Tag Archives: Web Design Blackrock

Is my PPC Campaign worth it?

PPC Campaign
April 30, 2019
Pay-per-click, commonly known as PPC, is a paid advertising strategy which is used to get your ad in front of your target demographic. When your PPC campaign is effective it can become a brilliant source of lead generation to your website. However conversely if your campaign is ineffective and is costing you money without giving you the leads and results you envisioned it can quickly become a very dear misadventure. If you find yourself spending a lot of money on ads and PPC but still aren’t seeing good results then you need to take a step back and ask yourself the question “Is my PPC Campaign worth it?”. By taking a step back and evaluating the effectiveness or lack thereof of your campaign you can determine whether you need to tweak your campaign for better and improved results or whether you need to pause your campaign entirely and go back to the drawing board. You need to be sure before you delete a PPC campaign because when you do you will lose all of its data and will be unable to retrieve any of it back. Before you delete an underperforming campaign you should first evaluate it and see if you can apply some tweaks to fix it and turn it into a strong performing campaign. To ensure your PPC campaign can perform as strongly as possible ensure that you have considered and took the following into account: Evaluate Your Chosen Keywords: For any PPC campaign to be successful it needs to incorporate the right keywords. These keywords need to be relevant to your target demographic. By undergoing proper keyword research before you start your campaign you can minimise the risk that you will incorporate irrelevant keywords in your campaign. Landing Page Optimisation: Your landing page will be the first impression for the users who you will get through your PPC campaign. Thus it is vital that your homepage gives a good first impression, by ensuring that the page is correctly optimised to give a good user experience you will increase your chances of getting conversions from your paid traffic. There is no point getting people to your website just for them to have a bad user experience and bounce, that will simply cost you money and give you nothing in return. Created Ads: Lastly you need to ensure that the ads themselves that you create need to be appealing and enticing enough to get people to click on them. To ensure that your ad speaks to your target audience incorporate the main keywords (which you will have discovered from your keyword research) into them and include a snippet that will act as a powerful and intriguing call to action. Before you give up on your PPC campaign make the tweaks. By making these tweaks you should see an improvement in your PPC campaign and generate better results. For advice and information on having a successful website get in touch with 2Cubed today! Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles. facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon Instagram icon Google+ icon

3 Ways Your Web Design May Be Damaging your SEO

Three Ways Your Web Design May Be Damaging your SEO
April 25, 2019
As we have touched on before having a great Web Design employed throughout your website is very important to ensure that your website delivers a great user experience. We all know that a great user experience is great for SEO however if not properly done correctly web design can inadvertently end up actually damaging your SEO. Three Ways Your Web Design May Be Damaging your SEO that you need to look for are: Bad or no optimisation of Header Tags Header tags (H1, H2, H3 etc..) are important for SEO as they help Google to determine what the content on your page is actually about. H1 should always be your page title and H2 tags need to accurately clarify what the page is about and what it contains. The other tags can be used when you go more in-depth. Image Optimisation A major factor in any web design is that it needs to visually be beautiful and pleasing to the eye of any user. To ensure that your images are successfully optimised you need to ensure the following three things have been done:
      • Ensure that relevant alt text has been applied to all your images.
      • Ensure that your image is compressed
      • Ensure that you have the correct image format
Non Mobile-Friendly Design Since Google introduced Mobile-First Indexing the question of whether your website and web design is mobile friendly or not has become an extremely important one. Mobile-First Indexing means that Google will look at how your website performs on mobile first rather than on Desktop and from this judgement they will determine where your website will rank. Therefore if your web design for mobile is poor your SEO will be severely damaged. If you can ensure that these three things are done then you will greatly reduce the chances of your web design damaging your SEO.

