When it comes to brand visibility, you can’t go wrong with a solid search strategy in place. After all, it involves small tweaks that will help users find you if and when they need to. Of course, there are other elements at play, like your marketing strategy and specific business objectives, but a universal goal is growth and awareness, and that you’ll find on the search engine results pages - if you know-how. 

Search engine optimization is split up into two main categories in terms of the logistics. The first is on the backend, where the structure of your site and aspects of your code help determine visibility and give Google the lay of the land. Typically SEO specialists need to interact with this backend to ensure that pages are structured and categorized correctly, that duplicate content is marked as “invisible” to crawlers and that the site loads quickly enough for it to be convenient to users.

These are just a few basic and oversimplified examples for context. However, you don’t need to be a fully-fledged tech expert to make a significant difference to a site’s ranking - as there’s a whole nother element to gaining search cred. 

What is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO relates to activities you can do on the front-end to improve your site’s ranking, support link-building strategies and make content more inclusive and easily indexable. It’s also a good place to create mechanisms for users to engage with what you’re publishing and be able to process it all quickly and easily.

Why is this so important? Because it helps search engines like Google and Firefox determine how relevant your content is to a specific search query, which means the people who are looking for your products and services are more likely to find you. In fact, 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine. (BrightEdge)

In order to start improving your presence online and making the necessary changes to become more visible, it’s important to master the basics. Here’s how: 

• Use keywords thoughtfully: Conducting basic keyword research using a keyword planner, can give you a good indication of what users in your segment are searching for, in relation to your brand. You can use the search volumes to determine a list of keywords by priority - primary, secondary and tertiary or thematic keywords.
  
  These keywords go into the metadata but also have special placements in the copy, on-page. You can show topic hierarchy by using the primary keyword in the title, and first and last 100 words of the page, the secondary keyword in the first subheading, and thematic keywords sprinkled throughout.
  
  
• Get meta: Creating metadata for your pages and posts is a good way to optimise what users see when they search for your brand pages or related keywords. In the CRM you can write custom titles and descriptions for your page, using your primary keyword which is the keyword most searched for by your audience. Descriptions are usually truncated at 155 characters, so keep them short and engaging.
  
  This way users are more likely to read the whole thing and click through to your site. Plus, it has the added benefit of showing Google and other search engines what the page is about, as their technology indexes keywords. If you don’t create a custom one, it will automatically showcase the first few lines of text on the page. Pro tip: keep your primary and most important keyword close to the beginning of your title and description.
  
  
• Create scannable content for users: Search engines allocate a  readability score to content that determines how easy it is for users to consume. This is based on factors like scannability of content, sentence length, and language use.
  
  Optimising your pages for better readability means formatting your pages with subheadings and bullet points, for example, considering language use and ensuring clean, well-written copy that takes punctuation, grammar and spelling into account.
  
  
• Be inclusive: When uploading images onto your site, you can include alt tags and captions that describe images and give them context. This serves two functions. First, it makes the images more inclusive for the visually impaired interacting with the site, as these tags and captions are read via audio channels. Secondly, it allows search engines to index the images more thoroughly and gives them a thematic context in the same ways as keywords do. From here, they can determine relevance to search queries.
  
  
• Make it meaningful: The quality of your content is what’s going to ultimately keep readers on your page, which means fluff won’t cut it. Similarly, by linking to reputable sources you can up the credibility of your work. The key to great SEO is simply creating genuinely good content that serves a purpose and fits a theme. So allocate the necessary resources to create something that meets needs and offers the reader more than what they expected.
  
  
• Share it: The more traffic that goes to your site, the more likely it is to rank higher in the SERPs (MTU Edu). A good way to drive traffic is through sharing your content on social channels. By adding social icons, you can also encourage users to share with their audiences, helping you generate a larger readership on your site.
  
  

All told, basic on-page search knowledge is a must-have for any marketer or creative working particularly in the digital copywriting space - but it’s also an important part of your content strategy.

Without at least some consideration for search queries, you won’t get the most value from your site, which means wasted resources, missed leads and simply taking up space online. We can help you formulate better on-page strategies and drive new business to your digital doors. Speak to us for more information.

These days, setting up and publishing a new website is easy to do and can be done in just a matter of minutes. While this sounds like good news, it isn’t always the best route to go for many businesses because such websites aren’t always optimised to attract the right visitors and ultimately convert them to customers.

