’t make your goals too vague. You want to increase traffic by 10% – it’s clear.

M (Measurable) – Make sure you can easily monitor your results. Stats via Google Analytics.

A (Actionable) – Don’t be too farfetched on your goals. It’s achievable.

R (Relevant) – Make sure your goal is in line with the activity your conducting. SEO activity.

T (Time-based) – Give the goal a timeframe so you can measure the difference within that time.

One of the most important metrics to measure is how your efforts have improved your business’ bottom line. A few outline goals that fall under that metric would be: looking for a specific percentage increase in your organic sessions, your conversions and how much your revenue has increased by.

There are loads of tools to help you monitor and measure the success of your SEO project.

And remember, be patient. Give your SEO time to work its magic.

And finally, we’re here – Budgeting for SEO in Malta.

(Quick hello to those of you that jumped right to the end of this blog! Don’t worry, we’ve all done it.)

Once you know your goals, you can determine your tools and strategy and, in turn, directly understand how to plot out your budget.

Truth be told the formula tends to be the same, especially if you centre on the four focus areas mentioned earlier – your site’s design, information architecture, content and backlink profile – all in relation to your competition.

Whilst the formula and process are the same, depending on your priorities (weakest area usually requiring the most investment of time), the volume is what tends to change.

The higher the budget, the more time spent on the focus areas, the faster the results.

The lower the budget, the less time is dedicated, the slower the process.

How much should you spend on SEO in Malta?

Some of the local firms offer trial-packages at low fees and without any contracts. So potential clients can test their services. This might be an option you want to consider.

If you’re trying to reach international audiences with a specific campaign and you’re competing against some large-scale players you’d easily be looking at around €2,500 to €5,000 a month.

Alternatively, you can turn to a company like ours where our recommendations usually start at around €300 to €500 a month.

There are alternatives – you might just want a one-time SEO audit of your site with a fixed cost that results in actionable recommendations. Fixing your site can mean you’ll see a lot more organic traffic.

SEO specialists also offer you one-time fees for content development and keyword analysis.

But we’re in Malta.

The argument has arisen from time to time that if your targeting a small audience like Malta, then the budget would be proportionately lower.

The facts are that competition, even for the Maltese market, has moved predominately online.

If a consumer knows your brand and wants your brand they’ll probably enter your company name and conduct a direct search – which is great.

But if they are unsure, or they have never heard of you, they are more likely to search for keywords like ‘best restaurant in Malta’ – which is where you want to be sure you come up on top. And that’s where elements like local SEO really kick in.

From Google My Business to location pages, to specific locally targeted content – optimised local SEO puts your brand on the search engine at exactly the point when your target market is searching. The benefits to increase hits and possible revenue are extensive. We’ll be talking about this in a separate blog soon.

On the other hand maybe, you’re targeting tourists who start their holiday searches well before they land in the country or even you’re considering expanding your product and services into the EU.

Again, it always comes down to your objectives and preparing your game plan to make it happen. Positioning yourself to be at the beginning of the race is always an advantage.

ROI Calculator – (Lifetime Value)

Do not look at a customer you obtain through online channels as a one-time client. Brands that are present online thrive on repeat business.

Have a look at the below cost calculator to work out some figures.

Happy customers. Happy you.

Change the terminology.

Instead of asking how much SEO costs, or how much you should budget towards it – ask yourself how much you want to invest in SEO – because with a measurable ROI for SEO, the proof is there.

It’s not as immediate as a PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign, but it will yield far better results in the long run. And it will give your brand a stronger digital footprint.

Great SEO includes all elements of technical SEO, content development and marketing, as well as link building.

It will take time, but who doesn’t want to be first in anything they do?

Let us know if you’d like to get your business to the top of Google.

Do you want your website on top of Google? Our team is here to help you!

Contact us today to see how The Web Ally can help your business succeed.

Contact Us

When you look at the state of the internet, you’ll notice everybody is talking about mobile-friendly. Why is that?

With 80% of internet users owning a smartphone (and most of them using them religiously every day) the majority of users are accessing the world wide web from their pockets.