Mobile-First Indexing and SEO

Mobile-First Indexing
April 23, 2019
Mobile-First indexing was introduced by Google as an effort to make websites on the internet more mobile friendly. According to trends more users use mobile than desktop when browsing, so in accordance with this user behaviour trend Google have placed a higher emphasis on how a website is designed and works on mobile than on desktop. At its core mobile-first indexing means that when Google index websites and determine their ranking on a wide range of factors that they are basing their judgement firstly on how the website looks and performs on mobile rather than desktop. Since Google now actually indexes sites on a mobile first approach it means that they are first ranking your site on how responsive and how well designed it is for mobile. If you are unsure whether your website is being negatively impacted it’s important to remember not to panic. According to Google themselves if your website is already responsive on mobile or if both versions on mobile and desktop are the same already then your rankings may not be affected at all. However, it should be noted that even if your website is a very responsive site to rank well with mobile-first indexing in practice you need to ensure that both your website’s mobile page speed and it’s load time are fast and efficient and that all images are optimised correctly so that the user experience on mobile is not compromised or hindered in any way. By ensuring that your website looks great on a mobile device firstly you can be safe in the knowledge that it will then translate brilliant to other devices. That’s because if you design for the smallest screen first it will be a lot easier to successfully replicate on a big screen rather than if you were to take the opposite approach. Designing for mobile first means that you have to design within it’s tighter limitations, while initially this may sound like a negative, it is actually a good thing because it will force you to really prioritize the content you display as you will have no room for extra fluff or fat. This helps to ensure that the all important user experience you deliver will be the best possible. When Google looks at your website as part of mobile-first indexing and determines that you are delivering an optimal user experience as well as having a website that looks and works well on mobile they will look favourably upon you and you will rank well so obviously it is great for your SEO. For advice and information on having a successful website get in touch with 2Cubed today! Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles. facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon Instagram icon Google+ icon

SEO Performance – How to tell if your SEO is working for you or against you

SEO Performance
Category: Tips and Tricks
September 25, 2018
In the aggressive and competitive online market of today, Effective SEO has often proven to be the deciding factor for whether a website becomes successful or not. With so much knowledge nowadays about SEO virtually all websites are employing it in one shape or another as gaining high ranking positions on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) has become more competitive than ever before. However this being said not all SEO was created equal as many are not utilising it to its full potential either through laziness or simple ignorance of what is required from them to employ effective SEO optimisation throughout their respective websites. So how can someone who is doing SEO for their website know if they are doing it correctly or not you may ask? As for so many cases the proof is in the pudding!  A great way to figure out if your SEO work has been effective or ineffective is to gauge it off metrics which can often be found through channels and tools such as google analytics, Moz etc. Below are four great metrics to measure your SEO success or lack thereof against: Keyword Ranking Keyword Ranking is something you should always be tracking regularly. Keyword rankings let you know how your website is performing on the SERP on google and if its appearing high for key search phrases related to your business. By improving these rankings you will have an increased flow of traffic to your website which will increase your chances of getting more conversions on your website. There is no particular trick to ranking high for keywords as google’s algorithm is ever-evolving and as such this means that there is no exact way to predict how well your website will perform in the rankings. It is a case of constantly checking and amending your strategy as needed. Organic Search Traffic Organic Search Traffic is the amount of natural traffic you get to the website. Effective use of SEO can improve your SEO performance in many ways. Three particular ways to improve your organic traffic are as follows:
  • By improving your ranking position on the SERP, as such you will be viewed more and have more traffic to your website.
  • By improving meta titles and meta descriptions users will now be more likely to click and interact with your content thus increasing your organic traffic.
  • Creating more content means that not only will your website have fresh content being applied to it which shows it’s an active and very alive website but also having new content gives you the opportunity to target new keywords and opportunities to earn visibility.
Online Conversion Rate What’s considered a “healthy” Online Conversion Rate tends to vary wildly depending on the industry. Conversions should always be a measurable event that can be tied to revenue. The actual conversion rate itself is comprised of the percentage of website visitors that complete a conversion. Generally speaking a conversion rate of 1.5%-3% is considered quite good. Effective SEO will help to drive traffic to your website and from there your website should be optimized to be able to convert these visitors into leads and conversions. Effective SEO is half the battle, having an optimized responsive website is the second part. If you can do both of these things effectively you should be able to see the results in your improved conversion rate. Bounce Rate Bounce Rate is the percentage of traffic that leaves your website quickly after landing on it without looking at any other pages before they leave. Bounce Rate can be a useful barometer in which to gauge how effective or not your SEO is as bounce rate can indicate how accurate the page is targeted towards visitors who are interested in that type of content or indeed in your business and if a page has a high bounce rate it can usually be a signal that something is inherently wrong with that web page whether it’s the content or the design of the page that seems to be frustrating customers so much that they bounce. Some pages can actually be expected to have high bounce rates such as pages which act more as a general reference for information such as a calendar or blog post for example. Of course bounce rates for key pages such as a homepage or services page should be lower. A bounce rate of 35%-60% is considered the industry standard average. If your page has a high bounce rate and it’s a key page for you then it’s time for you to reevaluate the SEO on that page and possibly the design also to ensure you are delivering the best user experience possible. By using these four metrics to measure your SEO success you will have a good idea of just how effective your SEO efforts have been and whether they have borne fruit or not. The information gleaned from these metrics will help you to alter your SEO strategy accordingly to meet your goals. SEO is a constant battle, by doing well in these four metrics you will definitely be in a position to win the fight! 2Cubed work with clients on a monthly basis, content writing/management and marketing are two of the many services we offer. To improve SEO ranking through effective marketing and have produced excellent results for many businesses, we help clients to get them to number one for their specific keywords. To help provide the best SEO service, 2Cubed also has an in-house web content writer who will work with you to customize and optimize your content, making it fit your brand identity and corporate voice, as well as maximizing impact on search engines. We will ensure that your content is unique and tailored for search engines so that your website has the best possible chance of reaching and expanding your audience. We provide reports and strategic plans assessing search result performance, working diligently to improve your company’s search engine optimization so that it continues to climb Google rankings on a regular basis. To find out the right move and strategy to take when it comes to effective SEO please contact 2Cubed today! Please feel free to contact us also on 01 905 8114 or 051-440425, email hello@2cubed.ie Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles. facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon Instagram icon Google+ icon

