Tag Archives: Web Design Dublin

Is Using Google My Business Worth The Effort?

google my business
Category: Tips and Tricks
October 24, 2018
Google My Business (formerly known as Google Places) is a free online platform that is provided by Google. Google My Business was created with two key purposes in mind:
  • To help business owners increase their online visibility
  • To help users find and review the businesses in their local area
Google My Business acts as a modern super comprehensive and super accessible business directory. Google My Business listings are mainly for but not limited to businesses that serve customers in their local area. When a user searches for something on Google and Google determines it’s something of local interest or intent such as “Mechanics Wexford” or “Restaurants in Dublin”, Google will link to 3 Google My Business listings which will be displayed below in a map of the local area. When a user clicks on your Google My Business listing they can see the following information about your business:
  • The name of the business
  • The location of the business on google maps
  • The opening hours for the business
  • A link to the website for your business
  • Photos of your business
  • Past Google reviews done by users
Using Google My Business effectively has many benefits. Below are just a few of the many it can provide: Create Posts Google My Business grants you the ability to create posts. Users can see and interact with these posts when they see your Google My Business listing. The posts you create on Google My Business act then as an opportunity to advertise your business for free. First Impressions First impressions are hugely important. This isn’t just a fact in real life but online also and with Google My Business you will be able to make a great first impression. This is because with Google My Business you will have the ability to choose which images your customers will see when they encounter your business for the first time, in this way your Google My Business listing can act as a storefront for your website and you can ensure that it makes a powerful first impression. Visibility Google My Business can help towards improving your business’s visibility. By providing more information about your business through Google My Business Google will have at their disposal a wealth of information from which they can use to categorize your business. This means it’s far more likely that your website will show up for relevant local searches. Insights When you use Google My Business you have some powerful tools at your disposal such as analytical data which is called “insights”. This “insights” data shows you how and when customers are finding you and where they aren’t. The knowledge that can be learned from this kind of data can then be used to further inform when tweaking your strategies to improve the visibility of your website or when targeting a specific demographic. The answer to the question is Google My Business worth the effort is a resounding yes. It takes minimal effort to use effectively, plus it’s free and offers you the opportunity to try and reach new potential customers who you might not reach otherwise. Signing up takes only a few minutes so try it today and see what success it can generate for you! To find out more about excellent tools and strategies to use to improve your website Contact 2Cubed today! You can also contact us 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

The Importance of Text & Heading Structure of Website Content for Optimal SEO Performance

Website SEO Performance
October 18, 2018
Strong website content is the cornerstone of having a successful website. By writing unique rich content that gives value to the user your website content will be strong, couple this strong content with great marketing/SEO and your site should soar up the rankings of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Most people are familiar with the most common form of SEO for content which is optimising each key page with a unique Meta Title and Description. However there is further SEO that can and should be done to ensure your content ranks highly that many people aren’t aware of such as the importance of text structure and the importance of the successful implementation of a heading structure (H1, H2, H3 Etc..) on your page of content. Text Structure is important as the structure of the texts on your site is very important for SEO. If your content is clearly structured, your chance to rank well in Google will be much higher. Before people choose to read content they do what is called a quick scan of the content. This is where they will run their eyes quickly over to content to get a quick feel for it before they commit to starting to properly read it. You need to hook the user from this scan to convince them to read it otherwise you have lost them. This is where text structure becomes ever so important as the main parts that tend to catch people’s eyes when they scan over content is the beginning of sentences as people read left to right and secondly and probably most importantly what catches people’s eyes are headings and subheadings. Headings and subheadings will usually be in bold and also be centered so they really stand out easily, the headings and subheadings should be an accurate description of the content that lays beneath it. If these headings and subheadings are intriguing enough to convince the user to read the article after scanning then they have done their job! Now that the importance of text structure has been explained, how directly linked the importance of heading structure to compliment it will also become quite apparent. As explained above headings and subheadings should be attractive and should clearly state the content of the paragraph beneath it. Best practice is to put a header above every long paragraph or above a group of paragraphs which are talking about a similar theme or topic.   Header tags (H1, H2, H3 Etc..) are important for SEO because they communicate to search engines like google what your website and what that specific page is about.Search engines recognize the copy in your header tags as more important than the rest so it understands from this what your page is about. H1 is seen by google as the most important then H2, H3 etc.. It’s important to utilize your header tags however and not just throw them in anywhere and everywhere. To utilize header tags effectively for SEO they should contain your keywords which you hope to rank for. This is so effective as part of an SEO strategy because when search engines routinely crawl the website they will pick up on the header tags and will recognize the keywords you are using are important and are directly linked to what your website is about. To find out more about the best way to employ effective content writing and other strategies to improve your website Contact 2Cubed today! You can also contact us 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 Should Have an Active Blog

