Christmas time is a really busy period for everyone and with so much to do I have come up with a list of my favourite 13 Social Media and SEO tips that are really easy and quick to implement so you can have a great 2014. Some of them will take you only a couple of minutes to do and you won’t need advanced coding knowledge.
Feel free to pick and mix from the below:
1. Bing Webmaster Tools For Greater Insights
I’m sure that all of you have a Google Webmaster Tools account and use it on a regular basis. However, now it’s time to make the most out of Bing too. Although it doesn’t have the same search volume as Google you shouldn’t give up on Bing yet. Remember that while Google Webmaster Tools provides you with useful insight into the health of your site, it’s also beneficial to see information from another source. This can help you identify new areas of improvement. As such, I recommend creating an account on Bing Webmaster Tools to see if you can spot anything new.
The sign up process is really quick and easy especially if you have a Microsoft account (e.g. Hotmail);
Once your sign up is successful, head over to your Dashboard and add your site;
In the next window, you can also add the URL of your sitemap and specify the time when you receive the most website traffic; however this is optional;
The last step is to verify ownership so you can run checks. You have 3 options on how to do this;
Option 1: Download and upload an authentication file to your site’s root directory. For this option you will need to have your FTP details on hand. You can then upload the file via any FTP client (I use
FileZilla)
Option 2: Copy and paste a <meta> tag into your default webpage. This option is suitable for WordPress users, for people who don’t have FTP access or those who don’t know how to use an FTP client. I’ve used this option for my WordPress blog and here’s how you can easily do it too;
Login to your WordPress Dashboard and click on ‘Appearance’ and then ‘Editor’
In the right-hand corner click on ‘Header.php’
Now copy the <meta> tag from the Bing page and paste it just before the closing </head> tag;
Now go back to Bing and click on ‘Verify’. That’s it!
Option 3: Add alias (CNAME) record to DNS. This one is a bit tricky, especially if you don’t know your hosting provider. Here’re
some quick guides for most common hosting providers such as GoDaddy.
2. Schema Mark-up And Google Webmaster Tools Highlighter For Better CTR
I love schema mark-ups and so should you. I call them little helpers as they help search engines better understand the elements of your website. Schema mark-ups provide you with plenty of possibilities for how you can highlight important information on your website such as reviews, ratings, testimonials, your location/s, contact details and much more.
Such marked-up information can then be displayed in SERPs; below is an example of a ratings rich snippet;
These rich snippets can provide you with a lot of perks including:
- More visible rankings
- Much more qualified traffic and better conversion rates – Your richer listing can be more relevant to a consumer who can reward your hard work by clicking on your listing
- Increase in CTR by up to 30% (Source)
There are two ways you can make your listings richer and therefore more relevant for users. You can either use Schema.org templates and/or Google’s Highlighter tool.
Using Schema.org templates requires a bit of coding and time but it’s definitely worth it. Below I’ve listed a couple of websites which will generate these codes for you; you just need to enter the correct information;
Google Webmaster Highlighter Tool
If you have only a couple of minutes then I would highly recommend having a go with this tool. No coding is required; you won’t need to adjust your website’s code at all. Google Highlighter is a super easy point-and-click tool that enables you to tag or highlight the information with your mouse.
With Google Highlighter you can currently mark-up the following items on your website;
- Local Business Addresses
- Products
- Restaurants
- Articles and Events
- Movies and TV Episodes with Ratings
- Software Applications
So why not try it today; have a go and mark-up at least your local address before Christmas.
To use it now, log in to your
Webmaster Tools account and click on the
‘Search Appearance’ section >
‘Data Highlighter’ and then
‘Start Highlighting’
3. Google Rel Publisher For Enhanced Search Engine Presence
Rel Publisher has the same function as Rel Author with the only difference being that Rel Publisher is for companies with Google+ business pages. It’s really surprising that there are still many companies (some of the big ones too, for example John Lewis!) which haven’t yet implemented Rel Publisher.
It’s an important element worth having as it allows enhanced search engine presence. Simply put, with the Rel Publisher tag you can take up a little bit more space within the SERPs.
If implemented correctly the details of your company (e.g. logo) as well as you recent Google+ activity will be shown on the right hand side;
To save you a bit of time I’ve created the code/tag for you; you just need to copy and paste the URL of you Google+ page and add it to your site’s code before the </head> closing tag. The steps for adding this tag to your site are the same as for Bing site verification highlighted above.
Google Rel Publisher Code
<link href=”add your Google+ URL here” rel=”publisher”/>
For example, the Rel Publisher for Koozai’s Google+ page is this
<a href=”https://plus.google.com/100306647630320689759/” rel=”publisher”></a>
If you have your site built with WordPress then you can download
Yoast’s WordPress SEO Plugin where you can simply add the URL of your Google+ page. No coding involved!
4. Site Speed Check For Better Site Performance
For those who don’t know, the speed with which your website loads affects
your website’s ability to rank well. Moreover a slow loading website can have a negative effect on your conversion rates. A recent study by KISSmetrics showed that 40% of people would leave a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. In addition, just a one second delay can cost your website a 7% decrease in conversions (
Source). If you still don’t believe me have a look at the below real-life examples when even a tiny delay could cost a lot;
- Google – a 1/2 second slowdown caused a 20% drop in traffic
- Amazon – a 1/10 second slowdown caused a 1% drop in revenue (they make billions every year)
- Yahoo – a 2/5 second slowdown caused a 9% decrease in traffic
Now is the time to give your website a proper speed check; if your website site speed is really low you should definitely spend some time on improving this number; anything below 80 on the
Google Page Speed tool (or
Chrome extension) means that there is a room for improvement. Their tool will test how fast your website is on desktops as well as on mobile phones;
the most )