In addition, it’s important to stay ahead of competitors by making sure your business stands out to your target audience and in search engine results. By doing so, web traffic to your website will noticeably increase as your conversions follow suit.

A website should not only be aesthetically pleasing design-wise, but should be functional and versatile. Below is a list of the top digital design best practices for 2021 we believe will catapult your business to greater visibility and success.

1. Easy navigation

When visitors click on your website, they shouldn’t struggle to find anything they are looking for. All the website’s elements need to be intuitive and logical, from headings and graphics to drop-down menus. 

Always try to view your website through the eyes of a first-time visitor. Is everything located where you could expect it to be? Are you able to keep track of which part of the website you are? With all the competition that’s out there, a visitor will simply move on if they see your website as too complex to navigate.

2. Consistency is key

Keeping things consistent in digital design goes a long way in maintaining your brand identity. Customers associate a website’s brand with certain colours, logos and messaging. Make sure this is the case when people visit your website.

This doesn’t only hold true for design elements. The content also needs to have a consistent tone and value proposition. Having colours or content that are inconsistent creates confusion and that is something you want to avoid at all costs.

3. CTA needs to be clear

Calls-to-action (CTAs) need to be clear and be seen by a visitor on first look. This can be achieved through a CTA button which lets them know where to go or what action to take next. Customers don’t need to return to your website at a later stage in order to convert. 

Also, your CTA has to be big, visible and available on the majority of your pages, not just the home page. It must stand out on the page it’s on, by having less elements around it. 

4. Tell a story

Storytelling is one of the best ways of communicating powerful messages. In web design, it can be a conduit to deliver a message into the mind of the visitor: that they should buy your product or service.

It’s important to tell a story as this reinforces consistency, while keeping readers engaged. Having facts without a good story to follow makes them lose interest and move on to something better. Your website needs to follow a logical order that ultimately leads the visitor to your CTA or contact information.

5. Less is more

Page visitors don’t want to be bombarded with a barrage of text, graphics and colours, such that they don’t know where to look first. It’s an important part of telling a story to only display essential information by eliminating any unnecessary text or graphics.

Keep text to a minimum by using fewer words, shorter sentences, shorter paragraphs and bullet points. Always use good content writing techniques that deliver your point across with as little words as possible and direct you to where you need to go next.

6. Mobile-friendly

Just about half of all website traffic comes from mobile users. It’s a no-brainer why your website needs to be mobile-friendly to cater to this group of visitors. In fact, many developers have even gone a step further and are mobile-first.

The main advantage of creating responsive websites through mobile search engine optimisation (SEO) is that it raises their ranking on search engine results. This means that more people will be able to view your website regardless of the device they are using.

7. SEO is king

SEO is undeniably one of the major and most popular best practices when it comes to digital design; every web designer has no option but to make it a priority. Always make sure that your website has relevant keywords that users typically input in search engines.

By using dynamic content, you can appeal to all possible visitors with various interests within your target market. By paying attention to tags, descriptions, sitemaps and using shorter URLs, your website can rank higher in search results.

8. Accessibility

We live in a world where not all individuals possess the same abilities that enable them to successfully navigate a website. With 15% of the world having some form of disability, it’s necessary to make sure your website can accommodate their needs.

Simple changes can be made to websites, such as by enabling keyboard-only support. This is particularly useful for individuals with motor impairments. You could also increase access to those with visual impairments by using contrasting colours.

9. Speed optimisation

This ties well with “less is more” due to the fact that websites with complex graphics take longer to load, which sends visitors off in search of greener pastures. A Google study noted that sites lose 53% of their visitors if they take more than three seconds to load—You don’t want that.

Web developers should prioritise file compression (particularly for media), using prefetching, and removing unnecessary fonts, CSS and JS files. Another upside is that your SEO rankings will be higher if your page loads faster.

10. A/B testing

A/B or split testing shows two different versions of a web page to different audiences, then compares them to find out which one performs better, with a certain goal in mind. It helps to find out what works and what doesn’t.

This should be a continual process as your target users’ needs are constantly evolving. By focusing on noticeably popular web elements, you can increase website conversions. Besides, analytics are always welcome when it comes to design.

So here’s our CTA too

At Digital Grind, we offer bespoke digital design services for platforms, websites and web apps, encompassing user interface and user experience design techniques. We can give your brand a facelift using the best practices mentioned above, to turn customer success into advocacy. Talk to us!

