Each year, businesses in the United States spend over $72 billion on internet marketing. For most business owners, making sure they are getting a good return on their marketing investment is a must.
The key to attracting a wider audience is having an interactive website that is optimized for search engine success. While this may sound like a relatively simple task, it can be quite difficult if you fail to get the right professional help.
Are you looking for a way to inform the masses about your products or services? If so, let’s talk a little bit about inbound marketing and the power it has.
A successful inbound marketing campaign requires you to have great content on a website that is easy to navigate, as explained by the award-winning digital agency Lilo. Filling this content with relevant and popular keywords can up your rank in Google substantially.
Read below to find out more about how an interactive web design and high-quality SEO can help you grow your customer base.
Focus on Optimizing Your Site’s URL Structure
Often, the first thing Google will notice about a new website is the structure of its URLs. You need to view your URLs as essential building blocks you can use to construct an effective site hierarchy.
Essentially, your URLs will pass equity through your site and help users get to their desired destination. Failing to plan out how to adequately optimize your site URLs can lead to endless redirect loops and a lot of frustration for both you and the visitors to your site.
While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to optimizing URLs for SEO success, there are a few basic rules you should follow.
Be Sure to Use Your Keywords
Each time a page is launched on your business website, it should have a purpose. Whether the purpose is administrative, informational or transactional, knowing why the page is being built from the outset is essential.
By knowing what the purpose of the page is, you can use relevant keywords to make finding it easy for both potential customers and search engine crawlers alike. Including relevant keywords near the root domain is vital when trying to create an easy to navigate site for your audience.
Keyword URL Example: https://yourwebsite.com/relevantkeyword
A Sound URL Structure For the Future
One of the biggest challenges you will face when constructing a URL hierarchy for your website is ensuring it will be usable for years to come. Failing to consider the future when constructing your hierarchy can lead to issues with sub-domains and conflicting URL paths.
Not only are these conflicting URL paths problematic for visitors to the site, it can actually confuse Google crawlers regarding how to properly categorize a page.
Getting a handle on where your business is headed can help you setup an effective and manageable URL hierarchy. The more planning you do in advance regarding the construction of your website, the fewer problems you will have to deal with in the future.
Incorporating Topical Authority is a Must
In the Search Quality Evaluators Guidelines published by Google, they have very clear references to both main and supplementary content.
According to this search engine juggernaut, main content is the lead page in each website section that helps to dictate what it is about. The supplementary content will be additional information users will read to find out more about the topic in question.
Properly structuring both your page keywords and URLs is an essential part of making your site easy to navigate for Google. Making sure the keyword used in the URL closely matches what is on the page is a must.
Embracing the Power of Video is a Great Idea
Are you looking for ways to keep your interactive website modern and appealing? The best way to do this is by investing in videos for your website.
A recent study shows that nearly 81 percent of business owners are using video as a marketing tool. Nearly 99 percent of these businesses claim they will continue to use video in the coming year due to how effective it is.
When implemented correctly, videos will make your website more interactive and informative. If you want to optimize your videos for search engine success, check the tips below.
Making Relevant and Engaging Videos
One of the worst mistakes business owners make when producing video content for their website is using the “spray and pray” approach. Trying to cast a net that is too wide can alienate your core audience, which will lead to you missing the mark on your video content.
Putting out higher quality videos that are relevant to your industry can help your chances of being viewed as an authority. If visitors to your website view you as an authority in your industry, it will help you build trust with them and increase sales conversions.
Host Videos on Your Own Domain
If you are trying to create videos to improve your site’s search engine rank, hosting them on your own domain is essential. This will help to ensure that the traffic to your site isn’t directed to where the videos are being hosted.
Some business owners think putting a link in a YouTube video description will help them get more attention from large search engines like Google. However, Google will crawl the YouTube video first rather than your site.
While hosting your own videos will require more bandwidth, it is well worth the investment due to the help it can provide you in your pursuit of search engine dominance.
Create Shareworthy Videos
Did you realize that Facebook generates nearly 8 billion video views a day? For most business owners, having a viral video is something they dream about. While there is no recipe for making a video viral, there are a few things you can do to make your content more engaging and entertaining.
One of the key elements that most viral videos have is universal appeal. Finding something that is both universally funny and entertaining is a lot harder than you may think. As Jordan Teicher said, “ SEO isn’t about gaming the system anymore; It’s about learning how to play by the rules.” Playing within the acceptable boundaries of video content and SEO is the only way to gain the lion’s share of your market.
