Search engine optimization is a constantly evolving practice. As one variable is assumed to retain more value by search engines that variable soon becomes exploited by poor SEO’s. So, how do you approach SEO? Often times it ends up being a well balanced portfolio of various fulfillment tactics. At other times, “slow and steady” with establishing proper structures within your website never seem to go wrong.

1 – Diversity

By far, the biggest issue that SEO’s face is diversity. All too often, a website utilizes the same keywords and phrases too many times. What this results in is Google (or other search engines) flagging the website as being spammy, which means your website won't show up when a search would otherwise result in your site being deemed relevant.

2 – Title Tags

Title Tags have been through some serious trends. Found many times throughout any given website (they tell search engines what each page is about), Title Tags have been over- and under-emphasized over the years. Amazingly, during consultations, we'll often find both extremes: attempts to cram too many words in, and even completely empty Title Tags.

Our recommendation is to approach Title Tags as if they were an abbreviated, one sentence summary of what the page is about. That way you focus on what is most important to represent in the Title Tag, which helps limit saying too much. While Title Tags play a huge part in search engine algorithms currently, advances in technology may render them less meaningful over time in terms of importance in search rankings, but they can still help generate clicks. By displaying a summary of what the page is about, it increases the possiblilty that someone will click on that text if your page shows up in the search rankings.

3 – Fluff

Unnecessary fluff is everywhere on websites. From the excessive title tags mentioned above and unnecessary meta tags, to scraped content and old Flash, websites are going through a rebirth. Stuff from a few years ago is now often considered tacky. Much more importantly, a lot of the items from years ago use outdated and slow processes.

How does this impact SEO?  As older things like Flash is slowly overtaken by HTML5, and other coding improvements come along, a lean, mean, quick-loading-website machine is what search engines want to see. User experience means a lot to Google, so if your site loads slower than a competitor whose site has the exact same information, your site will lose because your competitor's load time is better.

4 – Scaled Images

A big issue with pages loading slow is that the images are often not served at proper size. A good example would be if a business owner wanted to display a 500px x 500px sized image of their storefront. They'll take their own picture, download the pic to their desktop, then upload it to their website and scale it to 500px x 500px. However, they didn’t resize it - they just scaled it. Now their website has to load a 3500px x 2500px picture, but display it at 500×500. Even though it is displayed smaller it still has to load the full size image. Why not resize it before loading so the website can quickly serve the smaller image instead? 

5 – Compressed Images

Another fix for images is to take advantage of lossless image compression. This method of compression retains the quality of an image while downsizing the actual file size by as much as 90%. Either compress images individually or use available plugins for popular Content Management Systems, like WordPress. There are also API’s available from popular compression tools for those that would like to integrate compression into custom website backends.

6 – Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URL’s

While it may be true that dynamic url’s/pages should get indexed with no problem, that doesn’t mean that pages with search engine friendly url’s won’t rank higher. All popular Content Management Systems like WordPress these days have the ability to enable search engine friendly url’s. Use it.

7 – .htaccess

The .htaccess file is a text file that is in the root of a website’s hosting directory. This is pretty technical stuff that only those who deal in the nitty gritty of web dev will totally follow, but it's still important to be aware of. This small, single file can literally make or break a website. With just a line or two of code it can help you add redirects when necessary, set caches and expires headers for quicker page loads, mitigate hacking, block IP addresses, all sorts of goodness. Or, it can crash you entire website because someone accidentally left an extra comma on a line. Use the files when you feel comfortable doing so, but don't push it. 

8 – Understanding your own site’s structure

This is basic housekeeping, but is often neglected. You need to keep up on what's actually in your website. Running a thorough audit with a program like WebMeUp will help webmasters know how many pages their website has, what pages have gone missing, where broken links are, what pages have empty Title Tags, etc. The simple task of understanding (or better yet, fixing) a websites structure can be one of the easiest to fix, because you can run audit programs, but is often one of the most rewarding for search engine gains. Treat this like Spring cleaning - occasionally take the time to check on the state of your site.

9 – Content

Unique content isn't just a fad. In fact, it’s always been important. The issue that website owners face is knowing what to write about and how frequently. There is no right answer that applies to everyone. We'd be happy to help you figure out what's right for you, so feel free to reach out for a little guidance. Creating compelling content to generate returning visitors is more important than keyword stuffing.

10 – Outreach

Now that you've got an awesome website and you've began to generate content, how do you spread the word? Outreach. Outreach is one of the slowest, yet most rewarding parts of SEO. Get involved in the local community. Go to business conferences. Offer free tutorials. By getting involved you will generate outreach without all of the awkwardness. Plus, you usually end up feeling good about getting involved with your peers. Be wary of those so-called SEO experts touting getting you backlinks quickly. It's usually just garbage you'll end up with. Developing mutually beneficial connections with partner websites (businesses with similar clientele as you, against whom you don't directly compete) will go a long way for you.

11 – Buyer's Remorse

We've talked a lot about this here, but just know that there's a lot of snake oil salesmen out there, claiming to help you conquer SEO instantly and with little effort. There is no "secret sauce" to SEO, and there certainly is no shortcut to awesome organic rankings. Don't believe in the hollow promises of these fly-by-night agencies.