Why your website urgently needs an SSL Certificate now!

SSL Certificate
Category: News
July 16, 2018
Does your website have an SSL Certificate? If the answer to this question is no then the success of your website is at serious risk! Google will flag your website from next month (August 2018) if you have not gotten an SSL Certificate. At the start of 2018 Google announced in its Speed Update set to roll out in July, that it will mark all sites that have not migrated to HTTPS as “not secure.” This change has been brought in by google whose main goal is to ensure their users can safely and securely browse and purchase on the internet. As nowadays people turn to the internet for virtually everything ensuring that users can trust it to be safe is of paramount importance. Online security like having an SSL Certificate is no longer just a good option for a website to have, it’s a necessity. An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. If you don’t have the SSL certificate, a secure connection cannot be established, that means, your company information will not be digitally connected to a cryptographic key. When google made this announcement they made it clear and sent a stark warning that if your website does not have an SSL Certificate your website will be marked as not secure in the url bar when people access it. This will of course have a detrimental effect on any website who is branded as such as virtually no user will proceed onto the site as they have lost all trust and they certainly will not buy anything in fear of their card details being used and abused. Websites that have any kind of text input will need an SSL Certificate, If you are unsure whether your website needs an SSL Certificate (Chances are it does) just ask yourself the following two questions: Does your website have forms or functions that require text to be inputted such as: Contact forms, Search Bars, Logins etc..? Is your website on HTTP://? If your answer to these questions is a resounding yes then you need to install an SSL Certificate. If you don’t implement SSL soon, your visitors will see a “Not Secure” warning on visiting your site which will damage your sites reputation irrevocably and will also cause your business to suffer. To inquire about getting an SSL Certificate for your website to stop it being marked as non-secure please get in touch today! Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles. facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon Instagram icon Google+ icon