Chances are, you’re even viewing this article on a mobile device right now. This means that your small business website needs to be not only compatible with mobile devices but optimized for them. This can leave a lot of small business owners concerned.

It was difficult enough to get your website set up in the first place but fear not. There are a huge host of different reasons why your website should be mobile friendly and this article will take you through them, one by one.

8 Reasons Why Your Small Business Website Should Be Mobile Friendly

To help you see the importance of getting your website optimized and mobile friendly, we have put together this list. Understanding the importance of every reason will be key to seeing the success of updating your website.

1. Mobilegeddon is Upon Us

In 2015 Google released one of the most important updates for mobile-use to date. Lovingly dubbed ‘Mobilegeddon’ it boiled down to the one really important point, mobile was here to stay.

When Google gets behind something, you know they mean business and simply put websites that weren’t mobile friendly would no longer perform well in Google’s mobile search.

It may even go as far to mean that if you don’t have a mobile site at all, you’ll no doubt fail to rank completely. Google is the biggest name in the game, and this fact alone should be driving you to change.

2. Mobile Usage Drives Consumer Behaviour

Internet trends online will tell you that mobile usage is driving expanded web access to customers. With 75% of adults owning 2 or more devices that connect to the internet, more and more people are changing their behavior.

Digital marketing trends change all the time and don’t forget that 60% of people are using their mobile devices exclusively to make buying decisions, no desktop or laptop involved. Relying on your mobile across a buying process has become an integral part of the customer journey. You should consider this for your small business website.

3. Mobile Drives Local Search

You can’t deny the fact that search is becoming more and more mobile.

• Over 60% of all searches now take place on a mobile
• Around 80% of nearby searches happen on mobile
• Location-based ‘near me’ searches have grown by 33x in four years
• 88% of mobile users look for local information on their devices

Mobile users have increasingly begun looking for local information about businesses, integrating with apps like Google maps. Search engines like Google want to give their users the best experience, and won’t be ranking you highly if you don’t give a great mobile user experience.

4. Mobile Online Shopping Is Rising

Most websites are looking to sell something, a product, a service or a brand. Your small business website is probably no different.

To tap into your mobile buyers, you should optimize your website for mobile use.

This will help you to convert any mobile viewers into buyers of your product offering or service. Shopify explains that over 50% of all E-commerce sales are coming from mobile devices.

5. Non-Responsive Sites Load Slowly on Mobile

I’m sure you’ve left a website before because it doesn’t load fast enough. It’s a well-known fact that if your website isn’t optimized for mobile, it’ll slow right down.

This is because the website will try to load all of your full page content the same as it would on a desktop browser. You would like your website to ideally load with 1-2 seconds of a mobile user accessing your site to avoid them swiping away.

6. Mobile Usage Is Still on The Rise

As we continue to see more mobile adoption throughout the world and more people begin optimizing their sites and content for mobile, you will continue to see the rise of mobile grow.

As more people adopt these devices and usage become more portable, many people will begin to convert their habits. With smartphones now being powerful enough to video edit, photo edit and master tasks thought before impossible we are seeing peoples behaviors shifting completely.

Desktop usage is still here and will continue to remain, but you cannot ignore the rise of mobile use and you certainly need to prepare for it.

7. Social Media Traffic

Attention is the biggest commodity online. Social media has everybody’s attention right now. All through the world people are swiping and scrolling through social media content all day and all night.

Understanding that social media is an incredible source of traffic is one part of the trick. What you need to do is optimize the content of your website so that when you attract people away from social media to view your content, it doesn’t have them retreating to the safety of Facebook.

We see news style outlets on Facebook do this all the time, with click-bait style articles that people click and read. But crucially they stick around to read those articles because they are mobile friendly.

8. Your Competition is Probably Already Mobile Friendly

This is probably the hardest point to accept but also the most important. If you haven’t already begun optimizing your website for mobile users you can guarantee you are behind the times are your competition is.