Website Blog Writing Tips
Category: Tips and Tricks
October 17, 2018
Virtually every website should have an active blog. To have a blog on your website costs you nothing as it’s a free feature but to not use a blog effectively at all could actually cost you quite a bit in terms of not generating as much traffic and conversions as you could have otherwise to make your website as successful as possible. That’s because using blog posts effectively is an integral part of an effective Content Marketing strategy. Content Marketing is a marketing strategy that is based on creating and sharing content of value with your community or target audience, thus establishing yourself as an authority in your field. A content marketing strategy helps to build a strong relationship between you and your users and potential customers. When people feel they have a good relationship with a website or business they are a lot more open to purchasing off them. This means that if your content marketing strategy is successful you will have garnered an increase in sales without having to go the length of traditional hard selling to try and get conversions. Blogs became so popular as part of content marketing because regularly posting great content to your website was a great alternative to traditional outbound marketing such as advertising and cold calling. It’s well known that when customers come to you of their own free will they are a lot more likely to be favorable to purchasing off you compared to when you make the first move by chasing them. By posting great blogs rich in content users are getting something from reading them, they are having a better user experience and there is also the possibility that they will find you on google when searching for a term that you may have done a blog post about. Another reason blogs are so great is that they can do wonders for your SEO. Blogs are limitless so you can have as many blog posts as you want, each blog post gives you a new opportunity to utilize key terms and phrases you wish to rank for in your SEO title and description. By publishing regular new content on your website, you will receive a further boost in SEO as new published content will cause search engine crawlers to revisit your website and index it. Search engines love to send their users to brand new “fresh” content so by regularly publishing content on your blog you are signalling to search engines that your website is not only very alive but it it still very relevant as it is publishing new fresh content. Finally blogs give you great opportunities on social media as each blog post you publish can be shared through your social media channels and you can generate and drive this traffic from social media straight to your website where you will have an opportunity to then turn these site visits into conversions. To find out more about content writing for blog posts and other strategies to improve your website Contact 2Cubed today! You can also contact us 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

7 Good Reasons Why You Should be Using Google Analytics Right Now!

Using Google Analytics - Digital marketing services wexford
Category: Tips and Tricks
October 11, 2018
Google Analytics is an amazingly powerful tool that everyone has at their disposal. Even more amazing is the fact that this powerful tool comes completely free of charge. When used properly google analytics can be an amazing insight into the heart of your website and of how it’s performing. The metrics that google analytics use when gauged against their compiled data can be great indicators in wish to measure the success or lack thereof of your website in key areas such as number of users, bounce rate, page views, conversion rates etc.. Below are 7 key reasons why you should be using google analytics:
  • Its Free
As mentioned above google analytics is a completely free tool to use. It costs you nothing to use but if you don’t use it at all then it could cost you in terms of making mistakes that you could have corrected had you the knowledge gleaned from google analytics.
  • Automatic Collection of Data
Google Analytics automatically collects, compiles and organizes your data for you. You do not have to perform any action in order to get the data. Google Analytics simply does all the work for you. To get this data all that needs to be done on your end is to initially setup your Google Analytics account by copying a simple piece of code on your website. When applied this code enables Google Analytics to start collecting data from your website automatically and then to generate reports accordingly. The data from these reports will aid you when you decide and plan to implement strategies to increase the performance of your website.
  • Understand Your Bounce Rate
Google Analytics 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. 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.
  • Know Your Demographic
Google Analytics provides you with valuable data about your audience which will help you to understand which channels drive most of the traffic to your website. The Audience section provides a lot of information about the people who visit your website like their age, gender, interests, devices used and location.
  • To understand which social platforms to target
Social platforms are a great way to drive a lot of traffic to your website and to engage with potential customers. Google Analytics gives you the access to view what exactly catches the attention of the users and this data will inform you on where to place an ad accordingly. Through google analytics you can not only gauge how successful your social platforms that you use are performing but you can also check exactly how much conversions each social platform is giving you. Based on this data you will be able to dedicate the majority of your time and resources to the best performing social platform.
  • To understand what kind of content you should write
Great written content is a brilliant way to attract new customers to your website and improve the user experience your website provides. This is commonly understood and is the reason why so many businesses have blogs, newsletters etc.. as these pieces of content can drive traffic towards your website and increase conversions. Google Analytics helps you to keep a track of all the content published that receives views and shares. Google Analytics then generates a breakdown of the page views each of your blog posts receive and this data helps you to understand which pieces of content are the best performing for you.
  • To check if you are achieving goals
Google Analytics allows you to set goals which track your website’s success in a certain area such as new users for example. You could set a goal that in the next month you wish to have 1000 new users and by viewing the data you can measure it against your goal to inform you if the current approach you are taking is going to result in you realising this goal or if in fact further strategizing is required. Google analytics is a brilliant tool to use to help you make your website more successful. The data it provides is invaluable and considering it’s free you have no excuse to justify not using it. If you aren’t using it currently you’re missing out! To find out more about google analytics and other strategies to improve your website contact 2Cubed today! You can also contact us 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