Content may be King, but Marketing is the Queen

Website Content and Marketing
Category: Tips and Tricks
July 3, 2018
A common saying in SEO circles is “Content is king, but marketing is queen, and runs the household.” Just like any good couple one can’t survive without the other and both help each other to succeed. Without marketing your content no matter how good it may be will never be noticed. Likewise if you don’t have enough good quality content then what are you going to advertise and promote in your marketing? Content and Marketing are both equally as important as each other. It’s vital that anyone wishing to be successful makes sure that great content is paired with a great marketing strategy, never sacrifice or prioritize one over the other, both are equally important and should always be treated with this respect. Great content is king as people want to see something new that catches their attention when browsing the internet, Writing content in your own words with your own ideas ensures that your content is different and unique to you and this will be appreciated by users and the search engine itself when it comes to ranking. Also with great content you are more likely to get new and returning visitors to your site. While you’re producing great content be sure to optimize it efficiently so that it will see a jump in the rankings on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page), when optimizing it make sure that your priority is that it reads well for users and gives them a great user experience, this is key. I can’t stress enough to not make the mistake of trying to over optimize your page just for search engines and not have the user experience in mind, this can be called trying to use blackhat methods and it will not work, in fact it will have an adverse effect on your ranking and your content will suffer, do not abuse the system with things such as keyword stuffing etc… Marketing is queen because in today’s market you need both marketing and content working efficiently to be successful. While it’s of course great to have dozens of great quality well written articles, it isn’t enough in itself to rank highly, there is still another step required, which is of course the queen: Marketing. Some great marketing techniques that can be used are as follows:
  • Writing articles on blogs and making sure to link to your other content 
  • Be active on social media because you can funnel a huge amount of traffic from social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+ and Google My Business. 
  • Have back-links and anchor text throughout your site to encourage further navigation and increase average session duration
In this article we established the power couple that is the king of content and queen of marketing and how both are as equally important and provide the most success when both are utilized successfully. Just like a game of chess, the king and queen are the most important parts, while you won’t win the game in your first, second or third move, if you use both effectively and make the right strategic moves and be patient your chance will come and you will see positive results, every game starts with the first move, make sure yours is the right one! To find out the right move and strategy to take when it comes to content and/or marketing please contact 2Cubed today! 2Cubed work with clients on a monthly basis, content writing/management and marketing are two of the many services we offer. To improve SEO ranking through effective marketing and have produced excellent results for many businesses, we help clients to get them to number one for their specific keywords. To help provide the best SEO service, 2Cubed also has an in-house web content writer who will work with you to customize and optimize your content, making it fit your brand identity and corporate voice, as well as maximizing impact on search engines. We will ensure that your content is unique and tailored for search engines so that your website has the best possible chance of reaching and expanding your audience. We provide reports and strategic plans assessing search result performance, working diligently to improve your company’s search engine optimization so that it continues to climb Google rankings on a regular basis. Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles. facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon Instagram icon Google+ icon

Local SEO

LOCAL SEO AGENCY WEXFORD
Category: Tips and Tricks
June 29, 2018
Local SEO is an element of SEO which differs quite a lot to the standard SEO process people think of. Local search results also change more rapidly than any other type. National, international etc… Before you start your targeting your local SEO campaign there is some prep work you should make sure you have done, by having this done beforehand it will maximise your chances for success and getting the best results possible so you will rank high within the local listings. There are six things in particular that you should have done before launching your local SEO campaign and they are the following: Have a working Google My Business Page Set Up It’s important that in order to have a strong presence on google that you have set up your Google My Business page. Once you have set it up, you should make sure it includes the following elements:
  • A long, unique description that’s formatted correctly and includes links.
  • Choose the correct and appropriate categories for your business.
  • Upload as many photos as possible onto your google my business page of your business
  • Add a local phone number
  • Add your business address that’s consistent with that on your website and local directories.
  • Upload a high-resolution profile image and cover photo.
  • Add your opening times/days
  • Have real reviews from customers
Optimize all of your landing pages with local keyword data Your landing page is the most important page on your website as it is the first impression a user gets of your website. You should make sure this page is optimized with the correct keywords. A good idea is to incorporate the page with some particular keywords which you think users will use to search with. Ensure your NAP listings remain consistently across the web NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number. NAP is critical for businesses wishing to rank well in the local organic search results, because search engines like Google take the data into account when determining which companies to show for their searches. This becomes even more important for Local SEO. You need to ensure that you have your full NAP across your whole website (i.e. every page). Furthermore, you must use the exact same details/format when you mention your address on other websites (i.e. local citations). You should also use Schema.org markup on your NAP to give the search engines all they need to display your company information properly. Generate genuine reviews from your customers on Google and Yelp Local reviews will have a direct impact on your local search rankings, it’s pivotal that you try and gain as many real genuine ones as possible so you’ll want to spend some time acquiring them. Whilst there are many types of reviews from different platforms for now I would advise to focus on getting as many google reviews as possible. Optimize your search engine snippets Google Featured Snippets are very search friendly and they help users to get answers without having to click any pages. By making sure to optimize your search engine snippets you will increase your chances further for ranking as high as possible in the search rankings. Focus on localized link building When you are doing a local SEO campaign it is extremely important that you have done effective link building. Unlike traditional national SEO, Local SEO places a lot more importance on gaining links from other local websites that are relevant to your business and industry. National SEO places a greater importance on gaining as many links as possible from high authority websites and whilst of course that is still something to aim for, with Local SEO the links from websites local to you are what is the most important! Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles. facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon Instagram icon Google+ icon