As a business, it’s never been more important for you to optimize your content for so many reasons from:

• User experience
• The buying process
• To get your buyers returning
• To convert leads into customers

If you don’t have your small business website user-friendly already, you are going to be losing out on big advantages that your competitors could be taking away from you.

Not to mention you could also be improving your existing customer’s user experience, and with that leading to higher sales.

Don’t Let Your Small Business Website Fall Behind

It’s easy just to make no changes. However, making no change could be a huge mistake in making sure you are maximizing your potential in the world of online business.

For help in getting your website optimized for mobile, get in touch today.

Is your website Mobile Friendly? Our team is here to help you!

Contact us today to see how The Web Ally can help your business succeed.

Contact Us

You’re no search engine optimisation expert, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn all you can about SEO. In fact, it’s your prerogative as a business owner.

Without this knowledge, you can end up engaging a strategy that goes against Google’s best practices. And we all know what happens at this point – de-ranking and penalization.Two things you definitely don’t want to happen to your site.

To help ensure this doesn’t happen to you, we put together a guide that will help you become more of a search engine optimisation expert.

Let’s jump right in.

Get Acquainted with Some SEO Notables

At the beginning of your journey to learning everything SEO, you’ll feel a bit overwhelmed. There’s a large learning curve, but nothing any business owner can’t handle with a little perseverance.

But what will definitely help make things a breeze is to follow two or more SEO “gurus.” This will help ensure you’re getting the latest and greatest tips in the industry.

It’ll also give you a network to bounce ideas and questions off of. Some SEO communities are very warm and welcoming and willing to answer any and all of your questions. It’ll be helpful when you run into confusing jargon and concepts.

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites are a great place to find and connect with a search engine optimisation expert or two.

Now, let’s get into some of the leading tips you may hear from these experts.

Begin Learning Some HTML

It’d be great if you could learn a programming language like Java and MySQL, but there’s really no need to. At least, not if you’re just focusing on becoming a search engine optimisation expert.

HTML is the language you’ll use in most cases to optimise your site. For instance, you’ll need to have keywords inside of your meta tags, descriptions, title, subheadings, and images. WordPress makes the process easier, so if you’re not familiar with HTML, you can still get the job done.

Plus, it’s a great way to learn the different HTML tags until you can memorize them.

Stay Up-to-Date with the Latest Google Algorithm Changes

Now, this is one way you can keep yourself out of trouble. Besides following a search engine optimisation expert, you can do your own legwork to see what changes are being made to Google’s algorithms.

You can easily find this on the leading optimisation blogs, like SEMRush or Moz. Don’t expect to get much out of Google themselves because they like to keep these changes hush-hush. However, the experts that follow these changes closely will be able to analyze and identify them based on what happens to their own sites.

This is what happened when the Google Panda and Penguin updates rolled out. The low-quality, keyword-stuffed content got hit the most. You simply look at what’s helping or hurting your site, then make the necessary changes to appease Google and its search engine bots.

Become a Niche Search Engine Optimisation Expert

While knowing any and everything about SEO is great, most business owners don’t have the time or dedication to learn it all. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t become a niche search engine optimisation expert.

In this case, you’re well-versed in a key area of optimisation, such as inbound marketing, content marketing, or technical SEO.

Maybe you excel in choosing the best keywords and crafting content that draws the attention of your audience. This is just as important – if not more important – than having a little bit of knowledge about every SEO niche.

Whatever you’re not good at, you can outsource to an expert that is. The way to get good at a niche is to practice at it. Split test your campaigns to see if you can figure out which keywords and ad copy generate the best results.

Becoming acquainted with this knowledge doesn’t mean you have to always do it yourself. You can still hire an SEO professional to help you. This way, you have meaningful conversations with the expert on your campaign.

This is a problem many business owners have – not understanding what their digital marketing team is talking about.

Track Everything with Google Analytics

Having the right tools to monitor your SEO campaigns is key to understanding what’s working and what’s not. Google Analytics can track every aspect of your digital marketing campaigns.