The web is a fast-paced and ever-changing medium. There are new trends popping up all the time, new browser releases to contend with, and new frontend frameworks to learn.

It can be hard to keep up with all that's happening in our industry. When your job depends on your knowledge of what's new in web development — whether you're a developer or designer — it's especially important that you understand what's current so you don't miss anything that could impact your business or life.

The only constant is change

Web development is constantly evolving. As new technologies emerge and more and more devices are being used to access the web, web developers have to keep up with the latest trends in order to create websites that perform well and look great. Let’s take a look at what’s poignant at the moment:

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Accelerating menial tasks
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‍Sometimes the greatest innovations come in simple changes to existing mechanisms, where small changes mean big benefits. We know that consumers value speed, which is evidenced by drop-off rates on sites that take more than 3 seconds to load. As much as 40 percent of your audience will leave when your webpage doesn’t load instantly. This is just one example of many, where consumers expect instant feedback and gratification when interacting with your brand online. In light of this, the growing trend towards accelerating menial tasks is becoming a standard. This is true for both consumer-facing content as well as internal platforms and web developers will be expected to get the basics right before branching off into novelty. 
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Perfecting e-commerce user experience

‍Historically, developers were largely in control of creating a user experience by dictating formats for websites and online platforms. When marketers started to understand the importance of user experience design - new roles emerged in the strategy and creative sphere that blended design with creating a consumer journey. Now, developers and designers are part of increasingly hybrid disciplines, where both are required to work together to generate user interfaces. A prevalent trend is for front-end developers to automatically suggest interface mechanisms, while designers with basic development knowledge are more in demand than ever. Today, the prototyping process is a combined effort and will increasingly merge as design and development overlap in terms of meeting consumer expectations.  
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Everyday artificial intelligence

‍AI was once thought of as a concept only meant for sci-fi movies, but has evolved from just theory and cinematic special effects to everyday use. The use of machine learning and natural language processing techniques has improved drastically, faster than previously thought possible. It may seem that the sky's the limit at this point. Current trends indicate that chatbots will continue to feature as a marketing tool for many web developers. The chatbot market is growing at a rapid pace and is expected to reach $83 billion in 2021. Another current AI trend is its use in predictive analytics. Machine learning is being applied to better understand consumer behaviour so as to target them more efficiently. This leads to increased customer acquisition as learned patterns assist in the personalisation of targeted content. 
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One-pagers

‍These types of websites are a controversial topic in the marketing world, because while it means less code, easier experimentation and simplified analytics, it can also present a cost to SEO and content limitations by design. Plus, creating enticing and functional user interfaces can become more challenging. However, as a sufficient, resource-efficient tool for SMEs, these sites are on the rise and the art of perfecting a one-page site needs to be a tool in the arsenal of modern developers. One other advantage is that they lead to increased user engagement and ultimately higher conversions than multi-page sites through simplified navigation. In addition, they’re great for any web developer’s clients that may be starting out and don’t yet have a lot of content to offer but need a web presence. 
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Full-stack development with JavaScript

‍When it comes to web development, things are rapidly evolving and advancing and if not managed well, can lead to an overrun on development costs. For one, if you have to hire multiple developers well-versed in different programming languages and frameworks, and a new industry standard comes into play, it may be costly to get each of them up-to-speed. However, hiring or becoming a full-stack developer gives you an all-in-one development solution. JavaScript has grown in popularity over the years and is used by almost all websites. It is particularly useful when developing mobile apps and dynamic websites. Currently, it’s popular frameworks and libraries include Angular.js, Vue.js, React and Node.js. Indeed, JavaScript full-stack development will continue to be a major feature in web development in coming years.

Lastly, a current trend related to all the above in the web development world is the growing use of progressive web apps which may replace native mobile apps in the future. This is being driven by the growing use of mobile devices. Another is the increasing use of voice searches giving rise to digital assistants and the proliferation of IoT.

From what we’ve seen, web development will continue to incorporate newer technologies going into the future. The consensus so far is that, regardless of what development trend is adopted, speed and usability will be the key determining factors of any web design.

At Digital Grind, we stay ahead of the curve as our web development is next level. Be it websites, apps, business intelligence or newer technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality, we have the necessary tools to bring your ideas to life. Start a development project with us. Ready when you are!