ESTD. 2020

The Objectives

For most businesses, a website is one of the most powerful marketing tools that can generate referrals, more calls, customers and leads. It’s a virtual sales representative that works 24/7.

Web Design and Development has gone through radical changes since 2010 with the use of smart phones and tablets to search the internet. Responsive web design is now crucial if you want to rank in Google Search.

Responsive web design features flexible web design that adjusts to fit all screen sizes from the latest hi-res desktop to the smallest mobile device.

" The challenge now is to create functional websites that look great on all devices. "

Signature

Site build

Implementation

"Design mock up."

"Gather images & text."

"Finalise design."

"Add SEO and test."

Our Artwork

Gallery

Gallery Thumb 1 Gallery Thumb 2 Gallery Thumb 3 Gallery Thumb 4 Gallery Thumb 5 Gallery Thumb 6 Gallery Thumb 7 Gallery Thumb 9 Gallery Thumb 10
Working with SEO & Rankings

Google Top Tips

Did you know that there are more than 200 Google ranking factors that go into determining which websites land at the top of SERPs (that’s ‘search engine results pages’ to you who are new to the SEO world)? If you really want to get into all 200 Google ranking factors, you can do so; however, familiarising yourself with all of the factors that are taken into account by the search giant’s algorithm is much less important than identifying which ones are the most important for search success.

Not all Google ranking factors are equal. While some are absolutely necessary to implement, others, though valuable, can be considered a lower priority in the broad landscape of search engine optimisation.

SEO requirements continue to change and evolve over time. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to rank your website on Google. If you want your website’s search engine results page ranking to go from mediocre to the top of the list, you’ll want to go through this updated list of ranking factors to consider through 2020 and beyond.

Google prefers search engine and end user optimized sites meaning that your content is so good that it both ranks highly on Google and offers a great experience to users. The more optimized a website is, the more leads it can generate, sales it can complete, and traffic it can attract on a consistent basis. Without SEO, searchers will not be able to find your website, let alone explore it. So now that we have some background out of the way…

-oOo-

Google Ranking factor 1
Backlinks

Backlinks are easily one of the most important and evergreen Google ranking factors of all time. The relationship between backlinks and organic traffic makes it more than worth the time and effort to incorporate them into your SEO strategy. The relevance and domain authority of a page can increase exponentially when it is linked to from a trusted URL.

Links from the most relevant and similar-minded pages, blogs and websites hold great value in the SEO world. Similarly, backlinks from strong or well-established websites have the additional benefit of driving organic traffic directly to your website as well.

Just think about it — would a link from Forbes.com or The New York Times result in some decent traffic to a web page? You bet it would! These are incredibly high ranking domains that carry a lot of value on the SEO front and readers would see your site as a trustworthy source. It’s fairly obvious why Google finds backlinks to be such an effective search ranking factor.

Google Ranking factor 2
SCHEMA (Structured Data)

Google wants to surface websites that match the needs of the searcher and offer a secure experience. In 2014, Google announced that HTTPS encryption was included as a ranking factor in its algorithm and the search giant has only doubled-down since then.

Google Ranking factor 3
A Secure website

Schema markup enables robots (like Google’s) to crawl your website more easily and understand the content on the page in a language that makes sense to them. Schema does this by giving a structured way for robots/crawlers to define the types of information present on the page.

Google Ranking factor 4
Website speed

PageSpeed is another evergreen ranking factor in the world of SEO. The aim of Google in measuring this is to improve the overall user experience.

In July 2018, Google announced an algorithm update that focused on how quickly website pages load, particularly on mobile devices. This made clear that if the website does not load quickly, it could lose ground to competing sites.

Google had good reason for this update as the majority of people today use their mobile devices while on-the-go for literally everything. If your site fails to load at an acceptable speed, users will simply head over to a competitor’s site to find the information they are looking for.

In fact, according to one statistic, “users spend 70% more time, and have 60% more page views, on websites that load quickly.”

If you are dedicated to increasing your site’s speed, the best option is to use the Google Search Console to diagnose any issues. There is also an entire section dedicated to tips and techniques you can use to improve your site’s performance, including pagespeed.

Google Ranking factor 5
Keyword-Optimized Content

Why is original optimized content such an important factor for search ranking? Well, in short, your website can have the best layout and design in the world, but if it doesn’t have good content that users are looking for, it’s not worth much to searchers or Google.

