From the latest Google Livestream from March 6, 2019, we learned the 5 ways in which we can hit the ‘refresh’ button on our website. If you feel like your site is not getting much traffic, is not performing well or just needs an overall spring cleanup, then these 5 Google practices for refreshing your website are just for you!
- Refreshing Your Site – If you do a site search of your site using site:yourdomainname, you can see which pages are showing up and which may need to be improved. Page titles should be descriptive to what the page is about without keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing will look like spam to Google, which will hurt your site’s overall presence.
You can buy a 3-hour package and get a solid refresh done for under $300. Check out CTWebDevelopment Services for more information and to order. - Creating a Sitemap – You should also create a sitemap; this will help to navigate any pages missing by Google linking them to the correct landing pages. The landing pages should be put in a standard template in the navigation. With a sitemap XML file, it will help to provide Google with enough information it needs to crawl and index pages.
- Updating Image Names and Descriptions – You can further help search engines like Google by optimizing any image files and Alt text. Choose file names that fully describe the image and not vague names like ‘image1.jpg’. Alt text will help the accessibility of the site and optimized images will further help your site get noticed.
Website Security – if your site is not secured, this is an easy way to chase away website traffic. Many visitors do not want to visit a site that is not secured. In fact, 85% of consumers say that protection from malicious websites is their biggest concern when it comes to protecting their information. With Google Chrome, 3 signs are shown for site security:
- Dangerous – A red triangle in the left corner means the site is in danger of releasing your personal info.
- Not Secure – A ‘Not Secure’ image of an ‘i’ with a circle around it means there is not a private connection – another way data can be leaked.
- Secure – Your business ultimately wants to have the gray ‘secure’ lock to protect both you and your customers. Ask your web provider to help by providing your site security.
- 3PRIME hosting customers get a free SSL with your hosting, so if you want a simple solution to this, check out 3PManagedHosting.com, or give us a call for assistance setting up a 3rd party SSL!
- Be Mobile Friendly – Besides web security, another issue that chases visitors away is if your site is not optimized for mobile use. This will slow down the user’s speed and make it difficult to view content. Ultimately you want fast page loading speed, organized content and easy navigation. By searching for a ‘Test my site’ tool on Google, you can determine how well your site is performing on mobile devices.
By searching for a ‘Test my site’ tool on Google, you can determine how well your site is performing on mobile devices.
With these 5 tips, you are refreshing your site for better rankings on Google and better performance for potential customers. These tips will help your site to be direct with the exact content on it, so Google can easily identify and direct traffic to your landing pages. If you need help with any of these tips with from providing website security to optimizing your site for mobile use, contact 3PRIME today!