Website Security | Give Your Site A Health Check

Website Security
Category: Tips and Tricks
June 28, 2018
Everyday Websites are compromised, the majority of these security breaches are usually an attempt to use your server for things such as an email relay for spam emails, or to setup a temporary web server which would be used to serve files of an illegal nature. However depending on your website sometimes these breaches can be of an even more serious and dark nature such as hackers attempting to steal your data and/or to actually deface your entire website. There will always be hackers unfortunately, that fact is out of your website’s control, what you can control however is your website’s security. Think of website security as the health of your site, when your website security is strong your site is in good health, when your website has poor or no security your site is in bad health, and just like human’s, when you are feeling weak, it’s harder to protect yourself from dangers. Hackers thrive on sites who are in weak health and vulnerable. So how do I make sure my website is in good health? Well just like visiting the doctor for a check up your should get into the habit of regularly giving your site a health check to see how it’s performing. Two ways in particular of increasing your website security and keeping it in good health are switching to HTTPS and having a Website Security Seal. A great way to protect your site is to make sure you switch to HTTPS hosting, to do this you will have to acquire an SSL certificate. Normally websites are hosted on just HTTP, this is a problem because HTTP is not secure and so hackers can ‘listen’ in on any data that is being passed between your site and a visitors browser. This data could be of a severely sensitive nature such as card details or login credentials such as username, passwords etc.. HTTPS however is stronger over HTTP as it is secure and has an encrypted connection between your website and a user’s browser. This encrypted connection makes it so that any data that may be passed can not be intercepted or “listened” on by hackers. Another reason why your site needs to have HTTPS is that it’s not only just good for security but google have actually made it clear that HTTPS is a ranking factor in their algorithm. Google favours websites who use HTTPS over HTTP. Switching to HTTPS is simply the logical move, not only does it give your site more security, but it will also improve your rankings on the SERP as google favours sites who use it. To get your site to switch to HTTPS you will need to have an SSL Certificate. To inquire about getting an SSL certificate for your site get in touch with us today! As well as switching to HTTPS another way of drastically improving your website security is by having a Website Security Seal. A Website Security Seal is a security feature that monitors your website and it looks for things such as malware in particular. Malware is viruses which have been uploaded by hackers. Think of a website security seal as being like anti-virus for your website. As a user you wouldn’t surf the web without having an anti-virus installed so why would you want to expose your website to potential threats.The seal constantly works in the background and monitors your files and if it comes across malware it will notify you so that you can remove it and keep your site safe. Having your hosting, website security and maintenance looked after by a professional company is simply the smart decision, it will not only give you peace and mind that your site is being looked after by experts but you will also now be able to focus your time on your business and your customers. Also by having a maintenance agreement in place you won’t have to continually pay each and every time you need an update done, you can rest easy in the knowledge that it will be automatically covered by your agreement, it will save you money in the long run compared to having to go it by yourself. Once you think you have done all you can in relation to improving your security then it’s time to actually test your website security and give your site a health check.The most effective way of doing this is via the use of some website security tools, often referred to as penetration testing or pen testing for short. For more information about increasing your website security and making sure it’s in good health contact us today! Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles. facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon Instagram icon Google+ icon