Google crawlers rely on keywords to understand what a website has to offer. Short tail keywords (search terms of one to two words) and long tail keywords (search terms of three or more words) are what searchers use when looking for information to answer a question or meet some other need. Targeted keywords and phrases increase a site’s ranking by providing the search engine with a good indicator of what the page is about.

This is not to say that any form of keyword packing is good and acceptable — it isn’t. For example, you should avoid using any expired or duplicate content. For rankings to be as close to the top as possible, fresh and compelling content works best. This means you will have to invest some time (and maybe some money) into content research and crafting unique and engaging pieces that people will find useful and Google will love.

Google Ranking factor 6
User experience

What exactly factors into Google’s ranking algorithm can be a bit of a controversy. For example, here are some of the top signals claimed by SEOs that Google looks for when crawling web pages to measure user experience.

  • Click-through rate (CTR) — CTR is the number of people (in percentile) who click to open your site after it appears on a Google search results page.

  • Bounce rate — The bounce rate is the number of people who click through to your website but exit immediately from the page either because they didn’t find what they were looking for or the page was too confusing for them.

  • Dwell time — This is the time your visitors spend browsing or taking a specific action on your website. Whether they are simply navigating through your website or just reading your blog posts, all of it is considered to be dwell time.

Additionally, we know that Google will soon start to include page experience as a Google ranking factor sometime in 2021. Check out this for a full breakdown on these new Core Web Vital metrics.

Google Ranking factor 7
Social signals

Having a significant presence on social media channels is another way to rank higher on Google search results. A study of 23 million shares determined that there is a definitive link between social media activity and Google rankings.

While Google does not count backlinks from social media pages in its ranking algorithm, it is still a very important ranking factor to consider.

Why is this?

A social media presence on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn or a combination of these makes it easy to share compelling content among target audiences and amplify your chances of driving heavy organic traffic. The overall surge of traffic to a specific site URL can help increase its SEO juice.

Google Ranking factor 8
Image & Video optimization

A picture is really worth a thousand words. Optimized visual content is a very important factor that leads to higher search rankings on Google. Images and videos send signals denoting relevancy through their description, caption, and title.

How would you optimize an image or video? Well, some website builders such as ours do this automatically. If you’re building a site from scratch, however, you will need to ensure images are in the right file format and save for the web, which is typically at a lower resolution quality. Also, you should compress videos so the file size is small but the quality is still high. Use alt text on images and short titles of videos.

Google Ranking factor 9
Consistant Business Listings (NAP)

Business listings are also referred to as relevant citations. Search engines rank websites that they believe have expertise, are authoritative and trustworthy (an acronym known as EAT describes this). The more established and successful your brand appears online, the more visibility your website is likely to receive. Thus, having a business listing of some kind with a consistent NAP (name, address, phone number) is an important factor for Google rankings.

Google Ranking factor 10
Domain Age

This final factor we will consider here is not something that you can control but it plays a great role in improving your site’s Google rank. Domain age in general is the age of your website, how long your website has been in existence.

Even though Google has been rather ambiguous about this specific factor, some people suggest that your domain’s age plays a crucial role in ranking your website. It also plays a role in requesting backlinks as well.

-oOo-

One thing to keep in mind, a complete overhaul of your search ranking will not happen overnight. Improving search results rankings takes time and consistency. There are billions of websites online and competition can be stiff. Focusing on the most critical Google ranking factors, LIKE USING A WELL OPTIMISED CMS is key to moving a website higher in SERPs.

-oOo-

  • Google SERP
    Find your current rank on Google for all of your keywords. Checks the first 250 results.

  • Bing SERP
    Find your current rank on Bing for all of your keywords. Checks only the first 100 results.

  • Top Search Queries
    Displays the top search queries that lead visitors to your website, as well as the estimated monthly search volume, CPC, and percentage of your total searches for each query.

  • Indexed Pages
    Calculates the total number of pages that Google and Bing have indexed for your site.

  • Robots.txt
    Reads and parses your robots.txt file the same way Google would, to find sitemaps and rules. These findings are displayed in an organized table.

  • Sitemap
    Scans your website to find sitemap files. Each sitemap is displayed along with the status code, format, number of entries in the sitemap, and a percentile representing how hard it will be for Google and Bing to find the sitemap.