2Cubed Special Update

Website Maintenance Update
Category: News
October 5, 2018
In this special update from 2Cubed we will be sharing some important news and information with you. In this update we will touch on 3 things in particular that 2Cubed will be placing a special focus on in the coming weeks and these are as follows:
  • Upgrading all Websites
  • Updating sites who are compatible to PHP 7.0
  • Applying Purchased SSL Certs
2Cubed are committed to always ensuring their client’s success and security. To stay true to this commitment 2Cubed will be working on all of their websites and upgrading them to not only further enhance their security but also their overall efficiency and performance. If you notice any issues during this period please let us know and we will check if it’s related to our website maintenance and improvement works.  For all sites who are compatible with the newest PHP 7.0 major release we will be updating them to run on this. Up until recently PHP 5.6 was the most modern but with the release of PHP 7.0 this is no longer the case. PHP 7 has many major benefits for websites who have it such as it’s twice the speed of the once most recent version of PHP 5.6 and it was also created with the goal of freeing up space which would lead to improvement on websites. This freeing up of space was done by getting rid of many unneeded functionalities on old and unsupported Server APIs and extensions. If you read our recent newsletter you will know already about the dire importance of having an SSL Cert. In it we mentioned that from August 2018 Google has flagged websites which have not already gotten an SSL Certificate. This was part of the plan first announced at the start of 2018 by Google in its Speed Update which rolled 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. The purchase and application of an SSL cert is a simple but vitally important process that cannot be underestimated as it can be pivotal to the success of your website. To inquire about getting an SSL Certificate for your website to stop it being marked as non-secure please contact 2Cubed today. If you have any questions or queries about any topic we have mentioned in this update or any other general query please do not hesitate to get in touch with 2Cubed!   Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles. facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon Instagram icon Google+ icon

Website Performance

Website Performance Ireland
Category: Tips and Tricks
October 2, 2018
When it comes to creating websites everyone already knows how important it is for it to have a great design and presentation and that it actually functions correctly on a basic level. One thing that can be overlooked though is Website Performance such as how it performs in the backend. Having a correctly optimised website that performs efficiently has a whole host of benefits, not only for you but also for your visitors to the site. Efficient Website Performance will result in faster load times and reduced hosting costs which in turn can lead to an increase in google search rankings on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Virtually all websites contain images and graphics of many sorts and sizes and they can do a great job of helping to communicate and shape the message your website is trying to present to your visitors. However, it might not be a common known thing but images can usually be one of the leading causes of sites having long load times. Therefore it is vital to make sure your images are optimised correctly before you upload them, if you don’t it can cause your website to have overly long load times which can end up affecting your search engine rankings. Also if you are trying to load from a slow server this may also cause issues. Website performance optimization is always something that should be top priority, especially when there is so much online competition. It’s also very important when optimizing a website that you don’t forget to optimize for mobile and slower devices as well. Choosing the right web host plan is a smart business move to boost website performance. Having a fast web host is equally as important as any website performance optimization you can make, as it truly is the backbone of your site. It’s true that a cheap host plan may offer you savings at the beginning, but you will most likely end up paying more in the long run in order to serve your website needs as it grows. It’s a smart move to make sure to choose a trusted web host with a right variety of hosting plans to handle all your website resources and requirements. 2Cubed’s sister site Website Maintenance has some great offers available for excellent hosting and much more packages that can help your site to be a success in every area. As you can see these are just a number of steps you can take today to optimise your website in order to improve things like your page load times, position in search engine rankings and your sites overall user experience. To find out more and develop a plan to make your website a success, 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

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