Summary

While SEO methods and tactics will always change, it seems that many of the most impacting variables are the same as years ago, and will continue to be so well into the future. To be successful in SEO, focus first on the important website variables that don’t change so that you establish a solid foundation for your other efforts. Once you have the foundation in place, you can test the waters with other search engine optimization methods to increase your website’s exposure.

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About us: Level 11 Online Marketing is a fast growing digital advertising agency that is becoming known for disrupting the status quo. We specialize in digital advertising, video production, SEO, SEM, advanced analytics, custom web solutions via website design & implementation, social media strategies and conversion optimization. Headquartered in Utah, you will find Level 11 team members throughout Utah, Nebraska, Arizona, California, Idaho, and Colorado. We have the best creative minds in the industry backed up by the most talented software developers and video production teams, resulting in powerful, efficient advertising campaigns.

If you have questions, comment here or email us at info@level11.io today!

It’s critical that you know whether or not your website is adequate (i.e. generating maximum value for your business).  If there’s improvement to be made, every effort should be made to get your digital house in order as quickly as possible (we're right HERE to help!).  This list will help you to do a decent high-level evaluation of your current website situation, of course keeping in mind that there’s many more things that should be considered and evaluated to really optimize your web presence.
 
1 - PURPOSE
What do you want to get out of your website?  There needs to be a clear purpose to your web presence in order to make everything about it make sense.  Whether you want to sell product directly through the site, provide information, generate leads, or some combination of those, everything about your site needs to work towards a specfic end.
 
2 - AUDIENCE
Understanding the type of person that you want the website to be tailored to is essential in mapping out everything on your site.  Literally everything on your website needs to be very focused on your audience.  It sounds simple, but often we come across websites that provide irrelevant information, or have a design that isn't conducive to the type of person that would frequent such a site.
 
3 - BRANDING
Your brand is bigger than your website, but there needs to be a homogenous branding of your business anyway.  Ensure that your site has the look and feel of your business as a whole.  If your brand is very loud in a way that is over-the-top for a website, you may need to find ways to neutralize your primary brand just a bit in order to not scare people away from exploring the rest of your site.
 
4 - DESIGN
Having an eye for design is huge.  A website that is aesthetically pleasing is more likely to engage potential customers for a longer period of time, and the longer someone is engaging with your product, the more likely they are to convert into a paying customer. 

5 - LAYOUT
A successful website involves much more psychology than one would think.  Consider how someone stumbling onto your site for the first time will engage with it.  Is it easy for them to find out what you do?  Can they find what they're looking for easily?  Is the interface clean enough that they don't get bogged down in information overload?  A naturally-flowing layout is essential for conversion rate optimization.
 
6 - CODING
This may be a bit too nerdy for some to care about, but the coding of your website matters a lot.  Not only can it have a huge effect on the buyer's experience, but your site's coding (the architecture behind what the commoner sees - think about the power in your home... there's far more wiring than you'd think) has a huge effect on SEO.  Our SEO tool can help you figure out how you're doing.
 
7 - RESPONSIVE
Your website needs to look good on any device.  To see how it looks, open your site on your desktop or laptop.  With the window open from the top to the bottom of your screen, slide one side of the window left to right.  As you make your browser window as narrow as a tablet, your site should look functional and good still.  And most importantly, given how important mobile is, make your browser as narrow as a phone screen.  If your site doesn't look right, you've got issues with the architecture that need to be addressed.  This too will impact your SEO, as Google will not allow non-mobile friendly sites to rank high in search from a mobile device.
 
8 - CONTENT
Your site needs to have enough quality, relevant content.  You're getting traffic to your website, to give the people a chance to engage with your site.  Content is what makes your website a salesperson that sells 24/7.  This content can be product descriptions, biography content, blogs, video content, etc.
 
9 - MORE CONTENT
The value of content cannot be understated.  Give your audience everything they need.  If you provide value to them, they'll be more likely to convert to a customer, so give them value!  Give it away for free, and your chances for conversion are better immediately.
 
10 - GOALS
Goals make your efforts measurable.  Put a system in place to make sure you can measure things such as shopping cart abandonments, requests for information, contact forms, successful purchases, etc.
 
11 - E-COMMERCE
​We always say, don't make it hard for people to give you their money.  This isn't to sound shallow, but how many of us have left a buying situation because someone kept asking for more information, or the process was too long, or it just was hard to find exactly what you were looking for?  Everything, from the design and layout of your site, to the content and buying process, work together to determine your success with e-commerce.  There's also plenty of little things that can help make the transaction go smoothly, such as using a tool from Amazon where people can pay on your site using their Amazon credentials (then they don't have to enter all their info).  Whatever you can do to eliminate steps and make the process easy will lead to more conversions from your website.