  • Submit Sitemaps
    Easily and instantly submit your sitemap(s) to Google and Bing. This tool is recommended for new sites and after redesigning websites.

  • Alexa Rank
    Scrapes Alexa to find your current global rank.

  • Crawlability Test
    Parses your robots.txt and lets you enter a URL to a page on your website. Displays whether or not that page can be crawled and/or indexed by Google and Bing.

Working with SEO & Rankings

  • Mobile Support
    Tests whether or not your webpage(s) will be displayed as “mobile-friendly” on Google search results. It checks meta tags, stylesheets, and embedded styles.

  • Headers
    Checks the headers returned by the page for errors or problems. Allows you to check multiple pages on your website. This tool will also check redirection, and explains whether a redirection is permanent or temporary.

  • Top Referrers
    Shows the top websites which refer the most traffic to your website. The backlink statistics for these sites is also shown.

  • Speed Test
    Runs a speed test on your website and provides a score, along with PageSpeed recommendations from Google on how to improve your website’s speed.

  • Link Analysis
    Checks all links on a webpage, determines whether they are internal or external (outgoing), dofollow or nofollow, and displays this information in an organized table.

  • Keyword Density
    Finds the most common words or phrases on your webpage, checks them against the page title and meta description, and shows the weight of these words and phrases. A higher weight means a stronger impact on search ranks for that word or phrase.

  • Extract Meta Tags
    Pulls meta tags out of the page and displays whether or not that meta tag is used by Google and Bing.

  • Keyword Research
    Displays estimated monthly search volume, CPC, and market value for unlimited keywords. It also shows relevant keywords similar to the one you enter.

  • Competition
    Uses Google to find your competitors for a specific keyword. Displays their ranks, link strength, number of backlinks, number of unique backlinks, and % nofollow backlinks.

" The challenge now is to create functional websites that look great on all devices. "

Signature

Authors DO NOT Write BOOKS,

They Write MANUSCRIPTs

A book cover creates the first impression to its potential readers. Therefore, a book cover design is one of the most important aspects of marketing a book. If the cover is not designed well, you will loose sales. So, one should consider a professional book cover designer for creating a book cover.

Designing a book cover is the process of getting an author’s manuscript into the hands of a reader, by materializing it – giving it a form. A successful book cover needs to make a reader ‘feel’ the manuscript rather than ‘tell’ about it.

The cover is an important marketing tool for your book, so do not leave the design to the last minute! Be bold! The design should draw people in, providing enough intrigue and charm that they just have to buy it… now!

" Buyers at any bookstore are bound to be attracted by the amount of creative energy that a book cover has. Let us take a look at the role your book cover design plays in the success of your book, even before your readers crack open the first page- "

Signature

Book cover design

Feature the Books information

In book design, clarity about book information is the prime concern. Whether you’ve crafted a work of fiction, a Children’s book, or an educational treatise into health and happiness; give a glimpse about key information contained in the book by delivering a cover that gives an apprehension into the nature of your core message.

The cover of your book should deliver the layout of your story. Treat your book cover like a living thing and allow it to speak for itself. The best book covers have one incredible piece of information that attracts the buyer.

[figure-1]

Your book cover is one among the best marketing assets you can invest in because you will be needing it everywhere – on your book sales page, your website, social media page, your brochure design and of course on the physical book itself.

Cover design
Typography

It is defined as a style or appearance of printed matter or simply the art of working with text to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. It is everywhere we look, on the books we read, on the website we visit, even in everyday life on street signs, product stickers.

The typography you choose for your book’s title and the author’s name can grow to become a huge brand in the eyes of their readers because readers usually buy a book because they are familiar with, and trust, the name on its cover. Your typography technique must support both what the title communicates, as well as the tone of the story itself.

Fonts can be casual, neutral, exotic and graphic, that is why it’s important to think about your message and pick a font that fits best. Well, crafted text can make a difference between the ordinary book cover and the best selling one. Avoid font explosions and special styling. Usually, a cover should not use more than two fonts.

Cover design
Images

Cover images must act like Teasers to your cover design and not like spoilers. A wellthought cover design tells a lot to a person about the book without revealing every detail. Cover images are more than just decoration. They draw readers’ attention by telling the story of the book without them even needing to turn the first page.

Compelling visuals can help you make a connection with the audience and make a strong impression before they even read a single word about the book. As a graphic designer, you want your cover to give away just enough to entice the reader and capture the story inside, without revealing too much. The imagery you choose can be a great way to connect the reader with the book on an emotional level.