Most viral videos are short and simple. This is why you need to avoid making a video that is over four minutes long. The modern consumer has a very short attention span, which is why you need to get your message across in a timely manner.
Transform Your Blog Content With Quizzes and Polls
The main goal you should have when making your website interactive is finding out more about your audience. One of the best ways to do this is by optimizing your blog content with quizzes and polls.
According to recent estimates, there are nearly 2 million blog posts published online each day. Without a way to make your blogs unique, you may find it hard to gain the attention you are after.
By adding fun quizzes and polls to the blogs on your website, you can keep readers entertained and engaged with ease.
A Great Way to Strengthen Two-Way Communication
A recent study found that Millennial consumers prefer for companies to speak with them and not to them. Being able to create a two-way dialogue with your customers is an effective way to keep them satisfied and loyal. Many marketers claim that increasing the ability to communicate with prospective customers is one of their top challenges.
The best way to address this issue is by embracing elements like polls, interactive videos and quizzes. If you are attempting to save money on your marketing, you can always add interactive elements to your existing content. Once you do this, you need to share links to this content on social media to increase the amount of traffic your site gets.
Observing the browsing and searching habits of your core customer is a great way to figure out what type of quizzes and polls to use.
According to Ryan Biddulph, “Good SEO is paying attention to all of the details that most people ignore.” The work you put into learning about your audience will allow you to provide them with high-quality targeted content.
Increased Engagement is Always a Good Thing
Creating a legion of loyal and engaged customers is something most business owners are passionate about. Spreading the word about the products and services your company offers is easy when creating shareable content.
In most cases, customers are far more likely to share interactive content with friends and family on social media. Making the quizzes and polls you offer entertaining and fun is essential when trying to increase the amount of shares they get.
Provide Your Audience With Helpful Tools
Offering free mortgage calculators, square footage estimates and other interactive tools is also a great way to increase the interactive nature of your website. While these tools will require you to pay a web design company for help, it is worth the investment.
The more people you are able to attract with a free tool, the higher the number of sales leads you can inevitably create. When having one of these free tools built, make sure it is both user-friendly and reliable. Offering a subpar free tool can lead to a number of disasters that will put your business in a bad light.
Make Social Sharing Easy For Your Website Visitors
Over 68 percent of Americans between the age of 18 and 29 have a Facebook account. The number of daily Facebook users grows by nearly six percent each year. There is no denying just how important having a presence on social media is for a small business.
Getting the content on your interactive website shared more is only possible with appealing social share buttons. If visitors to your website have to hunt around for these share buttons, they will probably get frustrated and leave.
Read below to find out more about how to make the social share buttons on your website more appealing.
Proper Button Positioning is Crucial
The first thing to consider when trying to construct appealing social share buttons for your website is how they are positioned. One of the most common positions for these buttons is at the top of a blog post or video page.
There are some web designers who feel like having the social share buttons at the bottom of a post is more beneficial. The only problem with putting these buttons at the bottom of the page is the fact that they will be competing with other elements for attention. Commonly, business websites will have things like a comment section or related posts at the bottom of their webpages.
Finding the proper position for your social share buttons may require a bit of trial and error. Tracking the results of each position will help you figure out what the visitors to your website respond to.
How Big Should the Social Media Buttons Be?
Choosing the right size for the social share buttons on your website can also be quite challenging. Some web designers feel that having larger buttons comes off as a bit overpowering for visitors.
However, the more prominent these buttons are, the easier it will be for visitors to see and use them. Getting an outsider’s perspective on this essential web design element can be beneficial.
Usually, an outsider will be able to see things a business owner has missed, which can help them make the right decisions regarding the look of their site.
Customize the Look of Your Social Share Buttons
There are a number of successful websites that use their own social share button design. The main advantage that comes with customizing your buttons is that they tend to stand out more.
Luckily, there are programs and plugins on the market that make altering the look of these buttons easy. Having multiple users test out a website before launching it can help you identify problems with appeal and functionality.
If multiple users find the customized buttons confusing or unappealing, changing them is essential for the success of your site. The time invested into adequately beta-testing your new website will pay off when it enables you to improve the user experience your audience has.
Getting your website just how you want it will usually be an arduous and difficult journey.
The key to getting a website you are proud of is by using an experienced and knowledgeable web designer. Before hiring a professional, you need to take a look at their previous work to ensure they are the right fit for the job at hand.
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— Will Corry (@slievemore) April 10, 2019