About us: Level 11 Online Marketing is a fast growing digital advertising agency that is becoming known for disrupting the status quo.  We specialize in digital advertising, video production, SEO, SEM, advanced analytics, custom web solutions via website design & implementation, social media strategies and conversion optimization.  Headquartered in Utah, you will find Level 11 team members in Utah, Washington, California, Idaho, and Colorado. We have the best creative minds in the industry backed up by the most talented software developers and video production teams which leads to powerful, efficient advertising campaigns.

If you have questions, comment here or email us at info@level11.io today!

Google Analytics is easily the most robust website traffic analysis tools you can find, and it's super simple and free to install on your site. You don't need to be a coding genius or anything to get going either. Google walks you through the steps really efficiently. If along the way you run into some hiccups and need some help, feel free to contact us and we'll give you a hand!

Don't delay installing Analytics on your site. The sooner you begin collecting data, the better. This is because Analytics will give you insight into valuable things such as where your traffic is coming from and how people behave on your site.

To start collecting basic data from your website:

1. Create a new Analytics account if you do not have one. Visit google.com/analytics, click the Sign in to Analytics button (top right), and follow the on-screen instructions. Go here for a video on the first steps in Google Analytics.
2. Set up a property in the account you have created.
3. Follow the instructions to set up web tracking.

It's a pretty simple process really. Once your accounts are created, you'll simply be given a small section of code to copy and paste onto your website, and that's it.

With Google Analytics installed on your website, you'll be able to not only track traffic, but can also set goals. The goals will allow you to track when site visitors see a specified amount of pages, spend a specified amount of time on your website, and other things. This information can also be used in marketing - you can target remarketing efforts on those people who met specific goals, so marketing is going towards those people who have met certain qualifying criteria.

​You'll also be able to add and manage users on your Analytics account. This will allow other employees, or someone like us at Level 11, to keep track of your on-site activity as well. It's very simple to do so: when prompted, you simply enter the Google account of the party you wish to grant some degree of access to your analytics. If you would like our opinion of your website and what could  be improved, feel free to add analytics@level11.io to your Google Analytics, and we'll happily take a look at things for you!
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More knowledge can be found here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1008015?hl=en

​About us: Level 11 Online Marketing is a fast growing digital advertising agency that is becoming known for disrupting the status quo. We specialize in digital advertising, video production, SEO, SEM, advanced analytics, custom web solutions via website design & implementation, social media strategies and conversion optimization. Headquartered in Utah, you will find Level 11 team members throughout Utah, Nebraska, Arizona, California, Idaho, and Colorado. We have the best creative minds in the industry backed up by the most talented software developers and video production teams, resulting in powerful, efficient advertising campaigns.

If you have questions, comment here or email us at info@level11.io today!

Your website needs to be mobile responsive. Amazingly (or perhaps this shouldn't come as a surprise by now), people are five times more likely to leave a mobile site that isn’t mobile-friendly (that's a direct-from-Google stat, as are the other ones here).

All too often, we encounter websites that were built before cell phones, and specifically, smart phones, were as common as they are today. This means that websites were built to look and function properly on a desktop computer, but are not constructed in such a way that allows for other screen sizes, like tablets and phones, to display the same imaging in a convenient way.

Due to the dated nature of many websites, visitors on phones need to zoom, squint, and stand on their heads in order to find what they're looking for. For this reason, so many visitors will simply leave a website instead of trying to navigate to what they're looking for. Bounce rates (a bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page) for these non-responsive websites are consistently in the 90%+ range. Your visitors are simply walking away without giving you a chance, simply because of the design of your website.

Additionally, nearly half of all visitors will leave a mobile site if the pages don’t load within 3 seconds. The content and construction of your website will impact load time, and there are a lot of seemingly small things that can improve your load time drastically. We often encounter websites that have individual images that are larger (in terms of space... you know, kilobytes, megabytes, etc) than the entire website should even be.

And finally, if you think that having a website that only looks and works good on a desktop is adequate, think about this: 9 out of 10 people say that they use multiple screens for such tasks as booking a flight online or managing their personal finances. Nearly everybody online is completing some part of the buying process not only on one device, but on any combination of a laptop, a desktop, a computer, a phone, etc. To lose such a huge portion of your sales funnel simply due to a poor mobile experience is forfeiting easily-attainable revenue unnecessarily.

You can go to https://testmysite.withgoogle.com/intl/en-gb to test out your website's mobile responsiveness, then you'll have a good idea for what about your site could use improvement.

The world’s gone mobile. Now, it’s your turn.  Contact us now to get a free full website analysis. We'll show you a list of everything that can and should be done to begin increasing the business you generate from your website, and we'll kindly guide you throughout the entire process so you can focus on what you do best.


About us: Level 11 Online Marketing is a fast growing digital advertising agency that is becoming known for disrupting the status quo. We specialize in digital advertising, video production, SEO, SEM, advanced analytics, custom web solutions via website design & implementation, social media strategies and conversion optimization. Headquartered in Utah, you will find Level 11 team members in Utah, Washington, California, Idaho, and Colorado. We have the best creative minds in the industry backed up by the most talented software developers and video production teams which leads to powerful, efficient advertising campaigns.

If you have questions, comment here or email us at info@level11.io today!