Cover design
Plan the layout

Plan your cover layout first. If you’re uncertain, ask your client or refer to books already in market to see what the standard is. Make sure the text you receive is supplied without hard formatting, otherwise you might spend a lot of time stripping out italics, bold and so on. Over-formatted text distracts readers and give them an unpleasant experience .

Cover design
Stick To Your Genre Expectations

While making your cover to stand out by looking awesome make sure that it characteristically caprice into your genre. When you browse some bestsellers in your genre, you will surely notice patterns in color schemes, fonts, layouts, and images. If you go against what readers of your genre expect to see, your book will not be able to catch the reader’s attention and hence lose sales. Once it’s in front of the right target readers, with a great cover, title, and reader’s reviews, it will surely get huge sales.

Cover design
Use Colors To Draw Attention

The colors you choose for your cover should help create the mood and convey the message you’re trying to send. Complimentary colors that are diagonally opposite from each other on the color wheel tend to work great together.

As do analogous colors combined dark and light tints that are next to each other on the color wheel. Many bestselling book covers feature a blue and orange design, or black, white, and red one, because these colors work well together. According to the psychological aspect warm colors are stimulating, a synonym for energy, while cold hues are composed and better represent calmness.

It’s extremely important to do your research before choosing a color scheme for your book cover because readability is an important factor in any design. Your color should be legible and easy on the eyes. Neutral colors like black, white and grey can help you balance your design. Color theory surely can help to balance all the aspects.

Cover design
Use a Central Image from your Story

If your story has a periodically recurring symbol or image throughout, discover a creative way to assimilate it into your cover design. Whatever imagery according to you was solemn enough to make it into the pages will be profound enough to allure the front of your book cover.

Your book cover design is what fascinates people into the story you crafted from only a blank page and a creative idea. It is likely the image that your buyers will most confederate with your book’s story.

Cover design
Contrast Creates Striking Covers

Contrast is an accentuation of differences between elements in a design as it creates focus and grabs attention. Contrast helps with organizing the information and improving the clarity of the message. If you scuffle to come up with a contrast scheme, consider taking it back to black and white.

Simple, classic contrast helps a cover pop and is timeless and classic. Monochromatic color schemes can be a great way to let your fonts and words remain at the spearhead of the reader’s mindfulness, while the image becomes part of the framework.

Cover design
Add a By-Line

Give a quick insight to your readers about what they’ll find wrapped between the covers of your book with a short subtitle or by-line. This takes less time to read than the synopsis on the back of the book and can lock readers in immediately. Make sure that it is smaller than your title but still clear and eye-catching. It shouldn’t jump out at readers at first, but should be easy to read.

Your cover design must convey a clear message to your buyers and also stick to genre expectations. Select fonts in a manner that catches the attention of readers. Use colors that compliment and pop because colors significantly affect every graphic design services you have availed as they would be used uniformly throughout all graphic elements.

Bookshops display books with their covers facing the reader. The cover is the first thing a buyer sees. Cover design creativity is the only reason a customer picks up the book, particularly in a supermarket setting where every book is front-facing. Even the authors are recognized by the letters spelled out, the font, the creativity of book cover, composition, the look of a series.

-oOo-





" Buyers at any bookstore are bound to be attracted by the amount of creative energy that a book cover has. Let us take a look at the role your book cover design plays in the success of your book, even before your readers crack open the first page- "

Putting it all together,

Designing websites for Authors

A book cover creates the first impression to its potential readers. Therefore, a book cover design is one of the most important aspects of marketing a book. If the cover is not designed well, you will loose sales. So, one should consider a professional book cover designer for creating a book cover.

Designing a book cover is the process of getting an author’s manuscript into the hands of a reader, by materializing it – giving it a form. A successful book cover needs to make a reader ‘feel’ the manuscript rather than ‘tell’ about it.

The cover is an important marketing tool for your book, so do not leave the design to the last minute! Be bold! The design should draw people in, providing enough intrigue and charm that they just have to buy it… now!

Signature

Connect with Us

Get In Touch

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Praesentium dolor nam repudiandae perspiciatis.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Praesentium dolor nam.

Canvas Logo
© 2020 SharpWebs4u.co.uk, READS4u.com & Peter Rendell Publishing. All rights reserved.