This includes your ads, landing pages, website, blog posts, social media posts and online video. Google Analytics tracks all sorts of metrics, such as traffic, follows, comments, clicks, purchases, subscriptions and so on.

It’s important to tag all of your campaigns for Google Analytics so it can track them. For instance, your email campaign, PPC ads, social media posts, blog content and so on.

Just don’t get caught up in the vanity metrics. Any search engine optimisation expert will tell you that these are worthless. It really doesn’t matter how much traffic and engagement you get.

It’s all about the conversions – sales, subscriptions, and downloads. These are the goals you should set for your Google Analytics campaigns so you can determine if all your hard work is actually paying off. Otherwise, you’re just drawing in boatloads of traffic from the wrong audience.

Perform Regular SEO Audits

As you already know, Google algorithms are always changing. But even when you know what trends are working, it doesn’t mean your strategy is guaranteed to work.

So every so often, it’s a good idea to perform an SEO audit on your website. This includes onsite, offsite and technical SEO. All aspects need analyzing to determine if your site is performing optimally.

You can get a checklist to do the audit yourself or you can hire a search engine optimisation expert to do it for you.

Optimise Your Content for Your Audience

When you get into the world of SEO, you run the risk of becoming too robotic and analytical. It’s very important that your approach maintains a human touch. Otherwise, you will potentially turn off your intended audience.

With that in mind, it’s critical to ensure all of your content – whether on your website, blog or social media accounts – are crafted with your audience in mind. It’s very easy to get caught up in the numbers and algorithms and forget you’re writing for actual people, not just search engines.

Marketers and businesses that put Google bots before their audience will lose every time. The key to your success is appeasing your target customer. If they don’t like your content, then it will eventually hurt your ranking.

One way to learn more about the needs and desires of your audience is to connect with them. What better place to do that than on social media? Here, you can open up a two-way dialogue with your potential customers.

See what conversations they’re having and try to drive some conversations to learn more about their pain points. Create topics around the information you gather.

Don’t Forget About External Links

Your link profile is a key factor in helping to boost your SEO ranking. You’ll need to carefully build up your backlinks, so that they help, not destroy your SEO strategy.

In your website and blog content, you want to try to link to one to three external links that are directly related to the topic and/or industry.

The key is to include links that your audience will find helpful without drawing them to competitor sites. As always, it’s about your audience just as much as it is about search engine robots.

Then to help get more quality sites linking back to your site, you’ll need to do some outreach. Hopefully, you’ve connected with one or more businesses in your industry that aren’t competitors.

Building strong relationships with them will make it so you can reciprocate favors. For instance, writing a guest blog post for their site that links back to your own website. Or you can have them guest write for your site to help draw in some of their traffic.

Whatever you do, avoid getting backlinks from low-quality websites. If you have too many of these, it can really hurt your ranking in the search engines.

The key to making your content link-worthy is to ensure it’s highly-relevant and packed with great information.

Don’t Overlook Your Online Reputation

The power of online branding is very intense in this age of information. We’re all connected to the world wide web, which means you’re brand reputation is on the line. Before most consumers will buy from a brand, they will look them up on Google.

If the reviews that show up aren’t flattering, then it can really hurt your chances of converting prospects. The key is to focus on pleasing your customers the best way you know how then soliciting them to leave reviews for your business.

Then when you see poor reviews online, you can save face by reaching out to the disgruntled customer to see if you can fix the problem. In doing so, it shows that your brand cares and goes over and beyond to satisfy each customer.

Find a Reputable Search Engine Optimisation Expert

Sometimes, you need a little expert help with your digital marketing strategies. In this case, you should enlist the services of an agency with a proven background and experience in the industry.

At The Web Ally, we are proving our skills every day. We work together with businesses across all industries with enhancing their online presence.

Whether you’re looking to grow your traffic, boost your sales or engage with more users, we can help. Our services consist of content marketing, PPC marketing, SEO, mobile marketing, website design and more.

Contact us today to see how we can get started making your digital marketing strategies a success.

Do you need help with SEO? Our team is here to help you!

Contact us today to see how The Web Ally can help your business succeed.

Contact Us